UPC was the largest cable operator in
Switzerland with around 1.1 million residential and business customers and was formed in 1994 through the
merger of several cable operators. UPC has been a subsidiary of
Liberty Global since 2005.
On 27 February 2019, the Swiss telecommunications company
Sunrise Communications announced the planned purchase of UPC Switzerland from Liberty Global, with purchasing price of 6.3 billion CHF, but it was cancelled in December. In August 2020, the reverse operation occurred, Liberty Global, UPC's parent company, announced that it will acquire Sunrise for $7.4 billion. On May 23, 2022, UPC was discontinued in favor of
Sunrise
Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects.
Terminology
A ...
.
History
In the 1930s, the first cable network operators started to broadcast a variety of radio channels to households via cable. One of these cable network operators, Rediffusion S.A., which was established in 1931, transmitted radio programmes via wire broadcasting. At the end of the 1950s,
Rediffusion
Rediffusion was a business that distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, the first ITV ( commer ...
S.A. broadcast the first black and white television channels from the Uetliberg. In 1994, Rediffusion and other independent cable network companies merged to form Cablecom, owned by
Siemens,
VEBA
VEBA AG (originally from ''Vereinigte Elektrizitäts und Bergwerks Aktiengesellschaft'' or "United Electricity and Mining Corporation") was a German state owned energy company. VEBA was founded in 1929 as a holding company owned by the state of ...
and
Swisscom.
[Company History](_blank)
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Cablecom acquired the successful Internet service provider SwissOnline in 1998. Over the following years the cable operator grew by acquiring various cable network companies including, for instance, Balcab and Sitel
Sitel Group is a privately owned contact center company headquartered in Miami, Florida. It provides outsourced sales, technical support, customer service, and other business processes for large companies. The company has 160,000 employees an ...
. These takeovers allowed Cablecom to extend its network in further parts of Switzerland In 2000, the previous owners of Cablecom sold out to British-American NTL
NTL may refer to:
Companies
* NTL Incorporated and NTL Internet, later Virgin Media, communications media company
** NTL Ireland, later Virgin Media Ireland
* Arqiva, UK company formerly ''NTL Broadcast'' and ''National Transcommunications L ...
for 5.8 billion Swiss francs. In the years that followed, operational activities were sustainably improved. In the wake of financial difficulties NTL sold Cablecom to a group of banks and private investors in 2003.
The owners planned to go public with Cablecom in the middle of October 2005. After Liberty Global Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Global, acquired Cablecom for 2.8 billion on 30 September 2005, the planned IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
was withdrawn. In the years that followed, Cablecom invested in expanding its network. In 2007, the company launched high-definition television (HDTV). Two years later, Cablecom introduced its first combination deals (package with Internet, telephony and television). In 2010, Cablecom launched the DigiCard enabling customers to enjoy digital TV without having to connect an additional device to their television set. In 2011, Cablecom began offering Video on Demand with 3D content.
Cablecom was relaunched as upc cablecom in April 2011. In the course of rebranding the red wrench was replaced by a new logo in the form of a lotus blossom. A coloured version of the light blue logo used by UPC Broadband (at that time the operating company of Liberty Global).
On 14 January 2013, UPC introduced the Horizon set-top box. This system comprises a set-top box for digital television and HDTV
High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...
, combined with an Internet modem with WLAN, IP telephony
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet ...
and a hard disk recorder.
On 1 August 2014, Liberty Global brought together the two sister companies, UPC Cablecom and UPC Austria, to create a joint regional organisation based in Zurich.
Since 25 May 2016, UPC Cablecom has been known simply as UPC.
On 1 August 2018 UPC Austria was taken over by T-Mobile Austria
Magenta Telekom (T-Mobile Austria until 6 May 2019) is the second largest mobile and fixed company in Austria. It is owned by Deutsche Telekom. In 2017 it had 5.7 million customers. Its CEO is Andreas Bierwirth :de:Andreas_Bierwirth">de.html" ; ...
and in May 2019 the new brand identity Magenta Telekom was presented..
On 1 September 2018, Severina Pascu took over the role of CEO from Eric Tveter, who had served as CEO since 2009.
On 27 February 2019, Sunrise Communications AG announced it intent to buy UPC Switzerland. The merger was cancelled on 18 December 2019.
On May 23, 2022, UPC was discontinued in favor of Sunrise
Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects.
Terminology
A ...
.
Company details
As of 30 June 2019, UPC supplied 1.1 million Swiss customers with over 2.4 million services (approx. 1,041,000 television, 677,000 broadband Internet, 511,000 fixed network phone and 173,000 mobile customers). UPC currently employs around 1,500 people in Switzerland.[Q2 2019 results](_blank)
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Products
Television and radio
UPC broadcasts digitalised television and radio channels. The foundations for this were laid in 1999 when 32 digital channels were broadcast in parallel to the analogue offer for the first time. In November 2012, UPC abolished basic encryption for its basic TV package comprising 55 digital TV channels and 100 digital radio stations. Despite the digitisation, at least 36 analogue TV channels and 34 analogue radio stations were still broadcast via UPC's cable network depending on the region. In the Federal Act on Radio and Television the Federal Council prescribed a must-carry list for analogue channels. This included analogue channels stipulated by the Federal Council that had to be broadcast throughout Switzerland by UPC and other cable television providers. This must-carry rule was changed following the amendment of the DETEC Ordinance on Radio and Television on 13 May 2013.
As a consequence of this, only the SBC channels and licensed regional channels as well as youth channel Joiz had to be broadcast in analogue. This obligation ended on 31 December 2014 (Joiz: 21 March 2015) or earlier if a cable operator offered a basic offer at no additional cost and a digital/analogue converter. And so UPC completely digitised central Switzerland in autumn 2014 as part of a pilot project – and on 7 July 2015 the last analogue channels were switched off by UPC Cablecom in Ticino. The abolition of basic encryption also made it possible for customers to choose their preferred device for reception (TV, receiver, recorder, DigiCard). In order to take advantage of the basic digital offer, all that is needed is an active cable connection, an aerial cable and a television set with an integrated DVB-C receiver or a converter for older television sets. In order to receive additional offers via the cable network a receiver is required – either a set-top box (recorder/receiver) or a SmartCard
A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...
.
Happy Home
At the start of 2019, UPC replaced the bundles previously known as “Connect & Play”. Three levels correspond to download speeds measured in Mbit/s (As of 31 March 2019 the maximum speed was 600 Mbit/s). The packages include Internet access, the UPC TV package and a fixed network connection – with an option including free calls within Switzerland and to the EU also available. At the same time, the UPC Connect App was also introduced in order to improve customers’ wifi coverage by helping them set up the Connect Box and scanning the wifi coverage in their homes. Power-line communication
Power-line communication (also known as power-line carrier or PLC) carries data on a conductor that is also used simultaneously for AC electric power transmission or electric power distribution to consumers.
A wide range of power-line communicat ...
adapters can also create Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...
hotspots in other rooms.
UPC TV and MySports
In October 2018, UPC TV (the successor to the Horizon HD recorder) was launched. The box – including features such as voice control, personal recommendations, a search function and personal profiles – was introduced in April 2019. However, for users, UPC TV is not limited to the TV Box. The UPC TV App can also be used to watch TV, independent of the platform. As of 30 June 2019, around 200,000 UPC TV boxes were already on the market in Switzerland.
The MySports sports channel on the other hand was launched in September 2017 and offers different sports, such as Swiss National League ice hockey as well as Formula E. In August 2018, MySports One was marketed to all UPC TV customers. MySports Go, launched in September 2018, is the result of a partnership between MySports and Sky and is available for owners of the Sky Sport App.
UPC was the first company in Switzerland to introduce a flat rate model for films and series, MyPrime. At the end of 2016, more than 10,000 items of content such as classic films, series, documentaries and children's programmes were available to customers in German-, French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland.
Internet
UPC offers broadband Internet via its cable network (fibre optic cable network). The company has over 686,000 customers in this segment (as of 31 March 2019). The cable network consists of 95% optical fibre cable
A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable, but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with ...
and 5% coaxial cable, known as hybrid fibre coax
Hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) is a telecommunications industry term for a broadband network that combines optical fiber and coaxial cable. It has been commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s.
In a hybrid fib ...
(HFC). The Internet service is operated with the DOCSIS
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television (CATV) system. It is used by many cable televisio ...
3.0 standard.
Since November 2012, the cable connection from UPC has also included a digital basic offer for existing customers with 2 Mbit/s Internet access as well as a TV offer, and since January 2015 a landline telephone connection. In addition, the UPC TV App can also be used with this offer.
Wi-Free
Since autumn 2014, UPC has offered its customers Switzerland's biggest free wifi network with Wi-Free. This means UPC customers can browse the web at around 500,000 locations in Switzerland and over 2 million locations in Europe free of charge on their smartphone, tablet etc.
Phone
Fixed network
Since July 2003, UPC has had a telephony offering with Voice over Cable. 514,000 customers use their cable to make telephone calls (correct as of 31 March 2019).
Mobile services
Since April 2014, UPC has offered Mobile services to its existing customers. Since January 2019, UPC offers its Mobile services using the existing Swisscom mobile network (prior it was Salt) and is thus an MVNO ( Mobile Virtual Network Operator) provider. Apart from the use of Swisscom's mobile phone masts, the company provides all services itself. In the second quarter of 2019, 173,000 people had a Mobile subscription from UPC.
Business customers
UPC Business has offered communication solutions for companies since 1999 – including small- and medium-sized enterprises, cantonal banks, hospitals, public administrations etc. – and plays an important role in the Swiss B2B market. In the finance sector, the company now provides connectivity and managed services to more than half of all cantonal banks. Further customers include SV (Switzerland) AG (IP telephony solutions and LAN management) and the BKW Group (software-defined WAN).
Competitive environment
Bundles
UPC's strongest competitor is Swisscom. At UPC, such bundles include television, Internet and telephony services. Comparable offers have been available from Swisscom and Sunrise since December 2011. Salt entered the fixed network business in March 2018 with “Salt Fibre”.
Television
UPC is the second largest provider with 1.041 million TV customers. (correct as of 30 June 2019). This corresponds to a 26 per cent share of the Swiss TV market. The leader in this category is Swisscom with just under 35 per cent. Sunrise has just a 5 per cent share of the TV market. Added together, the other cable operators make up a 26 per cent share, like UPC. The remaining 8 per cent is accounted for by satellite and antenna reception.
Internet
UPC's fibre optic cable network supplies around 3 million homes in Switzerland and offers Internet speeds of 600 Mbit/s downstream and 60 Mbit/s upstream (correct as of March 2019) throughout the whole network – both in the city and in the countryside. The highest speed Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
connections from Swisscom and also from Sunrise are currently 100 Mbit/s (VDSL) and 1 Gbit/s (FTTH
Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber op ...
) respectively.
UPC Switzerland's speeds are made possible by a hybrid network with a high fibre proportion in combination with coaxial cable. This means that the existing Internet capacities can be increased continuously on the existing network as required – by expanding the frequency range or bundling channels. The status quo of 600 Mbit/s can therefore be adjusted to meet future customer needs – without additional construction work in streets or houses being necessary.UPC: Our network
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Phone
UPC, Sunrise and Swisscom offer various subscriptions for fixed network as well as for mobile telephony. All providers have special tariffs that vary according to the type of subscription.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Liberty Global
Cable television companies
Internet service providers of Switzerland
Mass media companies established in 1994
Telecommunications companies established in 1994
1994 mergers and acquisitions
2020 mergers and acquisitions
Mass media companies disestablished in 2022
Telecommunications companies disestablished in 2022