Swisscom buries analog telephony

The old analog telephony is no longer up to date, said Swisscom Network Manager Heinz Herren to the media in Zurich on Tuesday. Today, practically all services offered already run on Internet technology, such as e-mail, television and surfing the web. Only voice telephony still largely works with the old analog technology. Herren said that there are still around 2 million customers who still use analog telephony: "We are taking our time until 2017 to convert these customers to VOIP (Voice over IP) as smoothly as possible." When customers order a new subscription or change their existing subscription, they will automatically be switched to Internet telephony. 260,000 customers have already been switched.

Swisscom: No obligation to switch

"We are not forcing customers to switch," said Guido Tranel, Marketing and Product Manager for Telephony and Internet: "Any customer who uses analog telephony can continue to do so." However, customers would then not be able to purchase bundled offers comprising telephony, TV and Internet. The new products that Swisscom will launch on the market in the future will also exclude analog telephone users who are not willing to switch. "Almost all customers also want Internet," said Tranel. Swisscom already has almost 1.6 million private Internet customers. We will see how many customers will switch to Internet telephony in the "natural" way in the remaining four years until the end of analog telephony at the end of 2017. "We will definitely come up with a solution for the remaining customers," said Herren.

No telephone connection in the event of a power failure

From then on, customers who only want to make calls with Swisscom will need a router to connect their telephone. The good old dial telephone will definitely be obsolete, said Herren. ISDN telephony would also no longer work. The disadvantage of Internet telephony is that it is no longer possible to make calls if the router or power fails. The old analog telephone, on the other hand, works independently of the power supply at home. Even today, however, most customers would reach for their cell phone in the event of a power failure, said Herren.

Getting rid of advertising calls

However, the technology switch to Internet protocol also has advantages for customers, said Tranel: The display no longer shows just the caller's number, but their full name, unless the caller has blocked it, and customers can block numbers in the customer center on the Swisscom homepage. This can be used, for example, to ward off annoying advertising calls, said Tranel. In addition, the voice quality is significantly better when both parties speak to each other via new Internet telephones, and it is also much easier to take the telephone connection with you when you move house. After entering the new home address on the homepage, you can simply plug in the router that identifies the customer and start surfing straight away. The physical switching of lines will no longer be necessary in future, said Tranel. If all services were based on Internet technology, innovations would also be possible. For example, it would be conceivable for a message to appear on the TV when a call is made while watching television, said Tranel. But that is still a long way off.

Savings still unclear

Herren said that it is not yet clear how much Swisscom will be able to save by switching off analog telephony. We will see when the situation has settled down. The biggest savings would result from simpler processes. Swisscom is not alone in switching off analog telephony. In Germany, Deutsche Telekom has announced that it will be phased out by the end of 2018. In Macedonia, Deutsche Telekom has already switched over all customers, said
Tranel. (SDA)

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