Weko, the Swiss Competition Commission, has opened an in-depth investigation into whether Swisscom is abusing its dominant market position by denying network access to competitors. Swisscom may be excluding competing companies from the fibre network market, the regulator said.
Swisscom plans to further expand its fibre-optic network for over 1.5 million households and businesses. According to Weko, the expansion will result in a changed network structure so competitors no longer have direct access to the network infrastructure. Swisscom is therefore changing the existing structure of the market as a whole. It can restrict innovative activities and business opportunities of its competitors. As a result, end customers will have limited choices among providers and products.
Weko added that, based on the information currently available, it appears plausible that Swisscom is abusing its market position. This is why Weko is taking precautionary measures to prohibit Swisscom from denying access to competitors to lines when expanding the fibre-optic network.
The regulator had already opened an investigation into Swisscom’s behavior for possible abuse of dominant market position in broadband connections. Swisscom demands high prices to deploy connections for companies in tender offers, Weko said. Its competitors, which include other telecommunications companies, rely on the network infrastructure of Swisscom for such projects.
In a statement, Swisscom said that it offers all competitors broad access to its networks on a non-discriminatory basis. Swisscom primarily relies on point-to-multipoint architecture (from the manhole) for further FTTH expansion, thus still enabling competition with wide-ranging offerings, it added. It continues to offer providers access options to the network with different bandwidths.
