UPC Cablecom to up investment in broadband

Liberty Global’s UPC Cablecom has said it is investing over CHF250 million (€230 million) in extending its high-performance network to 250,000 additional premises in Austria and Switzerland over the next five years as part of its ‘Autostrada’ investment programme.

Liberty Global is supporting this initiative as part of its extensive new build investment programme. Around 50,000 homes are already set to be connected to its high-speed HFC network this year.

Currently, about ne third of Austrian households and approximately half of Swiss households are connected to UPC Cablecom’s own network.

The company plans to lay fibre in in areas that are not yet connected to its network, and also in new municipalities, districts and building developments. In addition to the expansion of its own network, the company is also focusing on strategic partnerships with municipalities and towns in addition to the acquisition of existing regional cable operators.

“Today, we can already provide Internet speeds of 500 Mbit/s everywhere in our footprint. With the next generation of glass fibre cable technology, Gigasphere, we will be able to provide Internet speeds of more than 1,000 Mbps – or 1 Gbps. We also want to offer our super-fast Internet to even more households in the future. And so we are embarking on the “Autostrada” investment programme,” says Eric Tveter, CEO of the Austria/Switzerland regional organisation of Liberty Global.

“Over the next five years, we will be committing over CHF250 million to this project and will significantly extend our data highway in Austria and in Switzerland. This investment will also make an important contribution to the development of the digital society.”

Tveter said that the network expansion programme would also enable UPC Cable “to better market products such as our 4G mobile service or expand Wi-Free, our Wi-Fi network”.