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Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

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Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#81

Post by duxup »

throwitawayday wrote: post #68
geff82 wrote: post #61

I recently did vacation at the North Sea (land side, not the islands). It was heartbreaking. In many areas the iPhone showed "No Service", in most areas we had "Edge" connection with virtually no data throughput. Even when it showed "3G" I was mostly unable to use WhatsApp. And this is a region where people live! And let's not talk about the landline broadband.... our rented appartment had a meager 1MBit download spe…

Having recently visited the Yellowstone National Park, the situation you describe for the North Sea side of Germany applies but worse, the cell phone data connection being non-existent, and with the added issue that only one hotel offered wifi, and it was out of service for the entire duration of our visit.

I honestly would expect that at a national park.

To me that would be what a national park ... just is.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#82

Post by msbarnett »

crawdingle wrote: post #63
siddhant wrote: post #2

It’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.

110 CAD (~83 USD) for 7Mbps Down 0.5Mbps Up in Atlantic Canada.

That’s insane compared to elsewhere in Canada. $95 CAD for 150 Mbps up & down, unlimited data, here.

For $120 I could bump that up to 750 up & down.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#83

Post by Paul-ish »

rayiner wrote: post #45

Germany's internet is slow because it relies heavily on unbundling, implemented poorly: https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/f... . Telekom has little incentive to invest in upgrading its infrastructure because it has to lease it out to its competitors anyway. Contrasting Germany and the U.K. offers a really good illustration of how important it is to set incentives correctly. The U.K. also reli…

Is there a list of key incentives that keeps BT investing in its network?

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#85

Post by krzyk »

duxup wrote: post #81
throwitawayday wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having recently visited the Yellowstone National Park, the situation you describe for the North Sea side of Germany applies but worse, the cell phone data connection being non-existent, and with the added issue that only one hotel offered wifi, and it was out of service for the entire duration of our visit.

I honestly would expect that at a national park. To me that would be what a national park ... just is.

But this is the place where you might get lost and without cell service, you are really lost.

This is quite annoying in the US, that national parks or deserts have no cell service. The places that need it most (life and death situations) - this is basically a health service there.

In comparison to Europe the mobile density is quite sparse there.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#86

Post by newaccoutnas »

rayiner wrote: post #45

Germany's internet is slow because it relies heavily on unbundling, implemented poorly: https://www.telekom.com/en/media/media-information/archive/f... . Telekom has little incentive to invest in upgrading its infrastructure because it has to lease it out to its competitors anyway. Contrasting Germany and the U.K. offers a really good illustration of how important it is to set incentives correctly. The U.K. also reli…

I would not discount government 'incentives' to BT. Hundreds of millions have come the public purse for contracts that were supposedly put up for public tender. BT got about 95% of them.

edit: there are other issues in the UK, like fibre tax, that makes the situation even more difficult for competition.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#87

Post by lazyguy »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #71
nesadi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy thing I think is how expensive internet is, in whatever form, in Germany compared to the rest of Europe while simultaneously being so terrible.

It's far cheaper than the US. I get 6MB/s downloads for 15€/month. For mobile, there's a chart making the rounds on Twitter, and it seems to me Germany is very much in line with other countries. Of course it's more expensive than it is in poorer countries in eastern Europe, as everything is.

For mobile I have unlimited 4G LTE for $55 dollars a month, including talk/text/etc. The 'real' cap is 60GB were they 'review your account for violations of terms and services'.

Just did a speed test and it's 31Mbps download and 4Mbps upload, but it varies wildly by location. But it's consistently fast enough that I can share out over Wifi from my cell phone so I can do my work and while my girlfriend watches youtube videos when we are travelling or the internet is down.

For home internet.. once it got faster then my wifi I stopped really caring a whole lot. 176Mbps on my last test.

If you are travelling in the USA as long as you stick to the interstate system you pretty much get mobile data the entire way. IF you drift onto smaller highways then that is when things get very spotty outside of metropolitan areas.

Verizon tends to have the best coverage in the mid-west. If I was travelling a lot in the boonies I would get a second data-only account on Verizon's network just to increase my chances of always having internet.

Although nowadays that is less and less necessary as every hotel and most restaurants have wifi. Just look for a Mcdonalds and you can get internet most of the time.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#88

Post by StreamBright »

lonesword wrote: post #41

I recently moved to Germany. I used to work as a software dev in India before this. I was horrified to learn that (urban) India has way better internet than Germany. When it comes to mobile data it's even more depressing - back in India I used to get 1.5GB _daily_ 4G mobile data for 200 rupees (around 2.5 euros) a _month_. Even after adjusting for purchasing power, 2.5 euros a month for virtually unlimited mobile dat…

I also roam in Germany. I would like to point out that this. situation with speed depends on the city where you are at. Munich has much better coverage than Berlin for some reason. Pricing is the same obviously.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#89

Post by [deleted] »

segmondy wrote: post #64

It's not just Germany. Tons of places in the US have crappy internet connection. I'm average 2-3Mbps on really good days, on a bad day, I see below 1. On Comcast, $40 a month plan, suppose to be at least 10Mbps, it's not my modem. I was getting up to 15Mbps when I was paying $80 and suppose to get 50Mbps. It's oversubscribed or capped by Comcast. No competition, no other providers.

[deleted]

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#90

Post by StreamBright »

franczesko wrote: post #84

This is what economic protectionism (for which Germany is famous for) and lack of competition leads to - no investments in the infrastructure.

They do that with cars as well. I was shocked to figure out how bad some of their cars are compare to Asian or other European brands.
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