Swisscom announces flat-rate pricing
The country's biggest telecommunications operator, Swisscom, is to introduce nationwide flat-rate pricing from the beginning of May.
From 1 May, a single rate of SFr0.08 per minute will apply for calls between 0800 and 1700, while calls will cost SFr0.04 at other times. The old standard rates were SFr0.067 for local and SFr0.12 for long distance.
Swisscom said the changes would not affect revenues. However, the new prices are much higher than the cost of some local calls at the moment – a night time local call currently costs just SFr0.017.
The Swiss price supervisor recently criticised Swisscom for its high prices when compared with other countries. But the operator, in which the state still has a majority stake, cannot cut prices too much at the risk of being accused of using its market dominance to kill off competition.
Competitors on the domestic market include TDC and Sunrise for fixed line networks and Orange and Diax in mobiles.
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