⚡ Which speed do I need?
In short: 1 Gbit/s fiber is the right choice for 95% of households. Future-proof, fast enough for everything, and often barely more expensive than slower plans.
| What you do |
Needs about |
| Browsing, email, online banking |
5 Mbit/s |
| Netflix / YouTube in 4K |
25 Mbit/s per stream |
| Zoom / Teams video call |
4 Mbit/s (upload matters!) |
| Online gaming |
5 Mbit/s (latency matters more than speed) |
| Family: 4x 4K + video call + gaming |
~150 Mbit/s total |
| 50 GB download (e.g. game update) |
7 min at 1 Gbit/s |
Sweet spot:
1 Gbit/s fiber (from CHF 34/mo). Enough for everything, future-proof, and barely more expensive than slower plans.
No fiber?
Copper or cable with 200-500 Mbit/s is plenty for daily life. Also for streaming and home office.
Tight budget:
Digital Republic Home 5G from CHF 20/mo, no cable needed. Important: run a speedtest at home with your phone first. Digital Republic offers a 30-day satisfaction guarantee: if you get less than 80% of the maximum speed, you can cancel for free.
📡 Fiber (FTTH)
Up to 10 Gbit/s
Lightning fast, symmetric (upload = download). Ideal for video calls, cloud backup, home office. Latency under 10 ms. Not available everywhere, rollout ongoing.
✓ Upload as fast as download
📺 Cable (coax / HFC)
Up to 2.5 Gbit/s
Fast download, but upload much slower (often only 20-100 Mbit/s). Shared with neighbours, can slow down in the evening. Sunrise/UPC network, not available everywhere.
⚠ Upload much slower than download
🔌 Copper (DSL / VDSL)
Up to about 300 Mbit/s
Internet via the phone line. Available everywhere. Speed depends on the distance to the exchange. Sufficient for normal browsing and streaming.
⚠ Speed drops with distance to the exchange
📶 5G Fixed Wireless
Up to 300 Mbit/s
Internet over the mobile network, no cable needed. Ready to use immediately. Good as a budget option or when fiber is not available. Speed varies by location and network load.
💡 Tip: run a speedtest at the planned location first
⚠️ Watch out: the router trap
You buy 10 Gbit/s, but your router only has a 1 Gbit/s LAN port? Then you surf at 1 Gbit/s max. Most bundled routers can't do more.
| Router |
Max speed via cable |
Who supplies it? |
| FRITZ!Box 7590 |
1 Gbit/s |
Various |
| FRITZ!Box 5530 |
2.5 Gbit/s |
Init7, Mucho |
| Zyxel AX7501 |
10 Gbit/s |
Galaxus |
| Swisscom Internet-Box 4 |
10 Gbit/s |
Swisscom |
Bottom line:
For most, 1 Gbit/s is enough, and any router can handle that. If you want 10 Gbit/s, only Swisscom and Galaxus ship a 10G capable router. Init7 offers up to 25 Gbit/s, but without a router (BYOD). Note: your Wi-Fi is often the bottleneck, not the router port. Wi-Fi 6 hits roughly 500-900 Mbit/s in real-world use.
🏠 First step: what's available at home?
Unlike mobile (where all three networks work almost everywhere), with internet everything depends on your address. Which providers are available is determined by the line in your building.
Which line do you have?
Swisscom fiber
Switzerland's largest network. Open access: Wingo, Mucho, iWay, Teleboy, Init7, Salt and others can connect.
Municipal/utility fiber
EWZ (Zurich), IWB (Basel), GGA Maur, SAK (eastern Switzerland). Also open to Init7, iWay, Salt, Sunrise and others.
Sunrise cable
Closed network. Only Sunrise, yallo and Galaxus. No access for third parties like Init7 or Mucho.
Copper (phone line)
Available almost everywhere. Swisscom, Wingo, Mucho, Teleboy, iWay and Init7 offer internet over it. Slower than fiber.
Good news: in Switzerland fiber is generally open access. You're not tied to Swisscom just because the line is from Swisscom. Providers like Galaxus are even available on every network (Swisscom fiber, Sunrise cable and 75+ municipal networks).
How to find out (30 seconds):
Go to the website of your preferred provider, enter your address. Every provider has an availability check. You'll see straight away whether fiber, copper or cable is available where you live.
In Zurich, Bern, Basel, Geneva and Lausanne over 90% of buildings have fiber access. In rural areas it varies a lot.