«The 2021/2022 winter season is in full swing. Thanks to the fastest 5G network from Sunrise UPC, even winter sports lovers in the mountain regions can now take advantage of super-fast mobile Internet connections. 5G is crucial to the digital transformation of ski resorts, for example to offer guests significant added value on their digital customer journey», says André Krause, CEO of Sunrise UPC.

The world's first standardized 5G network in a ski resort was put into operation in 2019 on Crap Sogn Gion (2,252 m above sea level) and has significantly advanced digitization in the LAAX winter sports region, according to Markus Wolf, CEO of the Weisse Arena Group in Laax: «The Inside LAAX app makes us a pioneer in the area of digital guest experiences. It enables us to continually offer our guests innovations and differentiate ourselves on the market, especially in conjunction with 5G. The halfpipe run videos also offer a good example of what is possible today thanks to 5G. Riders are thrilled to be able to analyze and improve their riding style based on the videos as well as share them with their communities.»

700 finisher videos at the LAAX OPEN

In LAAX, Sunrise UPC offers all freestylers in the minipipe and superpipe a video service via 5G. At the FIS Snowboard World Cup event LAAX OPEN, which took place from January 11 to 15, 2022, over 700 video clips were produced fully automatically for snow sports enthusiasts and made available to them within 3 minutes thanks to 5G.

Video: 5G experience at the LAAX Open 2022

«Fully-automated production based on 5G makes it possible to create a huge number of personal video clips in a very short time. Thanks to 5G, these videos can be produced and delivered in record time. With older mobile connections, this would have taken much longer. We were also able to significantly improve the experience by making the video available on the rider's smartphone right after the ride», says Andreas Herren, Head of Product and Co-owner of iRewind.

But 5G isn't just making an innovative guest experience possible at this winter sports resort. Sunrise UPC and LAAX are working together in a number of areas to create an immersive mountain experience - both on site and at home in your living room. With 4K live broadcasts, tourists from around the world can take part in festivals, sports events or other activities live via the INSIDE LAAX app. Video drones and a super-fast 5G connection (latency <20ms) make this possible. Thanks to 5G, users can also watch smooth 360° videos in 8K quality and admire the sights. Available soon: Use VR/AR ski glasses to fly down the LAAX slopes in your own living room. It will be possible to analyze the speed, route and distance and share live broadcasts with family members or other snow sports fans with the same glasses. All 5G applications designed in collaboration with LAAX, as well as other and future 5G applications for residential and business customers, can be experienced and tested in the 5G Joint Innovation Center run by Sunrise UPC.

Leading 5G network by Sunrise

The Sunrise UPC mobile network is the only mobile network in Switzerland to receive the highest rating of «OUTSTANDING» in the connect mobile network test six times in a row. The combination of its 5G coverage area and 5G data rates means that Sunrise UPC offers the fastest and largest 5G network in Switzerland (Issue 1/2022). Sunrise UPC is already providing over 1,000 cities/towns with high-speed 5G (up to 2 Gbit/s) and over 96% of the population with basic 5G (up to 1 Gbit/s). The latest coverage map with location and address information is available on the Sunrise web page. 

Press release (pdf)