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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

#91

Post by sgt101 »

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…

ok 1Mb down and 10 up means that there is a high speed line - probably capable of 80Mb down which has a problem - my guess would be a shunt or interference (REIN). The provider should know this and should be able to locate and fix. But this is an service issue, not a delivery issue.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#92

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

Which germans? All of them? The rural "Landeier"? The suburbians? The failed capital Berlin? In my personal experience they are mostly too lazy or anxious to switch because of FUD, and/or stingy. The situation is complicated because in most places the so called last mile is in the hands of the former state monopolist, which now is playing a joint-stock company, while the state holds about one third of shares directly and indirectly via the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KfW Then there are the tv-cable companies and the really complicated "Netzebene 4", the last mile equivalent for anything Docsis in .de Complicated because of ownership, and non-sharing. This all feels really backwards, and IT IS! Nonetheless i got away from the Deutsche Telokom ASAP when i had the chance. A few anecdotes... Lived in a not so large town about 199x. Got ISDN and payed them insane amounts of money for dual-channel (128Kb/s). Flatrate? Not existent. Moved to a smaller town some years later, first DSL available, but not in my part of smalltown. Too far away from the exchange. Well, there was another option from Versatal. ISDN Flatrate(which Telekom didn't even offer!) for 40 or 50 DM a month. Most people didn't even knew, or didn't dare, because the company had some mishaps(years) before. I didn't care and had an excellent experience for the time, one could see the way the packets went via traceroute, which was very different from the way the telekom routed. Of course! Different company, different network. Anyways, blazingly fast(for ISDN). The € came, DSL didn't. I moved to Hamburg and had the option to choose DSL from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HanseNet Again, excellent service, the speeds went slowly up without getting more expensive! Then they've been bought by Telecom Italia and it was renamed Alice. Didn't matter, speeds went up further without getting more expensive(€29,90 flat with landline flat to other german landlines) Some years later Telekom Italia sold Alice/former Hansenet to spanish Telefonica, which is branded O² in .de That was a sad story because one could see how a good company with a good product went bad. Slower speeds, crappy routing/peering, disconnects, changing dsl-standards without announcing them, or sending a modem capable of handling that. One hand not knowing what the other does. What to do? https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm.tel to the rescue! Another local provider born out of a public utility, very progressive since its beginnings, best thing i ever had. I even got more instead of the announced up to. Fibre to the basement and some VDSL with 100/31 for the usual €29,90 flat with landline to german landlines phone flat included. Excellent peering, latencies, whatever. Which will be upgraded to fiber to the home until end of the year, begin next year with gigabit, which i don't really need. Anyways, this is not the only provider apart from the big, mostly crappy ones, or resellers of them. There are https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetCologne https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-net https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/EWE_TEL https://www.dokom21.de/ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetAachen These were the ones i remembered, i'm sure there are more. Then there is this comparison site https://www.onlinekosten.de/dsl/provider/ And to be honest, if you are a business, ask COLT, Zayo, BT, KPN, or something like that? So, that was the wired side of things. Mobile is more expensive and patchy. Depends on region, again. Shit happens. Maybe waiting for Starlink? Though i don't believe in that because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photonic-crystal_fiber

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#93

Post by sc11 »

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…

> Even very close to big cities like Frankfurt, having an uninterrupted phone call is a difficult thing to have.

The German Minister for Economic Affairs has stopped taking calls with foreign colleagues during car trips because he was too embarassed by the constant interruptions...

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#94

Post by alkonaut »

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.

National backbone level internet should be large government infrastructure projects. It’s like roads and railways. Competition works on the roads, but works poorly for constructing them. Infrastructure within cities and to premises can work though.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#95

Post by MakeUsersWant »

lonesword wrote: post #43
ofrzeta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can assure you that trains are as bad as Internet.

And I can assure you that the trains are much much better than in other parts of the world (eg: India). In India, trains running on time are an exception, not the rule. At least all the German trains that I've been on were on time to the very minute.

In Cologne, I have never seen light rail arrive on time, and I've used it daily for two years.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#96

Post by sgt101 »

krzyk wrote: post #85
duxup wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure if you are serious, but if you are can I suggest that you don't go into the park unless you know what you are doing?

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#97

Post by close04 »

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 a while in Germany I was paying 30€/month for 10Mbps. Meanwhile other EU countries gave you 1Gbps for ~10€/month. Germany is definitely at the lower end of internet infrastructure.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#98

Post by penagwin »

gingabriska wrote: post #62
foepys wrote: post #3

It's really expensive for companies, too. The company I work for (small to medium sized) has a 34/34 Mbit/s fiber connection and it costs us 600€ per month. Included are 8 IPv4 addresses and an 8h response time (which has never been met and when we sued after a week of non-working internet, we lost in court). It's just ridiculous how expensive it is for businesses. We simply cannot afford a 100/100 MBit/s connection…

When I worked for Audi in Germany, they had 1Gpbs internet. Maybe German government wants everyone to work for big German companies instead of small ones.

I mean it's Audi I'm sure they can afford higher speeds.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#100

Post by amarshall »

krzyk wrote: post #85
duxup wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s a reason it’s called wilderness. One should have basic orienteering skills if they venture away from the popular, touristy locations. If things really do go awry, bring (and use) an EPIRB.

I would never rely on a cellular phone for safety in the wilderness. Cellular service and geolocation was never be 100% reliable, and batteries die. A paper map, a compass, basic skills, and knowledge of one’s limits go a long way.

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