Swiss Sunrise acquires Lausanne region cable net

Source: Sunrise

Municipal services outfit Lausanne Industrial Services (SiL) has partnered with Liberty Global-backed Sunrise to enable the latter to take over the cable network in 10 municipalities surrounding the city of Lausanne.

In the coming months, Sunrise will be providing telecommunications services, including broadband and TV, to businesses and individuals, and modernising the cable network to make it future-proof, the company said.

The municipality has decided to focus its energies on offering Lausanne residents a more diverse range of services through its bliblablo products, as well as continuing to develop its separate FTTH fibre-optic network.

In order not to disadvantage customers outside of Lausanne, the cable network is being transferred to Sunrise in a partnership deal as a result of this re-focus.

“This development will allow the City of Lausanne to offer SiL multimedia services under the bliblablo brand solely via fibre optics (through its company LFO SA) and dismantle the historic cable-network system in the city of Lausanne. With fibre optics now available throughout almost all of Lausanne, customers will benefit from a diverse, high-quality local offering,” said Xavier Company, City Councillor in charge of SiL.

“By taking over the SiL cable network covering Lausanne’s surrounding areas and offering our services directly to the more than 17,000 connected homes, we can ensure continuity of supply to customers and high-quality innovative services. In addition, we’ll be modernising the cable network and making it future-proof for both private and business customers,” said André Krause, CEO of Sunrise.

With the takeover of the SiL cable network, Sunrise is acquiring infrastructure that provides businesses and households in the Lake Geneva region with landline connectivity, Internet and TV. The municipalities affected by the change include Prilly, Le-Mont-sur-Lausanne, Epalinges, Jouxtens-Mézery, Bottens, Morrens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Cugy, Froideville and Savigny.

In total, more than 17,000 households and businesses are connected to the cable network that is being transferred to Sunrise.

The transfer will take place in stages from May 2024 until roughly the end of the year.

SiL meanwhile will continue to run its technical and commercial call centre in Lausanne and will expand its services with partners in French-speaking Switzerland as part of the net+ consortium.

The outfit will offer new low-cost products aimed at pensioners to augment the bliblablo offer. The Citycable brand will be permanently changed to SiL and bliblablo.