Swisscom has revealed that its Gigabit LTE network is now available in eleven cities – Zurich, Bern, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne, Lugano, St. Gallen, Lucerne, Sitten, Chur and Fribourg – and 15 Swisscom shops, with plans to expand the footprint to 30% of the population by the end of 2018. In order to provide the 1Gbps downlink, Swisscom combines four spectrum bands, namely 800MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz and 2600MHz, via carrier aggregation (CA), coupled with 4×4 MIMO and 256QAM modulation. Swisscom advertises 4G services to 99% of the population, with 80% of the population able to access speeds of up to 300Mbps and 60% up to 450Mbps.
In a press release, Swisscom highlights that the Gigabit expansion is an important step towards 5G, in which Swisscom is investing in a targeted manner via its ‘5G for Switzerland’ programme.