UPC Cablecom - History

History

In the 1930s the first cable network operators started to broadcast a variety of Radio channels to households via cable. One of these cable network operators was Rediffusion S.A., established in 1931, which disseminated radio programmes per wire broadcasting. At the end of the 1950s Rediffusion began to broadcast the first black/white television channels from the Üetliberg antenna tower in Zürich. In 1994 Rediffusion and other independent cable network companies merged to form Cablecom, owned by Siemens, VEBA and Swisscom.

Cablecom acquired the successful Internet service provider SwissOnline in 1998. Over the following years the cable network operator grew by acquiring various cable network companies including, for instance Balcab and Sitel. These takeovers allowed cablecom to extend its network throughout Switzerland. In 2000 the previous owners of Cablecom sold out to the British-American NTL for a price of 5.8 billion Swiss francs. In the years that followed, operative business was sustainably improved. In the wake of financial difficulties NTL sold Cablecom to a group of banks and private investors in 2003.

The owners planned to go public with Cablecom in the middle of October 2005. After Liberty Global Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Global acquired Cablecom for 2.8 billion on 30 September 2005, the planned IPO was withdrawn. In the years that followed Cablecom invested in its network development. In 2007 the company launched high definition television (HDTV). Two years later cablecom introduced its first combination deals (all-in-one packages with Internet, telephony and television).

In 2010 Cablecom launched the DigiCard enabling customers to enjoy digital TV without having to connect an additional device to their Television set. Cablecom has began offering Video on Demand with HD and 3D content in early 2011.

Cablecom was relaunched as upc cablecom in April 2011 with the slogan “More Power, More Joy”. With the upc cablecom brand the company wishes to be perceived on the market as a subsidiary of Liberty Global while retaining its legacy as part of Swiss telecommunications history. In the course of rebranding the red wrench was replaced by a new logo. In June upc cablecom signed an agreement with Orange to keep an option open of offering customers mobile telephony products in the future.

At the beginning of 2013 the entertainment platform Horizon was launched onto the Swiss market. Manufactured by Samsung Electronics, the platform is based on an Intel Atom CE CPU, operating six tuners and a cable modem, allowing customers to record up to four channels simultaneously and combining TV, Internet and fixed-line telephony in one single set-top box.