Switzerland is the latest country for which I have bought a local SIM card for prepaid 3G Internet access while traveling there. Getting the SIM was quick and I was online in less than 5 minutes.
Zurich airport seems to also be a big shopping mall these days and all mobile network operators have a store there. Swisscom has an offer for prepaid 3G Internet access, which, even if it was unintended, is especially interesting for travelers. With the introduction of the iPhone by Swisscom, they also launched a new prepaid tariff which caps Internet charges at 5 Swiss Francs a day. While that is quite a bit if you use it every day, it looks like an acceptable price for occasional use, at least to me. The SIM card is also available separately and can be used with any other device as well.
So after getting into the store, it took only about 5 minutes to get the prepaid SIM. The shop assistant was aware of the Internet tariff and actually what it could be used for. Congrats, I am not quite used to that. Many shop assistants have no clue and will even give out false information such as "it will only work with our phones"…
Their provisioning system is also quick, the SIM card was activated instantly and the tariff option also worked right away. That's how it should be and not like in other countries where activation of an option takes half a day. Kudos to Swisscom, I had a very good customer experience.
Here's a link to the prepaid 3G Internet access Wiki with more details of how to configure your 3G device for the SIM card. Enjoy!