For the last 10 years or so Sunrise was owned by Tele-Denmark (TDC) and altho they could never match Swisscom in terms of size, they were always a good choice for a budget operator with a "good network at a good price". Since TDC sold Sunrise in 2010 to CVC Partners (investment firm) the quality has noticeably gone down. Sunrise had always ranked #2 in the "Connect" test, but has now for the first time fell back to the 3rd spot, behind Swisscom and Orange. As a Sunrise subscriber, I have also noticed the drop in quality, coupled with an increase in prices, and opted to cancel my Sunrise abo this year.

Looking to the future, it was announced last week that Sunrise will outsource their whole network operations for the next 5 years to the Chinese company Huawei. No doubt alot of current Sunrise and Alcatel-Lucent employees (currently running the network) will unfortunately be forced out of work as jobs are moved to China.

In my view, it all kind of sad, because Sunrise was a company I used to like, and gave a good challenge to Swisscom. But the new direction they have taken since they left the control of TeleDenmark and into the hands of CVC Capital seems to be only for the worse

I was with Sunrise for 10+ years, became a customer when they first set up in CH. Having worked for Orange in the UK when it was a fresh-faced newcomer to the mobile phone market, I saw a lot of similarities. They had good customer service, were available out of hours and had good price models in what was the monopoly of Swisscom. And they offered their service in English!

Last year I switched to Swisscom, because I needed TV, but this year I finally ditched the mobile. Paying 100 CHF a month for only a few calls became too much to stomach.

They rip you off when you make calls outside their network and as for the international calls... ouch. Of course both fall outside of the "free minutes" offered.

Hard to bear when one lives in a border region and cross-border calls are common.

TDC itself was sold long before 2010 to a group of private investment companies under the name NTC; NTC is a partnership of private equity investment firms Apax Partners, the Blackstone Group LP, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Permira Advisers and Providence Equity Partners.

That's interesting, because Apax just bought Orange Switzerland last year.
Otherwise, NTC buying TDC didn't seem to have any noticeable effect on Sunrise. At least nothing I noticed. But the changes under CVC seem alot more drastic.

Huawei - that would be one of the biggest mobile network infrastructure companies in the world, so how is that a bad thing? rather then using a company just 'playing' at it (and failing)

you can't have a top notch network and bargain basement prices, especially when you have to pay out billions for the new 4g licenses, when you won't see any returns on that money for many years.

Also smart phones are killing everyone's network and sunrise only got the iphone after cvc bought them

Huawei is not a publicly traded company, as it's heavily backed by the Chinese government, which not only allows them to "compete" with prices, but is also cause for security concerns. None of the major telecoms in the US use Huawei equipment, and Australia just blocked them recently from their National Broadband Project:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news...dband-plan.ars


...but Sunrise did do that under TDC for 10 years...


That goes not only for Sunrise, but Swisscom and Orange as well. What's your point there?

Actually, it's "millions", not "billions", and Sunrise seemingly over-paid (so maybe CVC needs to recoup the money by buying cheap network infrastructure?)
http://www.adsl.ch/n/auktion-der-mobilfunkfrequenzen/

This is due to security reasons not technical competence. Technically Huawei gear is as good as the other providers so if it is quality you want this isn't a problem.

If you don't mind the Chinese gov't eavesdropping in return for cheap equipment, then I guess it's not a problem

India turned away Huawei for security concerns as well...

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/37603.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Security_concerns


I guess Huawei's equipment should be as good as any other they are copying from

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/21/m...or-stealing-w/
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=57888

this kind of thing cracks me up, having worked in telco's for many years I have to ask just what people think a gov would be listening to?? do you think they hire hundreds of thousands of people to sit there and listen to peoples mindless drivel?? sure they can target someone to listen to (law permitting) but they have always been able to do this.

seems this week is knock sunrise week regardless of the actual facts

If you're calling from Switz to any other country from landline to landline you should always use a specific number to the country you're calling before dialing the desired number. Check it out: http://www.budgettarife.ch
It makes a huge difference in your phone bill. I've used this service for years and pay close to nothing for my calls.

You should also look into yallo prepaid (cellphone provider) as their prices are pretty decent and amazingly cheap for international calls. I personally use their prepaid service. Here's a link with some info: https://www.yallo.ch/kp/ext/pdf/yall...ces0212_de.pdf

If the purpose is just for calling I haven't found any better. Hope this is somewhat helpful.

Of course nobody is interested in my or your calls, but if they have access to the phones of people in government, business leaders, bank officials, etc. I'm sure some interesting info could be gleaned. They wouldn't need to hire hundreds of thousands of people to listen to the calls, but if they did, they could just borrow some that are already monitoring the calls inside China


No facts? Three countries (US, Australia, India) have publicly said they have blocked Huawei from participating in network tenders due to security reasons. That has never happened before with any other network vendor to my knowledge.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...stry/?page=all

well. worse for you. not for CVC capital.

Private Equity owners are famous for squeezing every last drop of profits out of their assets. that's capitalism for you.

Maybe if politicians thought they were being listened too they might start telling the truth for a change. Too much drivel is classified secret these days in my humble opinion, but let's not derail the thread.

Huawei make good quality equipment at a good price, why shouldn't networks choose to use them?

What do you think GCHQ & Fort Meade do all day?

You are being listened to. They do not hire hordes of people to listen to your calls; it is all computerised based on key words, patterns of calls, etc.

Just do a google on data mining.....

Works well doesn't it? 9-11 and the london and the edinburgh bombers all coordinated via mobile and these automatic systems did a sterling job in intercepting them.

No system can listen to the billions of calls and texts in real time and do anything meaningful with it. If 'they' are listening to you 'they' already had a damn good reason to.

having worked on 'sensitive' gov projects I really have no fears at all about what they are doing, the old phrase of p**s up in a brewery springs to mind.

As something like this will never ever happen with other technology from other countries.

Ironically, Huawei's competitor cisco helped and is still helping Chinese government to build the GFW. The point is where the company is operating, not where is it from.

They are listening to you

How successfully is a different question

I guess Sunrise must have got a great deal on that Huawei gear, if the Chinese government paid for half of it

http://www.networkworld.com/news/201...ei-259667.html