On 13 October 2026, Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court upheld Swisscom's appeal and overturned the Competition Commission (COMCO) decision of December 2023, including its CHF 18 million fine. The court found that Swisscom does not hold a dominant position in the market as COMCO defined it, and that the point-to-multipoint (P2MP) topology Swisscom chose for its fibre rollout neither infringed competition law nor met the conditions for the measures COMCO ordered. The judgment can still be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
The case for COMCO's concern
The regulator's worry was not frivolous. In its 5 October 2021 ruling on interim measures, the same court described the two designs plainly: P2MP is a single-fibre model with a tree structure, while point-to-point (P2P) is a four-fibre, star-shaped model that offers Layer 1 access, meaning rivals can reach the customer on their own equipment. At that stage the court said Swisscom's strategy had to be presumed to be unlawful conduct by a dominant undertaking. If a single national incumbent builds the only fibre line to a home and designs it so rivals cannot attach to it, competition in the retail market can disappear for a generation. That is a legitimate thing for a competition authority to worry about.
COMCO acted on that worry. It opened its investigation in December 2020, ordered precautionary measures, and in December 2023 found an abuse of dominance and fined Swisscom CHF 18 million. Swiss reporting puts the figure at CHF 18.4 million, so the exact sum differs by source.
What the court actually decided
The 2026 ruling is narrower than a general endorsement of Swisscom. According to Swisscom's announcement, the court did not accept the dominance finding on COMCO's market definition. Competition law punishes abuse only by a dominant firm. If the market is drawn too narrowly, a regulator can find dominance in what are really contestable local fibre areas, where cable operators, utilities and other fibre builders compete. Swisscom's own announcement describes the outcome, so readers should treat its framing as the company's view until the full judgment is read. WEKO, the German-language name for COMCO, said it would examine the judgment in depth and then decide whether to appeal, according to the AWP report carried by cash.ch on 14 October 2026.
The cost of the dispute has been real. The Federal Supreme Court's interim ruling of 29 November 2022 left the precautionary measures in place. In April 2024 Swisscom said it would return to P2P and warned that up to 10 percent fewer households could have fibre by 2030. That figure is Swisscom's own projection and we have not verified it independently. But the direction is plausible: a mandated, costlier network design slows rollout at the margin. After the ruling, Swisscom says new connections are still being installed in P2P for the time being, so the court win has not yet changed what is being built.
Why this favours sector regulation over case-by-case prosecution
A six-year investigation and litigation cycle, from December 2020 to October 2026, is a poor tool for setting network design rules. Infrastructure investors need to know the access terms before they pour concrete, not after a court has sorted out market definitions years later. An ex-post fine does not tell a builder whether the next trench should hold one fibre or four.
The pro-innovation reading is not that wholesale access is unimportant. Open access can lower retail prices and widen consumer choice. The point is that proportionate, forward-looking rules set by the sector regulator are more predictable than abuse-of-dominance cases. In Switzerland that role belongs to BAKOM, the Federal Office of Communications, and ComCom, the Federal Communications Commission. The court's ruling does not say whether they should require Layer 1 access, mandate P2P, or accept shared-fibre alternatives such as wholesale bitstream. It simply removes the competition-law route as the basis for the current obligations.
What regulators should do next
First, if COMCO appeals, the Federal Supreme Court should address market definition directly, because that is where this case turned. A clear answer helps every future fibre dispute.
Second, BAKOM and ComCom should publish a transparent evidence base on local fibre competition: where there is a single builder, where there are two or more, and what access remedies would cost per household. Remedies should apply where the evidence shows no competitive alternative, not nationwide by default.
Third, any access obligation should be technology-neutral where possible. Specifying a topology, as the COMCO order did, risks locking in one engineering choice. Setting outcomes, such as rivals' ability to reach end customers at cost-reflective prices, leaves room for cheaper designs.
Fourth, regulators should accept that legal certainty is itself a pro-investment measure. Swiss households want fast fibre at reasonable prices. Both goals are served by clear rules written before construction, not by fines handed down years after the network was designed.
Bottom line
The ruling is neither a licence for Swisscom nor a defeat for competition policy. It is a reminder that competition law is a blunt instrument for network architecture. Whether wholesale fibre access in Switzerland is mandated, and on what terms, is now a question for the telecom regulators and, possibly, one more round at the Federal Supreme Court. Until then, builders and rivals alike are working without a settled answer.