5G Sunrise over Switzerland

Swiss operator Sunrise was the first to launch 5G in the country. It may be the second major operator (2.4 million subscribers) but its 5G network currently covers 80% of the population. Meanwhile, market leader Swisscom (6.3 million subscribers) says it will have 90% 5G coverage by the end of 2019.  The third major national operator Salt has also launched a 5G service.

Sunrise is deploying 5G in Switzerland with Huawei as its main technological partner. Huawei is providing to Sunrise its end-to-end 5G network, including radio access network, transport network and core network .Sunrise  is currently only using spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band to provide 5G service in the country. For now, Sunrise said it isn’t expanding 5G in its other existing frequencies (700 MHz to 2600 MHz). Although this would help extend 5G coverage quickly, compatible devices are not currently readily available, and connection speeds do not differ significantly from advanced 4G service. Currently, 23 Sunrise shops across the country have already installed LampSities, a Huawei multi-band 5G small cell, so that customers can experience 5G firsthand.

The cornerstone of Sunrise’s “5G for the people” initiative, launched in April 2019 was to offer 5G based “fibre through the air” converged home broadband and TV services.

 The industry often refers to similar approaches as Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) but in Sunrise’s case the terminals are used indoors, there are no wall-mounted outdoor antennas and installer technicians involved and consumers are allowed to take the equipment and use them in any other location. Sunrise targets 5G fibre through the air in geographical areas where it doesn’t have favourable wholesale access to its partners fibre to the home (FTTH) networks and as such until now they needed to rely mainly on Swisscom’s DSL based wholesale products.

Sunrise pursues a Fixed-MobileConvergence (FMC) strategy in large cities and increasingly a Mobile Centric-Convergence (MCC) strategy outside the most populated areas, corresponding to the remaining 60-70% of the Swiss population.

Sunrise’s dedication to the “5G for the people” initiative is demonstrated by the rapid deployment pace of their 3.6 GHz based 5G network. Less than two months after securing  the required spectrum, Sunrise launched its home broadband service for friendly users in 150 cities/villages. In September 2019 Sunrise opened the service for the wider public. On the 18th December 2019 Sunrise claimed to provide 5G service in 384 cities/villages.

Sunrise has manged this despite  facing  serious deployment challenges due to the exceptionally strict Swiss Radio Frequency - Electromagnetic Field (EMF) radiation compliance limits, and regulations on the aesthetics of  5G towers and masts.

#5G EMF radiation, field strength (V/m) & power density (W/m2) regulatory limits, ICNIRP guidelines & as well aesthetics of antennas & indoor 5G coverage are hot topic in many European countries. Pls check our free report about 3.6 GHz 5G in #Switzerland https://t.co/yiLWfLR2tZ

— Pál Zarándy (@PZarandy) January 21, 2020

RootMetrics, the mobile analytics firm belonging to IHS Markit, said that Sunrise supplies the fastest 5G network in Switzerland. RootMetrics tested 5G connections in cars, trains and in more than 70 public buildings and pedestrian areas of cities. In total, it took more than 32,000 measurements from drive tests over 2,800 kilometers between Geneva and Zurich.

RootMetrics designed the test routes to include 5G areas covered by different providers. According to RootMetrics, Sunrise provided the most reliable services of the three mobile operators for other technologies than 5G, too, for data, voice and text performance. Sunrise is currently building 5G in the 3.5 GHz range with speeds up to 2 Gbps.

Further Reading:

• Operator Watch Blog: Swisscom Plans to Deploy 5G Standalone (SA) in 2020
• Operator Watch Blog: 20 Years of Salt Mobile
• Operator Watch Blog - Sunrise: 5G for the People
• Operator Watch Blog: Switzerland 5G Spectrum Auctions Results
• Operator Watch Blog: Sunrise Communications Overview
• The 3G4G Blog: Updated 5G Terminology Presentation

Sunrise: 5G for the People

Sunrise is the challenger in Swiss market, dominated by Swisscom. The following video was recorded at 5G World and was part of the session, '“First on 5G” Launch (April 2019)', presented by Bruno Duarte, CCO, Sunrise Communications. It gives an overview of their 5G network.



Here is a twitter moment of a technical discussion comparing Sunrise with Swisscom

Sunrise vs Swisscom

Related Posts:

• Switzerland 5G Spectrum Auctions Results
• Sunrise Communications Overview
• Swisscom launched 5G Fast and 5G Wide

Switzerland 5G Spectrum Auctions Results

According to Mobile World Live:

Switzerland’s Federal Communications Commission (ComCom) awarded 5G radio frequencies to all three mobile operators – Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt – raising CHF380 million ($379 million).

The frequencies will be assigned for 15 years, which the regulator said provides the “operators long-term planning security to develop their networks.”

...

Dense Air, a small cell player which launched in 2018, pulled out of the Swiss auction. Reuters noted this “removes a potential rival for the three companies in the already crowded Swiss mobile market”.

Swisscom, which paid CHF196 million, said by the end of 2019 it expects to roll-out 5G to 60 towns and communities.

Sunrise and Salt did not have such concrete plans. The former said the frequencies gained will help it to “deliver a world-class 5G network in the future” and the latter that it will “improve its high-quality mobile network” with “next-generation speed, latency and capacity”.

According to a media release by Sunrise:

At the 5G frequency auction, Sunrise has acquired the strategically most important frequencies in the 3.5 GHz band, which perfectly fit its "5G for People" strategy.

With its existing and new frequencies, Sunrise will be able to secure its existing 96% 4G area coverage and deliver a world-class 5G network in the future. This will provide outstanding area coverage and, notably, give suburban and rural areas "optical fiber speed over the air".

Thanks to a clever bidding strategy, Sunrise was able to acquire the most important bands at a favorable price of 0.077 CHF per MHz/Pop. With the frequencies acquired in the middle frequency range and combined with the existing frequencies, Sunrise will be able to provide the area coverage and capacities needed in the long term. 

This is what we estimate the real world 5G NR speeds will look like:
Coverage Layer: 10 – 50 Mbps (10 MHz bandwidth)
Capacity Layer: 100 – 300 Mbps (40 MHz bandwidth)
High Throughput Layer: 400 – 1500 Mbps (100 MHz bandwidth)
Any thoughts? pic.twitter.com/DKOLOvP10g

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) November 7, 2018

According to the chart on top (from Sunrise media release), you can see that all the three operators are well placed with a reasonable amount of coverage and capacity layer 5G spectrum. The 5G future looks good for Swiss.

Sunrise Communications Overview

A short summary of Sunrise Communications from a presentation by Aaron Pearce

As can be seen seen in the picture above, SBB, UBS and Migros started NewtelcoAG. Then in 1997 British Telecom and Tele Danmark joined Newtelco as partners and investors and launched the Sunrise brand. Since then Sunrise has just been going from strength to strength. In 2016, Sunrise celebrated 20 years of success and was also the winner of the “connect” network test with a record score and the only provider to be awarded a rating of “OUTSTANDING.”

In fact in an Opensignal report on Switzerland last year, Sunrise won the crown for fastest download speeds while Swisscom had the best coverage.

.@Sunrise_de fastest, @Swisscom_de with best coverage in @opensignal's first report on Switzerland. https://t.co/HjR5jOPz2B pic.twitter.com/LLCXILcNDx

— tefficient 🚥 (@tefficient) May 24, 2017

In a nutshell, Sunrise is the largest private telecommunications provider in Switzerland with convergent solutions from one source as can be seen in the picture above.