The Council of States has voted on the reform of the telecommunications act, but has rejected some of the initial proposals.
Background: In 2017, Switzerland’s Federal Council adopted a comprehensive proposal to amend the Telecommunications Act in key areas such as access regulation, consumer protection, and Net Neutrality. One proposal introduced technologically neutral access obligations, thereby including Swisscom’s fibre network on top of the existing LLU requirements.
What’s new: The Council of States (i.e. one of the two chambers of the parliament, the other being the National Council) has now voted on the reform. Like the National Council, it has voted down the fibre unbundling proposal, due to concerns for Swisscom’s future investment plans, especially in rural areas. Other provisions were passed, such as the one giving the Federal Council power to limit roaming charges by means of international agreements; on Net Neutrality, the National Council proposed equal treatment of data and content (the initial proposal only mandated transparency obligations) but the Council of States added some exception for services such as VoLTE and IPTV.
What does this all mean? Failure to introduce fibre unbundling will leave alternative operators disappointed. Some of them (Sunrise above all) rely on LLU heavily, and could have benefited from regulated fibre access as customers increasingly move away from copper. The reform is not yet in force, as the National Council is due to have a final vote on the Council of State’s amendments; but this only applies to the parts on which there was disagreement.
