An Internet service provider that keeps reinventing itself

The Internet Service Provider (ISP) iWay turns 25. Matthias Oswald and Markus Vetterli founded their own company in 1995. They recognized the potential of the World Wide Web early on and wanted to help shape the new era and, as a first step, develop websites for companies.

Internet service provider with 24000 customers

Meanwhile, the range of services expanded very quickly, as just one year after the company was founded, they landed the first major contract for Newtelco (later Sunrise) to set up the Internet backbone. Important milestones were the purchase of Dolphins Network Systems' provider business in 2004 and the acquisition of Easynet's residential DSL customers in 2008. Finally, in 2017, the company was sold to St. Gallisch-Appenzellische Kraftwerke (SAK). "The partners have always made a significant contribution to our success," says iWay Managing Director Matthias Oswald. In the meantime, indirect sales account for more than half of total sales (29.2 million Swiss francs in 2019). Today, more than 50 employees manage services from the areas of Internet access (fiber optics and DSL), TV, telephony, hosting, cloud, domains and data centers for more than 24,000 customers throughout Switzerland. Oswald and Vetterli will celebrate the 25th anniversary together with all employees at a big employee party on September 10, 2020.

Still a pioneer today

In the last five years, growth has been dominated by business with fiber-optic networks. With the start of marketing the fiber-optic network offerings of various city networks, such as those of Bern (ewb) and Zurich (ewz), iWay was able to strengthen its name as an Internet service provider and raise its profile. Readers of the business magazine Bilanz have already voted iWay the best provider in various categories in the annual Telekom Rating. Today, iWay is still one of the pioneers of the Internet, having expanded its offering with bandwidths of up to 10 Gbit/s just in time for its 25th anniversary. iWay is thus the first of the independent Swiss ISPs to offer the latest generation of Internet technology with the best possible bandwidth throughout Switzerland.

Freedom of choice for customers

25 years after its founding, iWay continues to differentiate itself from its market competitors out of conviction: "We want to convey our joy in technology to customers and partners - with high-quality products that are based on the latest generation of technologies and can be individually adapted to customers' needs," says Oswald. This is also evident in the super-fast Internet subscription: Unlike the bundled subscriptions offered by many other providers, the 10 Gbit/s subscription can be combined with all services (telephony, TV, etc.) in a modular fashion, just like all iWay services. "We believe that our customers should be free to put together their subscription with the speed that suits them," says Oswald, summing up the company's philosophy 25 years after its founding.

Source: iWay AG