Swiss Networks May Cooperate on LTE Network Upgrades

­The President of the Swiss telecoms regulator, ComCom says that two of the country's three mobile networks could cooperate on building their LTE networks. Marc Furrer said that Sunrise has agreed in principle to the idea, but that Orange was still considering the proposal.

The aim of the cooperation between the two smaller networks would be to cut costs as well as speeding up the network deployment, he explained. It has been estimated by the regulator that the network upgrade costs would amount to between 2 to 3 billion Swiss Francs (US$1.8-US$2.7 billion).

It is expected that Swisscom will still be required to upgrade its network on its own.

Swisscom is the dominant operator in the country, having ended Q2 '09 with some 5.5 million subscribers. Based on figures from the Mobile World analysts, Sunrise had just over 2 million customers while Orange had 1.7 million customers.

On the web: Inside IT - Mobile World

Posted to the site on 18th September 2009