Swisscom is launching an LTE pilot in seven tourism areas. The area around Davos is already connected, the operator said, with six other areas due to be be connected by the end of December.
The pilot is scheduled to end in mid-2012: pilot regions include Davos, Grindelwald, Gstaad, Leuk-les-Bains, Montana, Saas Fee and St-Moritz/Celerina. Customers will be able to test the network using a USB key for use on their laptops. From January 2012 some Swisscom shops will also be offering trails of the service. For now, Swisscom aims to establish the offerings to customers in the pilot project.
The operator said that the pilot should allow it to ensure optimal user experience for a fuller LTE launch in Switzerland, which will not come until after frequency reallocations have been made in Spring 2012.
When it does launch more widely, Swisscom said it would initially focus on heavily-used sites, with the exact procedure dependent on the frequency reallocation. In addition, Swisscom will continue to expand its existing mobile network to 42 Mbps HSPA network.