Wait, average internet speed in the US is 120 Mbits? About a gigabyte in 1 minute?
My bad, tried to do math before consuming coffee.
Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
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Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#12Yep... I returned yesterday from Germany and it is awful. I thought the UK (rural) was bad, but Germany takes the cake. There are even (expensive) hotels which still ask money for using their wifi. When you go to have only a meal at a hotel, they tell you internet is just for guests (we had this 5 times in 2 weeks). And driving around with 3g/4g you notice massive patches without data reception. I live in the mountains of Spain where I have cheap 4g and even cheaper 'radio' uplinks. They are enough to download gigs a day (not that I need that; I need stable, not a lot of bandwidth, but it's both). I was used to drive out of London a just a little bit and everything dropping, but Germany is even worse. And when it does work, it's slow.
Compared to Thailand (including in the middle of the forest), Romania and other random countries I have been, it is strange to see such a difference.
Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#13It’s not just the speed. The costs are depressing as well. A 50Mbps connection (DSL, because cable is not even available in this area) at my current location costs €40/month. 40! It’s mind-blowing.
Why do you consider that expensive? If it’s reliable, it sounds very reasonable to me. 1 dinner out.
It's all relative to what you can get in the market. It's very expensive compared to what is available in countries with good internet.
Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#14Come to Ukraine.
They have the cheapest internet, mobile plans and Uber in the world.
And likely the worst air, food and city structure quality.
There is always a choice.
Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#15I don't have faith in that chart. Average US internet speed is 120 mbps?! Do they mean advertised max speed? No way the average internet household speed is that fast. Maybe half. Maybe. I like to live away from town, but even when I could get FiOS, the normal package was 50 mbps. I happen to have 400 mbps now (which flies in the face of my argument, I know).
EDIT: oh, I see. They are charting megabits not megabytes. That is more in line with what I would have thought.
So Germany averages 10mbps?! That is terrible.
Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#16> But Deutsche Telekom, Germany’s dominant operator, took a less costly route in 2012, upgrading its existing copper network through a technology called vectoring.
The article keeps mentioning this company repeatedly. Is Deutsche Telekom really the only game in town across the whole country?
I thought Canada’s oligopoly was bad, but one company for a much bigger country sounds like the perfect recipe for this type of thing.
Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#17It’s not just the speed. The costs are depressing as well. A 50Mbps connection (DSL, because cable is not even available in this area) at my current location costs €40/month. 40! It’s mind-blowing.
Why do you consider that expensive? If it’s reliable, it sounds very reasonable to me. 1 dinner out.
I pay about that for ‘10 Gbps’ in CH. I don't even have a machine with a 10 Gbps port, but there isn't anything cheaper here that makes sense.
Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#18I live in Central Berlin and the issue is present here as well. I had to choose the Telekom, one of the most expensive providers, because they intentionally blocked requests from other providers to service me with internet in my apartment.
Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#19Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet
#20Just a bit more background from Germany:
This article largely focusses on broadband connections. It doesn't even begin to adress the even bigger issue, which is that mobile internet is extremely bad compared to most other european countries.
Also interesting that even the reporter fell for one of the lamest excuses: "Among them are the country’s large geographic area". Northern neighbor Sweden, which happens to be one of the countries with fiber connections even in very rural areas, is larger and much less densely populated.