With the help of Huawei, Swisscom has said that it wants 80% of all households in Switzerland to have access to high-speed internet services by 2020.
In order to meet this target, the Swiss telco plans to roll-out fibre-optic cable directly to homes and businesses in large towns, while also deploying FTTS (Fibre to the Street) in rural areas.
Swisscomm expects FTTS, which involves laying fibre-optic cable within 200 metres of buildings and using existing copper cables to cover the remaining distance, to enable bandwidths of up to 100Mbps.
“We are pleased to be expanding our existing collaboration with Huawei on fibre-optic expansion,” said Heinz Herren, head of network and IT division, Swisscom.
“Their solution offers us the best technological possibilities for expanding our FTTS broadband network in Switzerland."
Swisscom launched FTTS pilot tests in Charrat, Grandfontaine and Flerden at the end of 2012 and customers in these areas are already able to make use of the new services.
