---
title: "SCION: The Emperor's New Internet?"
category: "Investigation"
subtitle: "After 16 years and millions in funding, Switzerland's \"revolutionary\" internet architecture still requires the same expensive private infrastructure it promised to replace."
source: "Analysis based on IETF documentation, official SCION specs, and ISP deployment data"
---

SCION (Scalability, Control, and Isolation on Next-generation Networks) represents peak Swiss tech nationalism — a "clean-slate" internet architecture from ETH Zurich that's been in development since 2009. The promise was revolutionary: path-aware networking that would give enterprises unprecedented control over their data's journey across the internet, with security properties that would make BGP hijacking and DDoS attacks things of the past.

The Swiss Secure Finance Network (SSFN), connecting over 300 financial institutions, is held up as proof that SCION has moved from academic theory to production reality. Swisscom, Sunrise, and SWITCH have all deployed SCION infrastructure. The SCION Association boasts of a "BGP-free" future.

But a closer look at the actual deployment architecture reveals an uncomfortable truth that the marketing materials carefully obscure. When you dig into the IETF documentation and the technical specifications, you find a revealing admission about what SCION actually requires to deliver on its security promises...

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    <h2>Continue Reading</h2>
    <p>Discover what the SCION marketing doesn't tell you:</p>
    <ul class="teaser-list">
      <li>Why production SCION can't run over public internet</li>
      <li>The "dedicated infrastructure" requirement hidden in plain sight</li>
      <li>How SSFN replaced MPLS with... more private links</li>
      <li>SCION's missing encryption layer vs SD-WAN</li>
      <li>SRv6: The IETF standard that makes SCION redundant</li>
      <li>Axpo Systems: Sells SCION, deploys SRv6 for ASTRA highways</li>
    </ul>
    <a href="/articles/scion-vs-sdwan/" class="cta-button">Read Full Analysis</a>
    <span class="free-label">No paywall. No subscription. Just facts.</span>
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