Salt also offers Internet at home via the mobile network

This will increase the number of potentially accessible customers by more than 50 percent to more than 2 million households, Salt announced in a communiqué on Tuesday. Until now, Salt's TV, Internet, and fixed-line telephony for the home have only been available on the fiber-optic network in 200 communities across Switzerland, including major cities such as Zurich, Geneva, Basel, and Bern. This corresponds to about one third of all households in the country.

Unlike Swisscom and Sunrise, Salt does not offer its home service on the copper lines. This meant that coverage was previously limited to those locations where the ultra-fast fiber-optic lines had been laid right into the home.

Expansion with Sunrise collapsed

The introduction of TV, Internet and fixed-line telephony for the home via the mobile network is not a reaction to the failed fiber-optic expansion with Sunrise, Salt CEO Pascal Grieder said in response to a question: This technology would have been launched anyway as a supplement.

Salt had actually wanted to significantly expand its fiber-optic network with Sunrise. The two founded the joint venture Swiss Open Fiber last May to lay 1.5 million new fiber-optic lines to households (FTTH) over the next five to seven years, which would have doubled coverage. A total of 3 billion Swiss francs was to be invested in the expansion.

However, after the announcement of the takeover of Sunrise by UPC owner Liberty Global last August, the project failed. Salt has since accused Sunrise of breach of contract and has taken the second-largest telecoms group to court.

However, Salt wants to hold on to the fiber-optic expansion and is looking for financial investors for this purpose. "We will communicate when something is ready to be announced," said Grieder when asked whether Salt had already found investors. (SDA)