Opfikon/ Renens, May 19, 2020; 06:45 a.m. CET
Today, Sunrise and Salt announced their plans to enter a strategic partnership to create a leading fiberto the home (“FTTH”)platform for ultrafast broadband connectivity services on an open access basis across Switzerland. The roll-out will be realized through Swiss Open Fiber, a Joint Venture which will be established and co-owned by Salt and Sunrise with equal shareholding and a prospective equity partner. With this Swiss initiative, Sunrise and Salt want to make a significant contribution to the digitalization and improvement of energy efficiency and benefit customers and Switzerland as a business location
Swiss Open Fibertar gets to reach 1.5 million of homes passed in the coming 5-7 years,for a total investment of up toCHF 3billion, and will significantly support areas in Switzerland that are undersupplied with state-of-the-art broadband services as well as further promote digitalization also in non-urban areas. While Saltand Sunrisewill act as anchor tenants,the infrastructure network will be offered to all retail operators toenable them to provide their customers with ultrafast broadband connectivity services. Sunriseand Salthave already initiated discussions with potential equity partners and financing banks and foresee to sign respective agreements in the coming months. The new infrastructure will bring substantial environmental benefits through energy efficient network sharing and transition to fiber. This project follows a proven concept that is being successfully implemented in several European countries, including Germany, France and Italy. Network roll-out operations are expected tobe initiated in the 4thquarter of 2020.
André Krause, CEO of Sunrise, says “We are excited to embark on this Joint Venture which will accelerate ultrafast broadband connectivity and significantly improve fiber penetration in Switzerland relative to other European countries. This platform is open and transparent to the market and we are extremely happy to have secured Marc Furrer, the most distinguished expert in the domestic market,to chair Swiss Open Fiber.”
Pascal Grieder, CEO of Salt, explained “This project is unique of its kind, leveraging the capabilities and reachof two strong Swiss operators to create a nationwideinfrastructure. Growing importance of flexible and virtualworking and learning models will continue to drive the need for high-performance broadband services across Swiss households, and our initiative will facilitatesuch services at attractive prices.We havean ambitiousroll-out plan and encouragemunicipalitiesand utilities looking into FTTH deployment to reachout to us. We are open for business.”
Marc Furrer, former president of the Federal CommunicationsCommission ComCom,says “In 2008we initiatedtheround-table, with which we achieved FTTH-deployment to around onethird of the Swiss population. Now we want that the rest of Switzerland can benefit from high-quality FTTH-products, which are essential for home-office, home-schooling and home entertainment. The planned Joint Venture will bring this high-speed connectivity to most of the remaining marketwhile ensuring infrastructure competition.The investments of up to CHF 3 billion will also give an impulse to the Swiss economy
The platform will be open for all players in the market.Swiss Open Fiber will collaborate with Swiss Fibre Net(“SFN”),who will support the set-up and operating activities in a strategic partnership. The accelerated FTTH roll-out will benefitall SFN partners and customers. Andreas Waber, CEO of SFN says“We are very pleasedto be the strategic partner of the Swiss Open Fiberplatform. Our already successful relationship with both operators willbecomeeven strongerand we look forward to promoting an open fiber infrastructure in Switzerland.“Saltand Sunrisehave engaged Lazard and Morgan Stanley as financial advisors, respectively
