The Federal Administrative Court (FAC) has upheld Swisscom’s appeal in its dispute with the Competition Commission (COMCO) over the construction of its fibre-optic network. It overturns the competition authority’s decision, including the 18 million franc fine imposed in December 2023. The operator made the ruling public on 13 October 2026; swissinfo.ch, drawing on a Keystone-SDA dispatch, reported it the following day.

A dispute that began in 2020

The disagreement concerns the network’s architecture. In 2020, Swisscom introduced a so-called point-to-multipoint (P2MP) topology for its fibre expansion: a feeder line is laid up to the cable chamber in the street, where the signal is then distributed among households. The consequence, as swissinfo.ch points out: with this system, competitors can no longer rent end-to-end lines.

In December 2020, COMCO opened an investigation into this architecture. At the same time, it ordered precautionary measures that largely prohibited the activation of new P2MP connections, which slowed the rollout as Swisscom had designed it. In December 2023, the commission concluded that the operator had abused its dominant position and imposed the 18 million franc fine. Swisscom appealed against this decision to the FAC.

No dominant position in the market as defined

The court’s reasoning focuses first on the market. According to the FAC, Swisscom does not hold a dominant position in the market as COMCO defined it. Yet abusing a dominant position presupposes holding one: without it, the company cannot have breached the Cartel Act. COMCO therefore wrongly found a violation of competition law, swissinfo.ch summarises.

The FAC draws two conclusions from this, according to Swisscom’s press release: the P2MP architecture initially implemented does not breach competition law, and the conditions required for the measures imposed by COMCO are not met.

Two readings of the same network

The case pits two assessments of the same infrastructure against each other. For Swisscom, the P2MP topology, now validated by the FAC, is “a future-proof solution”: it would enable fast and cost-effective rollout of fibre-optic connections throughout Switzerland. The operator adds that this architecture predominates in most European countries for the rollout of FTTH, fibre to the home. This is the company’s own line of argument, and it notes itself that its competitors may define the markets differently.

In 2023, COMCO had on the contrary concluded that Swisscom had abused its dominant position. The sources consulted do not report any reaction from COMCO or from other operators to the FAC ruling.

A ruling that is not yet final

The judgment can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court, as both sources point out. They do not indicate whether COMCO intends to take the case to the high court. The dispute could therefore still see a further chapter.

On the ground, nothing changes for now. Regardless of the FAC decision, Swisscom says it is continuing to expand its network, and new connections are for the time being being built using the point-to-point (P2P) architecture required by COMCO’s decision. The operator says it intends to examine the ruling in detail and analyse its possible implications for the further rollout. It does not specify whether it plans to return to the P2MP topology, nor within what timeframe.

What it means for the accounts, households and competition

On the financial side, Swisscom states that its outlook for the 2026 financial year remains unchanged. The overturning of the 18 million franc fine therefore does not lead the company to revise its forecasts, which is a projection by management rather than a recorded result.

For households and businesses, what is at stake is less the amount of the fine than the way fibre reaches them. Swisscom says it wants to connect as many households and businesses as possible and presents modern digital infrastructure as a prerequisite for the country’s competitiveness and capacity for innovation. For competing operators, the question remains one of access to lines: a possible return to P2MP would once again deprive them of the ability to rent end-to-end lines. As long as the ruling is not final and Swisscom has not announced its technical choices, the balance between rollout speed and opening the network to competition remains an open question.

Sources