71 % des foyers suisses ont accès à Internet – DegroupNews.com (France – French language)
My comments about this article, including facts that I have translated from the article
This article appeared in DegroupNews (France’s home networking and IT portal) close to when Switzerland was announcing the rollout of their very-high-speed FTTH Internet service. This service is intended to start appearing through that country this year and is intended to be a multi-network setup where different provider groups can use their own fibre cluster like in France.
The article was stating that 71% of households in that country had the broadband “hot and cold running Internet” either through ADSL or cable technology. It also stated that most households were opting for “mid-tier” plans which would yield 2-10Mbps and that the market placed value on quality of service. There was also less likelihood for households to “jump ship” between the ISPs.
But there are some questions worth asking about this situation. One was whether the merger between Orange-Suisse and Sunrise was likely to have impact on the Swiss Internet market as in effect on prices or quality of service.
The other question that sorely needs to be answered is whether the rural neighbourhoods including those charming mountainside chalets are part of the 71% of households that have broadband Internet. This includes whether the rural services are being provided at the rated speeds that the customers agreed on. This rural-access issue has always been raised by me in this blog because it is too easy for an ISP or carrier to install a DSLAM in the rural telephone exchange and establish the Internet backbone yet forget to check on the quality of the telephone lines to the customers. This could lead to customers missing out on broadband Internet or receiving below-par service.
These facts can be easily skewed by the size of the country, its population and the size of that country’s urban areas compared to the size of a larger country like France, Germany, UK, the US or Australia. But it is worth noting what has happened in Switzerland which is a predominantly mountainous country, when factoring the provision of Internet service in to hilly areas.
