Switzerland enjoys almost complete mobile coverage with state-of-the-art 4G and 5G technologies.
After Swisscom and Salt gradually switched off their 2G networks (GSM, GPRS and Edge) between 2019 and 2021, Sunrise also halted support from the start of January 2023.
Third generation (3G) networks are also being gradually abandoned by the operators because they have lower performance and poorer coverage and are being used less and less. This is a global trend. In Switzerland, Swisscom announced that it would decommission the 3G network at the end of 2025, while Sunrise will no longer support the 3G standard from mid-2025.
The network capacity that this frees up can be used for the latest-generation 4G and 5G. ComCom awarded these mobile communications frequencies as technology-neutral. In other words, the licensee is free to decide which technologies to use with their frequencies.
At the end of 2023, over 99% of the population was covered by LTE (4G), which was launched in Switzerland already ten years ago now. All carriers also report high mobile coverage with LTE Advanced technology (4G+). The exponential growth in data traffic, with volumes doubling roughly every two years, nonetheless means that fourth-generation mobile telecommunications networks are approaching their limits.
Having acquired additional frequencies in early 2019, operators quickly began to roll out their 5G networks. By the end of 2023 Swisscom reached 99% of the population with 5G and transfer rates of up to 1 Gbps, and 81% with 5G+ and transfer rates of up to 2 Gbps. Swisscom is aiming to reach 90% coverage with 5G+ by 2025. As at December 2022 Sunrise covered over 96% with 5G and transfer rates of up to 1 Gbps. It also already supplied more than 1,132 towns and localities with 'highspeed 5G' and transfer rates of up to 2 Gbps. Salt announced in early 2023 that it could reach 99.9% of the population and could provide an internet speed of up to 750 Mbps thanks to aggregation of the 3G, 4G and 5G signals.
In relation to the speeds indicated by the operators, it is important to bear in mind that mobile networks have a cellular structure and the transfer rates are shared by the users within a cell.
Last modification 14.05.2024