Sunrise, the largest private telecommunications provider in Switzerland, strives to be the most innovative and most customer-friendly telecom company in the country.
Sunrise covers the full range of telecommunications – the company provides award-winning mobile voice and data, landline voice, landline internet and IPTV (internet protocol television) services to residential customers, business customers and other carriers across Switzerland, through an integrated nationwide landline network and its Swiss mobile network.
The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Global, a world leader in converged broadband, video and mobile communications that provides over 85 million fixed and mobile connections to customers in various countries, readying its networks for 10 Gbps and beyond.
Connected Population
Mr Fabrizio Campanale, Sunrise’s Senior Director Entertainment & In-Home Connectivity, explained that the last two years have been transformative for the company – the merger between Sunrise and UPC Switzerland under the parent company created a strong entity bringing together the unique capabilities of both businesses.
Sunrise now offers the fastest and most reliable connections thanks to the widest and fastest 5G network combined with the best Internet in Switzerland. This results in genuine giga-speed coverage for over 90% of the households in the country as well as an award-winning wi-fi solution to guarantee the best connections, even at home.
Customers can also enjoy comprehensive and personalized TV entertainment including an extensive sport offering as well as numerous streaming apps such as Netflix, MySports, blueTV, Sky and more, all in one place. The easy-to-install, environmentally friendly and award-winning TV Box consisting of 85% recycled plastic and boasting very low energy consumption also impresses customers with its intuitive voice control feature.
“As part of the Liberty Global family and with the DNA of the two companies, Sunrise’s goal is to ensure that customers are getting the best connectivity service and the best entertainment at home and on the go,” said Mr Campanale.
He affirmed that the successful creation of a new combined entity has been a remarkable achievement: it was the largest merger of its kind in Switzerland’s recent history, completed smoothly and rapidly.
Dream Big. Do Big.
“What was astonishing was the incredible stamina and engagement from all teams throughout the company to make this move successful, to bootstrap a new company that has continued to provide, and even improved on, the service, without any interruption.”
The achievement was even more impressive in that it was accomplished during a global pandemic. “We were promising ourselves and the customers that we were going to bring the best of the two worlds. Meanwhile, we were in lockdown.”
“On the one side, we were fulfilling our commitment with the launch of a new proposition, new product portfolio and new features moving our customers toward the best platform, and on the other, there was this extreme demand from customers, locked at their homes, for reliable broadband. Keeping that promise, working only via videoconferencing, was a truly remarkable achievement. Quite in line with our company motto: Dream Big. Do Big.”
He reflected that the credit goes to the people of both companies who managed to get together easily and naturally to create the unified DNA of a new company. This was helped by the leadership teams and HR teams setting a clear roadmap on how to make sure that the two teams were aligning on the processes, systems and procedures while maintaining the focus on the customer experience.
“A superior customer experience is our obsession: we know the challenge of moving customers onto new platforms and for us a smooth customer journey is paramount. We feel the challenge and the responsibility of it, and we are committed to driving integration forward so that customers can benefit from an integrated product and service portfolio.”
Unique Proposition
The end-to-end integrated portfolio within a single entity is unique. “Nobody else can provide this fix and mobile offer on such a wide range of access networks: 5G, fibre, cable etc. It has always been ‘either or’ but now our customers can enjoy this fully integrated environment ecosystem. This, together with the advantage of a strong parent company, with the scale and resources for investment in innovation, makes Sunrise quite special.”
Sunrise has introduced better capabilities in terms of out-of-home and especially in-home connectivity (Wi-Fi, IoT etc.) and is investing in the latest innovations. “We are now investing more in digitisation and advanced telemetry. The reason is that a typical user household today has an average of 20-30 connected devices. All these devices pull from a home network, which now is becoming extremely complex,” noted Mr Campanale.
He explained that this complexity needs to be offloaded from customers’ shoulders, processing these technical parameters remotely and directly in the cloud, utilising artificial intelligence and machine learning to self-optimise the network, without requiring any action on the customer’s part. “We are investing, and we will keep investing in smart analytics methodologies with a view to further improving the in-home, Wi-Fi and entertainment customer experience.”
Sustainable Progress
While moving to more advanced technologies, sustainability continues to be fundamental, Mr Campanale acknowledged, saying that both Sunrise and Liberty Global are actively involved in ESG. “We share Liberty’s commitment to reaching zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.”
“Environmental considerations are reflected in our offering – we have recently launched a new set-top box, and a new modem fully made of recycled materials. In terms of software, we push for the lowest power consumption. The development is in line with progressing towards a circular economy: by 2023 Sunrise wants to deploy refurbished boxes.
He further affirmed that the company will strive to consistently drive innovation based on 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) and to set industry-wide standards. Sunrise will also promote strategic partnerships – in order to keep offering its customers unique benefits on a regular basis, an ecosystem that includes strategic partnerships and commitments is necessary.
Summarising the latest developments, Mr Campanale stated: “Bootstrapping this new company over the last two years has been incredible. Sunrise is a super-exciting company. Although ambitious and challenging, we are really committed to fulfilling the promise to become the fixed-mobile convergence nationwide champion.”
“We know we can offer the best, we are committed to excellence. It does not mean that we do not make mistakes. But that is in line with our motto – Dream big. Do big. If you do not try, if you do not take risks, you will never succeed. Bottom line: we work in an environment that offers opportunities, and we are fully committed and driven to provide the best ever telecommunications experience to our customers.”
