As of May 22, 2018, Green.ch has implemented new rates for broadband, television and landline plans.
New bundled plans
Telecom service provider Green.ch offers three combo plans which include both internet and landline connections. The cheaper Internet Basic 2 plan costs 25 Swiss francs per month and includes a phone connection and a very slow broadband connection (2 Mbps for downloads and 0.2 Mbps for uploads). Its mid-range Internet Start 60 plan costs 49 francs per month and provides a phone connection and an Internet connection with up to 60 Mbps of bandwidth. At 5 francs more per month, the Internet Comfort 100 plan delivers up to 100 Mbps of bandwidth and a phone connection.
Green.ch also offers a bundled deal which combines Internet, landline and TV. For 69 francs per month, the Internet Plus TV 100 package delivers a landline phone connection, a broadband connection with up to 100 Mbps of bandwidth and a TV plan. The TV plan includes 230 TV channels (more than 80 of these are high definition), a 7-day time shifting function (for 50 of the channels), and a virtual video recorder with a 20-hour recording capacity.
…and new custom plans
In addition to the four bundled plans, green.ch also offers the Internet Flex Home customizable modular plan. Customers can choose a broadband connection with the desired bandwidth and add other services like a landline connection or a TV plan if they so choose. Sunrise launched a custom model some years ago, becoming the first telecom services provider in Switzerland to do so. Since then, other Swiss service providers have begun offering modular plans, with Swisscom launching its customizable offer around one year ago.
The modular system employed by Green.ch offers six different choices of broadband connections which range in speed between 25 Mbps and 1 Gbps, with corresponding prices ranging between 35 francs and 71 francs per month. Customers can add a basic landline connection at no extra cost. The greenTV Start and greenTV Comfort television plans can be added for an additional 12 francs or 18 francs respectively.
Customers using all Green.ch plans – both bundled packages and modular plans – can also add flat-fee plans for telephone calls. These flat-fee landline plans are not unlimited. They include between 500 and 3000 minutes of call time per month, depending on the plan.
How do these plans compare to other offers?
A comparison of the Green.ch plans with those offered by its competitors shows that Green.ch is significantly cheaper than the “big three” telecom service providers (Swisscom, Sunrise and UPC) which together dominate around 80 percent of the fixed line market.
The comparison also shows that the Salt offer is somewhat more attractive. However, the Salt offer is only available to households which have access to an optical fiber connection. Additionally, Salt’s customer service and application process have also received negative reviews from consumers.
Green.ch competes well against other affordable service providers – with its plans working out either slightly more expensive or slightly cheaper than its competitors’ depending on the use case. The rates charged by Green.ch are particularly competitive for customers who want a broadband connection and a landline plan which lets them make calls to landlines and mobile phones at a flat fee.
The TV plans offered by Green.ch are not exactly competitive. Many TV plans on the market deliver more power. “Why Green.ch would only include just 20 hours of recording capacity in its virtual recorder service at this point in time is difficult to understand,” according to Ralf Beyeler of moneyland.ch.
On a positive note, the Green.ch connections are available countrywide as they can be used via the existing copper phone line network wherever optical fiber networks are not available. That is not the case with services offered by many of its competitors. It is also noteworthy that consumers can get a 25 Mbps broadband connection anywhere in Switzerland for 35 francs per month. That makes it the cheapest connection with that amount of bandwidth available in locations that do not have access to optical fiber networks. Green.ch plans are also a good option for consumers looking for a cheap broadband connection but are not able to make use of cheap optical fiber plans.
More on this topic:
Broadband plan comparison
Landline plan comparison
TV plan comparison
