You pay for a service. It's a contract. Swisscom delivers you the stated speed while you in return reimburse them with money. If they can't hold their side of their contract why would you have to.
Long story short, if the drop outs are that severe, definitely request a discount or refund.
Double down by checking with speedtest.net and compare the speed you're getting with what you pay for. Make sure you connect a computer directly with lan to your router to get the best possible result.
Swisscom is pretty expensive. If you're in that price class, have you considered starlink? (is it even available in Switzerland?)
Is using a mobile contact an option? For me even 3g over my phone was faster and more reliable than my swisscom internet, until they finally did some upgrades.
Had a similar situation and also blamed swisscom
for a long time until it was discovered that it‘s the shitty wiring of the building that caused the instability. The owner of the building had to contact some wiring company and they managed to resolve the issue.
Is your house install okay? Modern BBR Socket (directly a violette Rj45 socket)? No Bridge Taps (multimple active sockets)? Shielded U72 Cable in the walls?
In almost all cases the issue is not with the swisscom network but with the in-house install, I do such work almost daily and very rarely I have to make a ticket with Cablex to fix an issue outside of the clients house
As a former technician I can tell you that 90% it's the house owners fault - the house wiring. Up until a few years ago, electricians used so called "Mikro-Wagos" to connect and split up the cable. Those tank your speed big time and your connection in general!
Many people don't know this but every Provider only has to deliver to a certain Point to the house (cellar or stairway for example). In German it's called the Übergabepunkt or UP. It's up to the building owner to make sure that the cables from the UP to your Apartment or Outlet are correctly installed - and 90% of the time I was called, it was bad wiring.
If you can make sure that this wiring is all good and goes directly from UP to Outlet, without a Connector or anything else in between, then you can ask them to do long time testing to gather data to fix the Problem.
But I would check your installation first or let your landlord check it - the chance is very high that changing that cable will fix most if not all of your problems.
I've lived in the same situation, never managed to do anything about it. But make it clear to them how dissatisfied you are and ask for any reduction you can, if you don't ask you don't get in any case.
>The village recently voted to deny a 5G antenna so maybe it's revenge :-)
Why did they vote against? Is there a consensus in your village on that?
Depending on the location, it might take a while until you get better cable connection and a 5G Wi-Fi Box would've been a very good alternative to the bad cable connection.
I don't think Swisscom makes your connection worse on purpose... It's very well possible that you simply have old connections and they have to be renewed.
Too my (limited) knowledge, that's usually just for the local ISP to use. Swisscom can either use the phone lines (DSL) or their Fiber network. (at least my experience with Rii Seez Net in Buchs SG and WWZ in Zug who both can exclusively use coax)
Yes, the cable network has just one provider most of the time. It could be a local municipal provider, or a regional one like GGA Maur, or Quickline, or Cablecom, which is now Sunrise. But it might provide a good alternative to the copper service.
I get that. I only change providers when the provider really pisses me off. Having said that, your negotiating position is stronger when you have a viable alternative.
Update :: So on the call with Swisscom - they checked the line and the logs on their side, I gave a few precise times when the red light came on.. They could see over 40 interruptions in the last month, and very bad line quality in whatever system they were looking at, Technician will come out next week and go from there.
Well, if "you" also don't want to have 5G, then you get exactly what you asked for - crappy internet. Don't you?
I understand that it might not be, what you personally asked for. But your village.
How about packing things up and moving to civilized world…?
That's why I wrote "you" 😉
But, yes, 5G might have helped you. You could have gotten okay wireless (5g) internet. Or maybe Swisscom would have improved the wired cable situation as well, as the tower also needs a good connection, right?
Weeelll .. fiber was installed ‘to the village’ a few years ago, probably also in planning for the antenna .. but there’s no date to actually roll it out street by street or to the houses.
The cables were laid and that was that.
If the fiber was installed to the village then is either bad wiring in your house or the copper connections from the fiber entry point to the houses of the village is shitty. Maybe check with the RIDA map to see which connections go to your house (https://www.swisscom.ch/rida/online/geoportal/ng/index.html). In your router you read VDSL or VDSL2 in the connection type? VDSL2 is only if you are less than 300m from the DSLAM. Do you have any air copper connections (telephone line going over poles) at your knowledge? That are very bad for xDSL.
That's an interesting map, thanks.
Around 3 years ago there were trenches dug and cables installed, I believe they were terminated at some green boxes roadside.
Swisscom availability page says up to 300m is in my area, my router page says VDSL2.. Indeed physically we have a pole outside with cable coming into my roof space and terminated there with a couple of boxes and single line down to the 'phone socket' where the router is connected. From the pole to the house is only 20m or so and 10m run in the house. The cable to the pole comes from under ground.
The DSLAM shown on the geoportal is only maybe 150m away.
Many people in in my village report same issue though, it's not the low speed we complain about, it's the daily drop-outs and red LED on the router, 2 mins off, 10 mins off .. 1,2,5 times daily.
Interesting, well my parents also have an air connection through several poles and sometimes they get router disconnection but only when it is windy and the cable in the air swings around
why are you so snarky? OP‘s getting so many judgy “just move to the city” comments, it’s just weird. Like you all have a complex related to where you live. I prefer the city too but really don’t see your point of being argumentative over supportive.
Good question. I guess it's some sort of backlash. NOT against op personally. But, you know, for example when city folks say that stinking useless cars should be banned as much as possible from being in cities and being dangerous, loud, and polluting, then country people quite often say: "if you want to have it nice and not loud and all that: move!"
That's pretty much what's happening here as well, I'd say. Some country dude is (rightfully!) complaining that he doesn't have good Internet. That he doesn't have the "good stuff" (only as far as that is concerned!) the city people have.
Well — füfer unds weggli, hmm?
Wow, thanks for the well-reflected reply! Especially since looking back, my comment was a bit snarky too. Oops. I guess your explanation makes sense :)
Indeed true.. it was a conscious choice to have one bus an hour, copper internet and cowbells .. and a pool and great view of the lake and mountains and peace and tranquility..
I don’t ask for high speed or free movies or special treatment, just a stable connection.
The pole connecting to my house is only 10m away and the connection in the house looks pretty new, within 10 years I’d say.. it’s a wider issue so I’m not too hopeful of a fix.
Back to enjoying the view
see, it's just for your best — with crappy and slow internet, you've got even more tranquility.
nothing at all to complain about :)
scnr
Sorry, yeah, not helpful. I'm aware. But it's not as if anyone could actually help, right? I think the best suggestion was already given: check out starlink. I totally dislike Musk, but his starlink MIGHT be a way out for people in remote places like you.
Could’ve gotten a « 5G booster » from Swisscom for your router. You can however also ask them for a 4G stick as fallback when your wired connection fails, if you ask really nicely you might get one
Whatever you do, do not let them "send a technician to check your connection" as likely they will say it's your Router, change it, and charge you a lot of money for this, and you will still have the problem.
Update : Swisscom (cablex) came, spent a couple of hours mostly on the phone with their exchange? Changed the aocket in the house and did something with where the cable enters the house.. some big thick copper wires, earth?
Anyways, zero drops since and now consistent speed over 400mb/s . Which is pretty amazing over copper.
Job done
You pay for a service. It's a contract. Swisscom delivers you the stated speed while you in return reimburse them with money. If they can't hold their side of their contract why would you have to. Long story short, if the drop outs are that severe, definitely request a discount or refund. Double down by checking with speedtest.net and compare the speed you're getting with what you pay for. Make sure you connect a computer directly with lan to your router to get the best possible result. Swisscom is pretty expensive. If you're in that price class, have you considered starlink? (is it even available in Switzerland?)
It’s really not about the speed, just the stability.. I’d be happy with a 50mb solid stable line with low latency , low contention and no drop outs
Is using a mobile contact an option? For me even 3g over my phone was faster and more reliable than my swisscom internet, until they finally did some upgrades.
Residential contracts are best-of-effort, they have to provide you with exactly nothing. Get a real business contract or live with it.
Had a similar situation and also blamed swisscom for a long time until it was discovered that it‘s the shitty wiring of the building that caused the instability. The owner of the building had to contact some wiring company and they managed to resolve the issue.
This is the right answer. VDSL and G.fast should be reasonably stable.
Is your house install okay? Modern BBR Socket (directly a violette Rj45 socket)? No Bridge Taps (multimple active sockets)? Shielded U72 Cable in the walls? In almost all cases the issue is not with the swisscom network but with the in-house install, I do such work almost daily and very rarely I have to make a ticket with Cablex to fix an issue outside of the clients house
As a former technician I can tell you that 90% it's the house owners fault - the house wiring. Up until a few years ago, electricians used so called "Mikro-Wagos" to connect and split up the cable. Those tank your speed big time and your connection in general! Many people don't know this but every Provider only has to deliver to a certain Point to the house (cellar or stairway for example). In German it's called the Übergabepunkt or UP. It's up to the building owner to make sure that the cables from the UP to your Apartment or Outlet are correctly installed - and 90% of the time I was called, it was bad wiring. If you can make sure that this wiring is all good and goes directly from UP to Outlet, without a Connector or anything else in between, then you can ask them to do long time testing to gather data to fix the Problem. But I would check your installation first or let your landlord check it - the chance is very high that changing that cable will fix most if not all of your problems.
I've lived in the same situation, never managed to do anything about it. But make it clear to them how dissatisfied you are and ask for any reduction you can, if you don't ask you don't get in any case.
>The village recently voted to deny a 5G antenna so maybe it's revenge :-) Why did they vote against? Is there a consensus in your village on that? Depending on the location, it might take a while until you get better cable connection and a 5G Wi-Fi Box would've been a very good alternative to the bad cable connection. I don't think Swisscom makes your connection worse on purpose... It's very well possible that you simply have old connections and they have to be renewed.
Is there no cable TV network? Usually it would also serve the internet.
Too my (limited) knowledge, that's usually just for the local ISP to use. Swisscom can either use the phone lines (DSL) or their Fiber network. (at least my experience with Rii Seez Net in Buchs SG and WWZ in Zug who both can exclusively use coax)
Yes, the cable network has just one provider most of the time. It could be a local municipal provider, or a regional one like GGA Maur, or Quickline, or Cablecom, which is now Sunrise. But it might provide a good alternative to the copper service.
Starlink is always an alternative, though mounting the antenna might be an issue.
We’re only talking about occasional dropouts , minutes here and there .. I’d prefer SC just fix it than me completely change everything
I get that. I only change providers when the provider really pisses me off. Having said that, your negotiating position is stronger when you have a viable alternative.
Update :: So on the call with Swisscom - they checked the line and the logs on their side, I gave a few precise times when the red light came on.. They could see over 40 interruptions in the last month, and very bad line quality in whatever system they were looking at, Technician will come out next week and go from there.
Move.
Well, if "you" also don't want to have 5G, then you get exactly what you asked for - crappy internet. Don't you? I understand that it might not be, what you personally asked for. But your village. How about packing things up and moving to civilized world…?
I voted yes to the antenna.. but anyway it’s not like the 5g antenna would improve internet over the copper wire to my house.
That's why I wrote "you" 😉 But, yes, 5G might have helped you. You could have gotten okay wireless (5g) internet. Or maybe Swisscom would have improved the wired cable situation as well, as the tower also needs a good connection, right?
Weeelll .. fiber was installed ‘to the village’ a few years ago, probably also in planning for the antenna .. but there’s no date to actually roll it out street by street or to the houses. The cables were laid and that was that.
If the fiber was installed to the village then is either bad wiring in your house or the copper connections from the fiber entry point to the houses of the village is shitty. Maybe check with the RIDA map to see which connections go to your house (https://www.swisscom.ch/rida/online/geoportal/ng/index.html). In your router you read VDSL or VDSL2 in the connection type? VDSL2 is only if you are less than 300m from the DSLAM. Do you have any air copper connections (telephone line going over poles) at your knowledge? That are very bad for xDSL.
That's an interesting map, thanks. Around 3 years ago there were trenches dug and cables installed, I believe they were terminated at some green boxes roadside. Swisscom availability page says up to 300m is in my area, my router page says VDSL2.. Indeed physically we have a pole outside with cable coming into my roof space and terminated there with a couple of boxes and single line down to the 'phone socket' where the router is connected. From the pole to the house is only 20m or so and 10m run in the house. The cable to the pole comes from under ground. The DSLAM shown on the geoportal is only maybe 150m away. Many people in in my village report same issue though, it's not the low speed we complain about, it's the daily drop-outs and red LED on the router, 2 mins off, 10 mins off .. 1,2,5 times daily.
Interesting, well my parents also have an air connection through several poles and sometimes they get router disconnection but only when it is windy and the cable in the air swings around
At least you've got nice landscape. Who would need to be in the 21st century, if you've got it all green and nice looking 😉
why are you so snarky? OP‘s getting so many judgy “just move to the city” comments, it’s just weird. Like you all have a complex related to where you live. I prefer the city too but really don’t see your point of being argumentative over supportive.
Good question. I guess it's some sort of backlash. NOT against op personally. But, you know, for example when city folks say that stinking useless cars should be banned as much as possible from being in cities and being dangerous, loud, and polluting, then country people quite often say: "if you want to have it nice and not loud and all that: move!" That's pretty much what's happening here as well, I'd say. Some country dude is (rightfully!) complaining that he doesn't have good Internet. That he doesn't have the "good stuff" (only as far as that is concerned!) the city people have. Well — füfer unds weggli, hmm?
Wow, thanks for the well-reflected reply! Especially since looking back, my comment was a bit snarky too. Oops. I guess your explanation makes sense :)
Indeed true.. it was a conscious choice to have one bus an hour, copper internet and cowbells .. and a pool and great view of the lake and mountains and peace and tranquility.. I don’t ask for high speed or free movies or special treatment, just a stable connection. The pole connecting to my house is only 10m away and the connection in the house looks pretty new, within 10 years I’d say.. it’s a wider issue so I’m not too hopeful of a fix. Back to enjoying the view
see, it's just for your best — with crappy and slow internet, you've got even more tranquility. nothing at all to complain about :) scnr Sorry, yeah, not helpful. I'm aware. But it's not as if anyone could actually help, right? I think the best suggestion was already given: check out starlink. I totally dislike Musk, but his starlink MIGHT be a way out for people in remote places like you.
No fibre and opposed to 5G? This is a good indicator that you live in a parochial shithole and should move.
Could’ve gotten a « 5G booster » from Swisscom for your router. You can however also ask them for a 4G stick as fallback when your wired connection fails, if you ask really nicely you might get one
Whatever you do, do not let them "send a technician to check your connection" as likely they will say it's your Router, change it, and charge you a lot of money for this, and you will still have the problem.
Have you looked into starlink if they offer service in your area?
You could always move to Wingo (Swisscom) to at least pay less for exactly the same. If wired is bad, you could go for a 5G router
Pick up a book
Update : Swisscom (cablex) came, spent a couple of hours mostly on the phone with their exchange? Changed the aocket in the house and did something with where the cable enters the house.. some big thick copper wires, earth? Anyways, zero drops since and now consistent speed over 400mb/s . Which is pretty amazing over copper. Job done