Sunrise and Swisscom in dispute over new telecommunications law
Next week, the Federal Council will present the revised Telecommunications Act. The Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) confirmed this to the Handelszeitung. This marks the beginning of a major battle over how access to telecommunications networks will be regulated in the future.
Apparently, the federal government is planning a new form of regulation that could affect Swisscom in particular. Fiber-optic and hybrid networks that were previously not subject to regulation could be opened up to competitors.
While the state-owned company is fighting the reform, the listed Sunrise is lobbying for it. One reason is that a contract it negotiated with Swisscom in 2014 will expire in the coming years, as Sunrise confirms. This gives it access to Swisscom's modern fixed network at attractive conditions and thus enables the distribution of products such as Sunrise Smart TV.
Sunrise does not comment on the conditions under which the contract can be extended. The only thing that is clear is that regulation of network access would benefit the company in the negotiations.
