The telco ended Q2 with 6.57M mobile subscribers in Switzerland
Swiss mobile telephony operator Swisscom has launched a new mobile service combining the FDD and TDD LTE standards. The technology, which is currently available at the company’s Füssli shop in Zurich, will be commercially available by mid-2016.
“The tri-band carrier aggregation LTE FDD/TDD service will be initially available in areas of high population density,” Swisscom spokesman Carsten Roetz told RCR Wireless News.
Roetz also said that the new service will be offered using spectrum in both 1800 MHz and 2600MHz bands. The service will offers peak speeds of 335 Mbps.
The offering is being launched in partnership with Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies. Ericsson provided the software and hardware needed to aggregate the two LTE standards. Qualcomm Technologies developed the chipset for the early test and commercial devices, which support both FDD and TDD.
Swisscom ended the second quarter of the year with a total of 6.57 million mobile subscribers, up from 6.46 million at the end of June 2014. “Our 4G LTE network is open to all customers with a compatible smartphone,” Roetz said. However, the executive was not able to provide specific figures about the current number of LTE subscribers.
Swisscom said that 98% of its customers are able to access LTE services. The operator also said that it is currently testing 4G-LTE bandwidths of up to 450 Mbps, which are expected to go on offer at the end of 2015. The operator initially launched LTE services in Switzerland in 2012.
Swisscom Switzerland sold a total of 620,000 mobile handsets in the first half of the year, down 8.6% year-on-year, selling 283,000 phones in the second quarter. Swisscom Switzerland’s overall capital expenditures for Q2 totaled 453 million francs ($474.6 million), up vs. 423 million francs in the year-ago period. Swisscom expects capex for 2015 to reach over 2.3 billion francs.
Swisscom also provides broadband, fixed telephony and pay-TV services. The company also offers telecom services for residential and corporate customers in Italy through its Fastweb subsidiary. In Italy, the company ended June with 2.16 million broadband customers, after a net addition of 85,000 subscribers during the first half of the year.
The Swiss operator recorded revenue of 2.86 billion francs in the second quarter of the year, down 0.5% year-on-year. The operator’s net profit for the period reached 433 million francs, flat year-on-year. Swisscom expects revenue for full 2015 to reach over 11.5 billion francs.
