General

The postal system and the telephone, telegraph, radio, and television systems are government owned and operated. The telephone system is completely automatic, utilising 5.04 million telephone lines in 2006. There were an additional 7.42 million mobile cellular phones in use in 2006.

International communications, air navigation services and the new electronic media, including data transmission and electronic mail, are the province of Radio Suisse, a public corporation of which the Confederation holds 95%. Broadcasting is controlled by the Swiss Broadcasting Corp. (SBC), an autonomous corporation under federal supervision. In 1995, there were six SBC radio channels and three television channels. A number of independent local radio stations have been operating since 1983. Radio programs are broadcast in German, French, Italian and Romansh.

In 2000, there were about 1,002 radios and 548 television sets for every 1,000 people. The same year, there were about 500 personal computers in use for every 1,000 people with 44 internet service providers serving about 3.4 million people by 2001.

Overview

Telephones - main lines in use
5.04 million (2006)

Telephones - mobile cellular
7.418 million (2006)

Telephone system
general assessment: highly developed telecommunications infrastructure with excellent domestic and international services
domestic: ranked among leading countries for fixed-line teledensity and infrastructure; mobile-cellular subscribership roughly 100 per 100 persons; extensive cable and microwave radio relay networks
international: country code - 41; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean)

Radio broadcast stations
AM 4, FM 113 (plus many low-power stations), shortwave 2 (1998)

Television broadcast stations
115 (plus 1,919 repeaters) (1995)

Internet country code
.ch

Internet hosts
1.405 million (2007)

Internet users
4.36 million (2006)