Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#281

Post by Bombthecat » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 8:39 AM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #240

Matthias247 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany guy living in Canada at the moment: German internet now seems super cheap for me. I had UnityMedia for years. 120Mbit/s and unlimited home phone for 25€ per month. You can triple that sum for Canada (90$ plus tax) if you don’t get any special deal. And deals are annoying, since internet providers randomly increase their prices even if you are on a contract. So even if are not constantly out on the watch for t…

And the article's graph proudly shows Canada having the 3rd fastest mobile speeds. Oh great, I can go through my monthly allotment in 5 minutes by clicking on the wrong link. So useful. I've turned off LTE just so I get a chance to cutoff a click that turns out to be a 300pg PDF.

Yeah, I'm wondering the range. With 5g, imagine a typical limit in germany is 15gb. With 5g you blow though it within minutes in a bad scenario...

That's what they want... But still... A bad joke..

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#282

Post by patrickk » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 9:03 AM UTC

shakermakr wrote: post #255

Brit living in Germany here. I just bought a new home, and it came with Fiber to the Home. Great I thought! Then I tried to get connected... I have zero choice of ISP: I had to first go to a small company who maintain my line, who then pointed me at another company for the contract. Though rated at 1gbit, I can only get max 500mbit from my ISP, and then that costs a whooping 90 EUR a month, without any phone or TV se…

I'll be moving within Germany at some point in the next 12 months, and one of my top considerations will be what broadband options already exist in the area, because of the reasons you mention. If you move to an area with slow/no broadband, you'll be stuck in that situation for years.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#283

Post by patrickk » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 9:05 AM UTC

jupp0r wrote: post #230

It's not only the average/median that's bad, it's the lower percentiles that are the most embarrassing. My parents live in a central, fairly dense neighborhood of a town of 40k people. Their only option until 2017 (!!!) was 64k dialup or very flaky 3G. It wasn't only their street that was affected, but the whole part of town, including a newly developed (but mostly empty, what a surprise) business park built from EU…

> They've been pushing their proprietary custom-built hardware and protocols

Fritz!Box routers? I was shocked how expensive they are, and how widespread.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#284

Post by jotm » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

jgillich wrote: post #214

jotm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting ripped off on O2 or Vodafone. Get an Ay Yildiz Prepaid card, 25 Euros for 12GB and there's an option to top up of you run out. It's an EPlus MVNO, speeds are pretty good on 3G (~8Mbps).

E-Plus does not exist anymore, it was bought by o2.

Oh damn, didn't know that!

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#285

Post by anieberry » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 9:25 AM UTC

ofrzeta wrote: post #7

newprint wrote: post #4

I came back from Germany in April. Infrastructure (trains, roads, airports) are wonderful, compare that with crawling slow internet.

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

As someone from the UK I'd love to have trains like the ones in Germany.

I live a 40 minute drive from London but it costs £45 for a day ticket on decades old, cramped trains.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#286

Post by znpy » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

I can understand this. I literally lost interest in moving to Düsseldorf when I realized that for a higher price than I currently pay I would get just a 60 Mbps down / 5mbps up internet connection, whereas I can get a 1gpbs down / 200mbps up FTTH connection.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#287

Post by hannob » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #263

Matthias247 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany guy living in Canada at the moment: German internet now seems super cheap for me. I had UnityMedia for years. 120Mbit/s and unlimited home phone for 25€ per month. You can triple that sum for Canada (90$ plus tax) if you don’t get any special deal. And deals are annoying, since internet providers randomly increase their prices even if you are on a contract. So even if are not constantly out on the watch for t…

I can attest to that, having stayed in Canada for 2 years. US is also expensive. Germany is dirt cheap, but slow. When people say Germany is expensive to the rest of Europe I think they need to check the salary levels in the rest of Europe. German internet and cell is probably cheaper going by percentage of average income. It's only the lack of coverage (and maybe the blocked YouTube videos) that bother me in Germany…

> When people say Germany is expensive to the rest of Europe I think they need to check the salary levels in the rest of Europe. German internet and cell is probably cheaper going by percentage of average income.

The nordic countries have higher salaries. It's really against the trend: Pretty much everything is more expensive in sweden and denmark, except Internet connectivity.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#288

Post by telcy » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 9:58 AM UTC

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…

I grow up in Germany and can completely agree with you. The landline network is crappy in many areas and the mobile network is one of the worst I have seen (traveled to many countries). My parents recently got a 16MBit connection installed. Currently I am living in Thailand and their mobile network coverage is amazing. Even on an island or in the jungle you get LTE.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#289

Post by mschuster91 » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 10:03 AM UTC

filmor wrote: post #167

terminalhealth wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

His predecessors from CDU/CSU also. Infrastructure ministry is dominated by a history of politicians hellbent on kissing the automotive industry's butt...

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#290

Post by fluffything » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 10:04 AM UTC

padelt wrote: post #44

The running gag of mobile internet in Germany is EU-roaming (no-charge use of you cellular internet service abroad in the EU): I can travel the 1-4 hours to any neighboring countries for the perfect cellular internet access I paid for. The only country where it doesn’t perfectly work is the one I live in. Germany.

Came here just to make this joke, the sad part of it is that it's so true.

I have bette mobile internet and call quality on every tiny village of every other country in Europe than what I have in a large German city.