Global IT Readiness : Country of Switzerland

Information Infrastructure (Stage 4)
The rough gauge for Internet infrastructure to obtain Stage 4 status is a minimum of 40 Internet users per 100 inhabitants. Per the ITU, in 2009 Europe, as a whole, averaged 62.9 where Switzerland actually hit 72.41 Internet users per 100 inhabitants. As for mobile wireless access saturation, per the "Federal Statics Office (FSO) Statistical Yearbook 2010" in 2008 Switzerland was *supersaturated* at 115 subscribers for every 100 inhabitants. Clearly, the infrastructure is well designed and widely available.

Internet Availability (Stage 4)
In Switzerland the availability of the Internet is quite high due to the fact that all universities and most schools and businesses have Internet access. There are several options for both businesses and residents for acquiring Internet access with as many as 44 available Internet Service Providers. For residents some of the major ISPs that provide service to either the entire country or regional areas are Swisscom, Cablecom, Sunrise, and DFI. All of the aforementioned providers also provide services to business customers as well as one additional provider, green.ch that caters to just businesses. Also Swisscom states "Today, more than 98% of all Swiss households have access to a broadband connection".

Internet Affordability (Stage 4)
Internet Affordability in Switzerland is quite reasonable with a wide variety of options from both DSL and Cable companies. With the average monthly income of CHF 8,979 taken from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, when converted to USD and added up to annual income of $101,773 the prices for high speed Internet fall into a reasonable category as seen below. The two major providers of Internet access in Switzerland, Cablecom and Swisscom, both have multi-tier speed/price plans for in home Internet service ranging from as little as about $5 a month all the way up to around $81 a month when converted to USD.

The following are the offerings of Cablecom, the largest cable provider in Switzerland, all pricing is per month.

The following are the offerings of Swisscom, the largest DSL provider in Switzerland, all pricing is per month.

Below is a comparison from Cablecom to emphasize the drastic speed increases you get with Cable over DSL for essentially the same price

Network Speed and Quality (Stage 4)
As noted above, residential Internet connectivity speed ranges from 300 Kbit/s to 100 Mbit/s for download and from 100 Kbit/s to 7 Mbit/s for upload. Swisscom and Cablecom both offer businesses Internet service with speeds up to 10Gbit/s for both download and upload. Wireless coverage is ubiquitous and given the large number of and investment in transmission towers, connections are very tolerant. Mobile broadband access is widely available and depending on the carrier most download speeds average between 1.8-3.6 Mbit/s, the highest speeds are around 7.2 Mbit/s and upload speeds range from 256 Kbit/s up to 1.4Mbit/s. Business customers of Cablecom can have annual availability of at least 99.8% and up to 99.95% depending on the service level agreement. With theses numbers it comes to a maximum downtime of between 8 hours a year for the 99.8% level or only 1 hour a year with the 99.95% level.

Hardware and Software (Stage 4)
There are at least three major electronics outlets within Switzerland: Mediamarkt, Interdiscount, Fust. These retail outlets in conjunction with the great variety of online outlets allows anyone within Switzerland to shop for competitively low prices. Some suggested sites (http://www.toppreise.ch/) actually help the shopper compare prices for various electronics equipment.

Service and Support (Stage 4)

Per the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), there are a few hundred registered Internet and telephony carriers offering business within Switzerland. The carriers range from small (www.enercomag.ch) to international (www.bt.com). Given that variety of carriers, there was also a range of support options from call center support to online chat and email forms. Support hours can range from carrier to carrier however all provide standard support usually from the hours of 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. and all of the larger country wide carriers have 24 hr support available. Installation times for most residential service can be completed usually within a few days or up to a week at the most. Business installation times are a bit longer and depending on the service ordered can range from 2 weeks to 6 weeks

Overview

Network Access

Networked Learning

Networked Society

Networked Economy

Networked Policy

Offshore Oppurtunities

Conclusion

References

Networked Access