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Germany is downgrading

grobmeier.de

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Re: Germany is downgrading

#21

Post by kayoone »

Its not really as bad as this article claims.

- In my city (not that large, about 200k residents), i have access to 16-50Mbit DSL connections or cable connections of up to 150 MBit/s (uncapped). Its the same in many other bigger cities

- i hardly know anyone who cannot get some type of broadband. My mom lives in a VERY rural area (one neighbour and then a half a mile of NOTHING) and she still gets 3Mbits DSL, not great but ok.

- the situation in the US is even worse, still alot of people on dialup in rural areas

- traffic caps are a step backwards i agree, but its just one ISP doing this right now and there are many other countries where this is common practice as well

Re: Germany is downgrading

#22

Post by dorznak »

Population density is a problem in Germany. In contrast to, for example France (?), the state does not nearly enough to bring internet to the countryside.

Broadband access is defined as 380kbit/s and customer service is terrible.

By the way: T-Mobile is part of "Telekom".

But if you choose the right street in the right city, getting 100mbit for 50euros (flatrate) is not a problem.

Re: Germany is downgrading

#24

Post by grobmeier »

madmaze wrote: post #20

I somewhat disagree with this article, at least from my experience. From my experience internet has always been cheaper, faster and more reliable than any time I have had a connecting on the US. I have mostly had experience with Kabel BW and Telekom. For example in the US at the moment it costs me ~$80 for a reasonable cable connection from comcast 20Mb/s. I can expect my connection to go down for a few seconds/minut…

I had 5 yrs. Telekom with 350 kb/s. Frankfurt is a huge city, game is different than outside these kind of cities.

Re: Germany is downgrading

#25

Post by darklajid »

EvaK_de wrote: post #4

Badly written article, lacking improtant facts and misrepresenting things (e.g. there is not just Telekom in Germany...) just to finally go all alarmist. :/

Agreed. The article's a rant with little content (the Telekom 'no flatrates anymore' move IS crap, but only mentioned once).

There are usually good options available and usually you're up and running quite fast. I can recommend NetCologne (local, dsl/fiber), UnityMedia (cable) and 1&1 (Vodafone reseller) as providers of very nice, very dumb pipes.

The author obviously is frustrated and annoyed. That's okay, it happens. A rant might even help. But I wonder why that ends up on this site here: The internet in Germany isn't going away and is, frankly, quite usable and widely available.

Re: Germany is downgrading

#26

Post by sergiosgc »

Shocking! I had no idea... It does not fit Germany's image. Portugal has most cities covered with fiber, at prices of around 30eur/month for 50mbps and about 40eur/month for 100mbps. Smaller cities are covered with coaxial cable, with last miles at 30mbps. Only in remote areas do you get stuck with ADSL (speed varies wildly with distance to POP). No traffic capping, and I'd wager the first provider that introduces capping will disappear from the market. ISDN is not common at all for individuals.

I guess the big difference here is that monopoly regulation went rather well. Many providers appeared in the late nineties, protected by laws mandating that Portugal Telecom rented last mile loops. Nowadays, the market, while not perfect, is competitive enough.

(fiber and coaxial networks are private, these are not the public debts you are looking for ;-)

Re: Germany is downgrading

#27

Post by mikecsh »

luckystarr wrote: post #12
claudius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t live in a rural area then. With the money it takes to connect a few homes in the middle of nowhere to the high-speed network, you can easily equip many more with fiber in the middle of a decently sized city.

> Don’t live in a rural area then. So I should choose my preferred living place on the premise of maximizing profitability for my ISP? I don't think so.

No, but you should assume that your ISP will choose it's fiber/DSL/whatever rollout strategy to maximise it's own profitability.

Re: Germany is downgrading

#28

Post by daliusd »

madmaze wrote: post #20

I somewhat disagree with this article, at least from my experience. From my experience internet has always been cheaper, faster and more reliable than any time I have had a connecting on the US. I have mostly had experience with Kabel BW and Telekom. For example in the US at the moment it costs me ~$80 for a reasonable cable connection from comcast 20Mb/s. I can expect my connection to go down for a few seconds/minut…

It would be interesting to hear how much cheaper we are talking here about. E.g. here in Lithuania (Eastern Europe) I pay about 15$ for 100Mb/s (for 30$ I could get 300Mb/s).

Re: Germany is downgrading

#29

Post by sgift »

mars wrote: post #19
mars wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not correct as other providers are leasing the infrastructure from DT. So you have a choice almost everywhere.

and cable is also available almost everywhere.

Almost anywhere besides my place of living (which happens to be Munich, but we have alternatives here) or big parts of eastern Germany (where friends of mine live) or various rural parts of Bavaria (where parts of my family live) and so on.

Re: Germany is downgrading

#30

Post by kayoone »

madmaze wrote: post #20

I somewhat disagree with this article, at least from my experience. From my experience internet has always been cheaper, faster and more reliable than any time I have had a connecting on the US. I have mostly had experience with Kabel BW and Telekom. For example in the US at the moment it costs me ~$80 for a reasonable cable connection from comcast 20Mb/s. I can expect my connection to go down for a few seconds/minut…

this. I have had a minimum of 16Mbit in germany since 2006 and in the meantime have moved 4-5 times to different regions/cities.
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