Switzerland - New USO to include broadband

damien

http://gigaom.com/2006/10/22/switzerland-wants-broadband-for-all/

The banking haven of Switzerland is looking to mandate broadband as a universal service for all Swiss citizens. The country is going to issue1 a new license to ensure this mandate is carried out. The universal service license is currently granted to Swisscom and will expire at the end of 2007.

The Swiss FCC notes that from January 1, 2008, the entire population will be able to access at speeds of 600 kilobits per second. The uplink speeds are capped at 100 kilobits per second for this network. It is not quite fast, but for a mandatory service, it is still a great first step.

The connection costs are capped at $46, and the service includes phone service and phone numbers which are also listed in the phone directory. The new network’s upper price limit will be reviewed in 2010 and can be lowered there after.

Sponge Bob

damien.m wrote:

http://gigaom.com/2006/10/22/switzerland-wants-broadband-for-all/

They must be very happy they never bought eircom this time last year

probe

The Swiss put a high value on the quality of infrastructure. Broadband is no different.

While dumb countries such as Ireland and Britain have been digging up their tramlines over the past century, to make way for car domination and closing rail services left, right and centre, Switzerland retained and expanded its rail networks.

Switzerland is a tiny country (41,290 km2 – much of it composed of uninhabited mountainous areas, compared with 70,280 km2 of relatively flat land for IRL) yet the Swiss have about 12 times as many km of motorway as IRL and 4,583km of rail (compared with 1,947 km [of mostly unused rail infrastructure] in IRL).

Switzerland’s largest city – Zurich (similar population to Dublin) – has 16 tram lines and about 10 “DART” equivalent lines, most of which use high capacity duplex trains (double deck which can carry up to 1,500 people each, seated, with their bikes beside them and tables to use their notebook PCs en route if they wish). They can get you from Zurich airport to the city centre in 10 min (try that using an obsolete metro infrastructure that stops everywhere and crawls along like dial-up internet access (as you get at for example Heathrow airport). Virtually every other airport in Europe steers clear of this 100 year old metro "technology".

By way of comparison Britain has 3,523 km of motorways serving an area of 244,820 km2 with over 60 million people. While trucks pollute, maim and kill in Ireland as they transport an ever increasing quantity of merchandise, they too are increasingly forced to use the electrified railway network in Switzerland to move their cargo from A to B.

For under €1900 per annum, you can get a “GA” in Switzerland – a ticket which gives you unlimited travel on public transport (like always on broadband) - trains, trams, buses, boats, and virtually everything else that moves in Switzerland right across the country – virtually 24h a day 365 days a year. Non stop. Integrated. Fast. No waiting. Powered by CO2 free electricity. Just like the internet should be. No time wasting fancy smart cards which require expensive support systems. Old fashioned ticket format with your photo, which is checked at random (as they do with a ticket on Luas).

Broadband is part of the new national infrastructure. It is surely logical that the only truly democratically run country in the world (CH) opts for “broadband for all”.

Broadband is part of the modern democracy. Everyone should have access. In the same way as everyone should have access to good quality public transport.

.probe

http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/general-abo-uebersichtskarte.pdf