Swisscom wins court ruling in fiber optic dispute

The Swiss Federal Administrative Court has overturned a sanction imposed by the Competition Commission (Weko) against Swisscom. The commission had previously ordered a fine of 18.4 million Swiss francs regarding the company’s fiber optic network expansion strategy.

The court ruled that Weko incorrectly assumed Swisscom held a dominant market position in the relevant market. The decision noted that the measures ordered by the commission concerned areas where Swisscom had not yet begun fiber expansion, meaning it could not offer services or exercise market dominance there. Furthermore, in areas already upgraded with new technology, Swisscom was not active in the specific market defined by Weko, which focused on continuous fiber lines from central offices to buildings.

The legal dispute originated from a 2020 strategic shift by Swisscom. The company moved from a point-to-point (P2P) architecture to a point-to-multipoint (P2MP) topology. Under the new P2MP method, a single line is laid from the local exchange to a street shaft, where the signal is then split among connected households, rather than providing a direct, continuous line from the exchange to every individual home or business.