Hi all,

So after 12 months of searching we have finally managed to secure a new apartment in Geneva, yay. The excitement has been dulled a little today as I began to look at organising our internet and tv at the new place. First choice cablecom don't have services at our address, very dissapointing. So looking at Swisscom I did the same search, no services at our address, hmm. This caused me to go to swisscable.ch, the cable company association of CH, and did a search of our address - no cable network provider could be found!!

Is this possible? Can there really be no cable services to this buidling/area? I'm beginning to see a future of only DSL internet access and peak speeds of 4,000kb/s... please tell me this is not true.

Have you talked to your new neighbours? Sounds odd for a apartment building in GVA.

Ask at the architect's office, they will know the situation.

Newly build house? Maybe FTTH.

There is alot of FTTH build-out going on right now in Geneva, not just to new buildings. Check with your new neighbors what they are connected with, or if they heard of any plans to bring FTTH into the neighborhood.

I think SIG and Group E, as well as Swisscom are the big FTTH providers around Geneva, but check for others.

You can check Group E availablity on their website:

http://www.groupe-e.ch/de/fuer-mich-verfuegbar

Here's some info on SIG / MyGate:

http://www.sigfibreoptique.ch/

Haven't met any of the neighbours yet, we don't actually get the keys for another couple of weeks, but asking them or the regie is probably the first step before going to a provider.

Building is not that old comparitively, I would say 1990's, but it looks like FTTH might be an option. According to esto's links the SIG page led me to a provider called MyGate who provides FTTH in our building - 50mb/s download and 200 channel tv for 110chf per month (200chf installation and activation charge but).

At least its a starting point for the conversation...

If you do end up with ADSL, then you'll be pleased to know that most places can now get ADSL2+ which typically gives speeds of 10 - 20 Mbps...

Some building owners decide that they don't want a cable TV connection.... sad but true. And the tenants suffer. Call the landlord and ask him what the story is...

If you have fiber access in your building, then you should be able to have access to any FTTH service provider in the area, as the fiber laid by SIG is "Open Access". But I don't know how many other FTTH service providers are operating just yet. Maybe not many now, but in a year or 2 you'll probably have alot of choices. So don't lock into any deal for more than 1 year.

Why would building owners refuse? Is there any cost on their side? Generally speaking, having cable/fiber access in the building makes it more attractive to renters, which in turn makes it an asset for the building owner.

Most cable companies charge a fee to connect a building to the network

Some building owners decide they either don't want to pay, or don't want the service, and thus they never get their building connected.

Personally, I agree with you. A cable connection is an asset for the building. But not everyone has that view.

This is probably to the sound of flapping barn doors....but....internet and TV access is about the first thing I would check when considering an apartment.

Cheers,
Nick

I think after 12 months of looking (sadly on the low end of average time in Geneva housing market) it becomes a "take what you can get" situation.

Thats the thing about EF, it special because everyone is so encouraging

That about sums it up, yes DSL will be a bummer, but everything else about the new apartment beats the serviced accomodation we are coming from!


While on a recce of the new building yesterday managed to ask a tennent what the situation is in regards to cable. My French is pretty bad and it was just a passing conversation in the elevator, but it seems that there is a 'telereseau' component to the charges and some sort of cable t.v supplied to the building, but I wasn't sure if this was just the standard TV or actual "cable TV". She also mentioned she has internet through Swisscom.

So I don't know, going to the regie this week to sign the contract and hopefully get some more info there.

If nothing else is available, you may have some success with mobile broadband.

I've had good luck with the Sunrise Mobile dayflat (1 franc per day, charged only on days that you use it) and an unlocked 3G modem. I think it's around 3-7 Mbps, which isn't half bad.

They would probably object if you're downloading hundreds of gigabytes a month on it, but there's no fixed monthly or daily limit (unlike Swisscom which downgrades you to 64kbps once you exceed 2GB/month).

We have Cablecom, but when I checked on their website and entered our address they said that they had no service at our address. Now, we are a new build, so that was probably the reason, but relying on the online service determining the service provider is not always 100% accurate.