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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

#161

Post by groundlogic »

cc81 wrote: post #154
nisa wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a lot: In the 80ies in western germany the then responsible person at the ministry for postal issues (Postministerium) had family connections to a copper producer so everything was build with copper, besides at that time it was clear that there is no long-term future for the technology. After reunification most areas in eastern germany were rebuild using fibre-optic but the system was a technical failure, too e…

You had a similar spectrum auction with 5G recently and that got very expensive as well. That seems to be a problem in a lot of Europe and something the hardware providers like Ericsson complains about as that hinders the service providers ability to buy things from them because they spend so much money on the auction.

The difference between Sweden and Germany in terms of RF spectrum license auctions has typically been:

Sweden goes for "beauty auctions" - a balance between coverage and government revenue.

Germany goes for government revenue alone.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#162

Post by dredmorbius »

penagwin wrote: post #98
gingabriska wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It meters high only when tested.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#163

Post by dkersten »

ghaff wrote: post #127
sambal wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This expectation & comparison is part of why “Death Valley Germans” is such a meme.

For reference: http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun... It's quite the read. It's also recommended reading if you go to the US West and your expectations are mostly informed by tooling around the countryside of Western Europe (or the eastern US for that matter).

Oh wow, just read the first bit, intriguing. Thanks for posting!

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#164

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

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…

Are you aware of https://freenet-funk.de/ ? That's basically one GB per day for 99ct, no contract, only available per app, though no roaming, and no tethering, only for mobile devices, and using Telefonica/O². They got some bad press recently for kicking some users which overused it, and accusations of retroactively changing their terms of use. https://www.golem.de/news/funk-unlimited-freenet-kuendigt-ku... https://www.computerbase.de/2019-07/freenet-funk-datenverbra... https://www.computerbase.de/2019-07/freenet-funk-datenverbra... Anyways, maybe it fits your use case?

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#165

Post by luckydata »

terminalhealth wrote: post #158
sc11 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

They also have a "Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure" as if expertise in one domain would easily transfer to the other. The only commonality seems to be that things are being transported from A to B via some network, but it pretty much ends there.

I think the money comes from the same budget, and it's both cases infrastructure. At the end of the day you don't need that much expertise to allocate funds, it's more about politics.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#166

Post by brixon »

black_knight wrote: post #151
ayoisaiah wrote: post #99

Let me tell you about slow internet. In Ilorin, Nigeria, I can get 500kbps on good days. Most times, the speeds hover around 100kbps. I can hardly watch YouTube at anything more than 360p. Even that resolution buffers too much sometimes.

Not saying that slow Internet doesn’t suck – it does. But when I ever I am stuck on a slow network i download YouTube videos (the command line tool youtube-dl [0] also downloads a lot of other streaming sites). This trades some time for quality: You have to wait while downloading, but you can download whatever quality you have patience for. [0]: https://youtube-dl.org/

Also, use a scheduler to download this at night when you are a sleep or not at home.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#167

Post by filmor »

terminalhealth wrote: post #158
sc11 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

They also have a "Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure" as if expertise in one domain would easily transfer to the other. The only commonality seems to be that things are being transported from A to B via some network, but it pretty much ends there.

Oh, that's not really an issue, he shows very similar levels of incompetence in both areas.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#168

Post by pilsetnieks »

dkersten wrote: post #155
esrauch wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your friend falls down a gorge and is unresponsive it seems more than completely reasonable to phone for help.

How ever did people get by for thousands of years before cell phones existed?

The didn't. If you fell down into a crevice, you died. You could apply the same spurious argument to anything - how did people ever get by for thousands of years before antibiotics/vaccines/electricity/water purification existed? They didn't, they lived their nasty, brutish and short lives, and died.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#169

Post by pmjordan »

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #142
NewsAware wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about refugees??

Censored

Perhaps you'd like to explain how people driving through the country, or anyone else in fact, drives down ADSL speeds to single-digit or low tens of Mbit/s. Or indeed how population fluctuations of about 1-2% might cause cellular networks to develop dark patches or to regress from LTE to 3G or EDGE.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#170

Post by ghaff »

cc81 wrote: post #157
ghaff wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please. If your attitude is that if you get in some kind of trouble, you can just use your cell phone and have someone come get you, you should just stay out of wilderness areas. You're endangering yourself which I wouldn't care that much about but you're also potentially endangering any search and rescue teams that have to come looking for you. As for the lost scenario specifically. I don't know. Maybe carry a (pape…

There are options these days like the inReach that I would recommend for hikers that will be out in the wilderness for an extended period of time and/or might be away from easy access to help. Of course standard protocol still applies like telling someone what path you will take, when they should expect you back etc. but I would feel much safer with an inReach with me just in case. https://explore.garmin.com/en-US/in…

Part of me dislikes the availability of equipment that puts you in contact from pretty much anywhere--in part because it creates the expectation that you'll avail yourself of such equipment.

But, if I'm being sensible and I'm off by myself in a remote area, yeah, I'd probably take one.

ADDED: And, yes, it's nice to be able to call for help if you really need it. But way too many folks think they can just get in trouble because they're really not prepared, call 911, and everything will be great. A number of states actually collect costs from people if they were negligent these days.

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