What fibre really is, how to tell it apart from DSL, what it costs and which providers sell it. With the prices from our running comparison, not from a brochure.
A line that carries data as light rather than as an electrical signal over copper.
That is where the difference that matters day to day comes from. Fibre is equally fast in both directions, and it stays that way even when many people in the neighbourhood are online in the evening. Copper loses speed with every metre of length, cable shares its capacity within the segment.
From CHF 39 per month, and that is already for a symmetrical 10 Gbit/s.
The surprising part of the Swiss market: wanting less speed rarely costs less. blue Internet M with one gigabit costs CHF 49.90, blue Internet L with ten gigabits CHF 49.90. Here the price barely depends on speed, but on the provider and the contract term.
The three cheapest fibre offers:
By the upload. With fibre it is as fast as the download.
If an offer states 1 Gbit/s download and 100 Mbit/s upload, it runs over copper, even if Fiber appears in the product name. That is the most reliable test, and it works without technical knowledge: compare two numbers.
The second clue is the socket on the wall. Fibre ends in an optical socket, often called an OTO, not in a telephone socket. More on that in the fibre check.
As a rule yes. Fibre in Switzerland is open.
Providers rent third party lines, over Swisscom wholesale or over the municipal networks. That is why twelve providers in our comparison sell fibre although only a handful own networks. On cable the choice is narrower: you only get in through Sunrise and its brands.
Not for streaming or working from home. Only holding back usually saves nothing.
The cheapest ten gigabit plan is CHF 39, a one gigabit connection often costs more. That is exactly why, according to the OFCOM telecommunications statistics, 73.7 per cent of Swiss fibre connections already run at the highest tier. The number of optical lines grew by 11.3 per cent in 2024, while copper lines fell by 5.8 per cent.