Low price being the main priority in our case. Or should we pick two different companies: one for land line and another for Internet? Very confused.
Thanks in advance for any recommendations!
Brand new in Zurich area. Would really appreciate any advice on which Internet/phone provider to pick. Looked up on Comparis site for price comparison but it compares internet offers only. While, we're looking for Internet/Telephone combination.
You have 3 options: mobile, cable and landline.
Mobile Internet sucks for any more or less serious activity so this can be safely rules out. It's also the priciest.
Cable is the best for the Internet speeds, it is also fine for voice calls. It's the cheapest but you may have to pay the cable line rental CHF 27.40/month if it's not covered by your Nebenkosten (this must be clarified in the contract).
Landline is the traditional gateway to the world. It's OK for both voice and data. You do have to pay the phone line rental CHF 25.35/month.
The main cable operator is UPC Cablecom ( www.upc-cablecom.ch ) while the main DSL providers are Swisscom ( www.swisscom.ch ) and Sunrise ( www.sunrise.ch ).
If you have a cable in your home, got with UPC, especially when the line rental is already covered by the rent. If you don't have a cable, you may try Sunrise as they're cheaper and always throw in some goodies for new clients. I was tempted by their offer, too, but they proved utterly incompetent. They couldn't provide the signal to me in more than a month and they threatened legal action when I said I can't wait any more. Swisscom signed me up in an instant and I got the signal the same day I placed an order.
Chances your phone line rental will NOT be covered by your rent - however basic cable television (ie only the basic old-style terrestrial channels from CH/Frnace/German/Austria and maybe one BBC) probably will be included in your Nebenkosten.
suggest you check what connections were in your home previously
We rented a place, was told there was a phone line there.
Signed up with Swisscom for phone line and internet. Told them there was a phone line there. From date of signing they gave us a date 2 weeks away.
When the day came we did not have connection in our flat. We had to get an electrician to do something to the connections in our block of 3 flats to put it to our flat, that was at our cost. Took him all of 5 to 10 minutes.
Wireless Router we had to buy, it is not usual for Wireless Router to be included in the contract in Switzerland.
It is worth looking at the various shops for what special offers are on a the moment in your area.
The dongle thingies are expensive would not recommend for your family.
We have both Swisscom & Orange dongles - handy for when we are between moves. There are pay per day, but each has a maximum usuage per month!
If you wish low low low price then
upc cablecom offer FREE internet with their basic cable subscription
You pay a one-off fee to set it up and get a cable modem and then it is free of charge
Of course, free internet means low bandwidth: I think it is about 0.5Mbps download speed.
This is not a phone/Internet/TV rental, this if the physical fibre cable that I'm talking about. It's never explicitly advertised on their site but is often included in the small print below. Just as with Swisscom, this is a fixed fee regardless of what options you use (or don't use to that matter).
OK, I come from a country where your basic monthly telephone subscription before calls is called "line rental", hence the confusion. Yes, most buildings will have the physical line installed, but as per a previous poster the sockets in the flat may not be ready to use. Your monthly subscription to use phone/Internet/TV is unlikely to be included in your rent with the exception of the basic cable offering
We are happy with Swisscom.
cable TV operators run coax cable, and NOT fiber optic cable, to each apartment. And they tend to charge a monthly fee for each connection.
Either to the landlord, or to the tenant. But the tenant eventually pays the monthly fee regardless...
In all the years I've been renting in Switzerland, I never came across sockets which weren't ready to use.
Hey, and welcome to CH :-)
I'm on UPC (the full pack at CHF 99.80 per month, yes, CHF 99.00 for the subscription, and CHF 0.80 some license fee) and find it really good value tbh.
I have lots of English speaking channels, a good mix of French, German and Italian (as well as all the other East European and middle Eastern ones I never watch), lots of HD, Free calls to all land-lines in Europe and The US/Canada (I guess others are included as well) and best of all, 100Mb/s internet (around 80Mb/s down and 8Mb/s up measured with ethernet cable directly in the modem).
I have never had any problems with UPC and when I had questions, I'd pop them a mail and got an answer back pretty quickly (in English). All communication is also in English, such as invoices, advertising new channels etc.
In contrast, I also had UPC in Dublin, Ireland and it sucked so much I swore never to use them again, and now 4 years later I'm on the Swiss UPC
I know that many hate UPC with a passion and prefer Swisscom for Internet, TV and phone, but I find them much more expensive, slower internet speeds and TV channels get pixellated when pressure on the copper lines. Other may have a different opinion
Just my 2 cents...
Let me clarify: in every place I've rented, the phone sockets have been ready for an analogue phone. But when I first came over and ISDN was the fastest internet connection you could get, that required Swisscom to come and upgrade *something*, ie the sockets were not ready for an ISDN phone just to be plugged in. And when we wanted to move to cable Internet, it required *something* to be done in the entire block to enable it. This was a while ago, I grant you.
Thanks so much for all the replies!! Based on your recommendations, will probably sign up with UPC. Just one more question: Does UPC have good reputation in Switzerland as far as client service is concerned? Did anyone have problems with them?
I have never used Swisscom internet nor phone. I instead use UPC Cablecom purely for internet ( got free Digital TV from them as well ).
As my flat has a socket for the POTS landline, I instead went for a virtual landline ( VOIP from Switzernet CHF9 a month ), one that I sometimes carry along with me where there is decent internet.
More on Switzernet here .
They have answered my questions in a timely manner but I have never had any problems with UPC Cablecom so don't know how they handle out-of-the-ordinary issues and I have been with them for over a year :-)
This said, I know that tit used to be brutal when it came to CS but as it is today it seems like it works top-notch.
I know they will quickly replace H/W that doesn't do the job correctly after the usual troubleshooting etc...
My personal experience with Cablecom is they offer a generally good and cheap service, however if anything out of the ordinary goes wrong they are utterly incompetent. To be fair, you can say that about most of the big digital providers. YMMV.
we have just switched from Swisscom to GGA Maur, phone, internet & TV
former one sucks at CS and stability, never reached the speed we were paying for. we paid for 20m/s on download, it only reached max. 8
If you're like us, who demand high speed internet to work all the time(& play games, streaming ), I would absolutely recommend GGA Maur. They now have the promotion of 1 month free test, if decide to continue the contract, 3 more months for free, so the first 4 months are free. I love high speed internet ! And I love that National Geography channel is included in the TV package
tho they currently have only German on the menus
speedtest result from a few weeks ago,
we're on the subscription for 30/30
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
So how much is this costing you per month?
I can't see a 30/30 subscription offer on the GGA Maur web site, can you please post a link to the offer page?
for now, 0.-. as we're still on the first trial months.. after 4 months, would be CHF 109.-/month .
we received some cute gifts from GGA Maur as we're one of their very first subscribers
under Kombiangebot --- ›Triplex
the link should be this..
http://www.gga-maur.com/index.php?id=876&start=zurich&client=private
for only internet would be under this page instead or only internet would be under this page instead