green.ch turns 20 - science communications GmbH

Press Release
Anniversary of an internet pioneer – green.ch turns 20
The ICT service provider green.ch is celebrating its 20-year anniversary. In the early days of the
internet boom, the provider caused a sensation with its "surfing subscription at local rates".
The company also took on a pioneering role with respect to the construction of large data
centres. In its anniversary year, green.ch is going back to its roots and presenting new offers
for low-cost surfing.
rd
Brugg, 23 April 2015. – The provider green.ch is currently celebrating its 20-year anniversary. In April
1995, the Information Technology department of the Swiss Farmers’ Union began to offer internet
services under the name agri.ch. The company was thereby one of the first providers in Switzerland to
target private individuals. The most well-known offer – internet access at local rates throughout
Switzerland – was unique in its day. No other provider had such a dense network of dial-in nodes or
could offer a comparable low-cost service. green.ch therefore played a part in bringing the internet to
the wider public in Switzerland.
A few years later, green.ch once again took on a pioneering role. As early as 2008, the company
identified the increasing demand for data centre space, and in 2011 it opened its fourth data centre in
Lupfig, which has subsequently won a number of awards. It was the first purpose-built, commercial
data centre in Switzerland. At the Swiss ICT Awards 2012, green.ch won a public award for this centre
and, in 2013, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (FOE) awarded the company a Watt d’Or for the
facility's exemplary levels of energy efficiency.
A meeting of internet pioneers
On the occasion of the 20-year anniversary, CEO Franz Grüter, who merged his company "TIC The
Internet Company" with green.ch in 2008, met with Guido Honegger, co-founder and, from 2001 to
2008, owner of green.ch, to share ideas and experiences.
Guido Honegger gave an account of the early days. "We used to just get on with things and didn't
draw up so many concepts. It was an exciting time." The two internet pioneers who have played a
significant part in shaping green.ch over the past twenty years are proud of what has been achieved –
green.ch has developed from the former start-up into an established ICT company.
The future
By investing in its own data centre infrastructure, green.ch has made significant steps forwards over
the last four years, especially in connection with the corporate customer business. The data centre
space and the growing portfolio of cloud services are important sales sources today. green.ch will
continue to focus on these two branches of business in the future as well.
However, the private customer business will remain an important sales area. In its anniversary year,
the provider from Aargau will present new internet offers – in keeping with its very first slogan "all
internet". "We want to launch a simple and low-cost offer for private users – as we did in 1995," said
Franz Grüter, explaining the aim of the planned services. Detailed information on the new offers will be
available in a few weeks.
About the green.ch Group
The green.ch Group comprises the two companies green.ch and Green Datacenter AG. green.ch provides private
and business customers with high-quality internet connections, hosted, cloud and multimedia services and data
backup solutions. Green Datacenter AG provides data centre services for medium-sized and large companies in
Switzerland, Europe and the rest of the world. In Lupfig, in the canton of Aargau, the concern operates
greenDatacenter Zurich West, which is the largest commercial data centre in Switzerland to be built in
accordance with the tier IV standard. The company offers colocation services and also leases out data centre
space, including emergency workstations. In 2015, the company is celebrating its 20-year anniversary and today
it looks after the needs of 100,000 customers. green.ch and Green Datacenter AG are part of the Altice Group.
Further information is available at www.green.ch or www.greendatacenter.ch
Contact
Agency contact
green.ch AG
Susanne Felice-Tanner
Head of Corporate Communications
Badstrasse 50
CH-5200 Brugg
science communications GmbH
Eberhard Zangger
Agency owner
Sonnhaldenstrasse 14
CH-8032 Zurich
Tel.: +41 (0) 56 460 23 42
Fax: +41 (0) 56 460 23 00
susanne.felice@green.ch
www.green.ch
Tel.: +41 (0) 44 250 74 91
Fax: +41 (0) 44 250 74 99
e.zangger@science-communications.ch