Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 343 posts

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#71

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

nesadi wrote: post #67
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…

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.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#72

Post by ravenstine »

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.

Good grief! I'm using a small ISP that gets me ~250Mbps, but it would be more like 500Mpbs if I didn't buy a cheap router. In fact, they told me they'll be offering gigabit plans next year.

And I thought I was getting screwed when I could only get 120Mbps with Spectrum Cable.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#73

Post by bobthepanda »

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.

It's a national park - this is an intentional policy. There is some cell service, but the park specifically does not want cell towers everywhere.

> In 2009, Yellowstone completed a plan for wireless communications in the park. The plan dictates that cell phone and wifi will only be allowed for visitor safety and to enhance park operations. It restricts towers, antennas, and wireless services to a few limited locations in the park, in order to protect park resources and limit the impact on park visitors.

https://www.yellowstonepark.com/park/cell-phone-wifi-yellows...

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#74

Post by ArmandGrillet »

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.

I don't understand this German cliché, it's not insanely great but the amount of delays is the same as in France with better internet, cleaner toilets, and a descent price. Internet in Germany is a combination of shitty contracts, slow speeds, and deceptive ads. That is much worse than a descent service with clear pricings like Deutsche Bahn.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#76

Post by jotm »

kstenerud wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm just behind the times, but I can't think of anything I'd do that would saturate my 20Mbps link, other than maybe downloading an iso or something. I'm using 1 und 1's ultra cheap plan, and browsing works fine, streaming works fine, video conferencing works fine, remote desktops work fine. I work remote, and only once have I experienced an outage.

I'm afraid to ask... Your upload speed is 3Mbps or something? :D

Uploading anything took freaking ages on DSL, I even used mobile data to do it, it's an important part of life today.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#77

Post by rjsw »

kstenerud wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm just behind the times, but I can't think of anything I'd do that would saturate my 20Mbps link, other than maybe downloading an iso or something. I'm using 1 und 1's ultra cheap plan, and browsing works fine, streaming works fine, video conferencing works fine, remote desktops work fine. I work remote, and only once have I experienced an outage.

I'm happy with 40Mbps DSL, I could get 80Mbps for a bit more.

Would rather investment went into getting more areas up to a reasonable speed.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#79

Post by zrav »

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.

40 for 50 is not so bad. Some regional ISPs installing FTTB/FTTH offer 100mbps + voice for ~40€, which is a pretty good deal.

Due to heavy oversubscribing cable is an inferior product in Germany (on weekends actual speeds drop to a fraction of the advertised line speed), and the biggest cable provider by far (Kabel Deutschland/Vodafone) has serious user support and service quality issues, not to mention they only offer ipv6 dual-stack lite connectivity.

Re: Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet

#80

Post by jotm »

nesadi wrote: post #70
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).

Coverage is pretty bad on anything that isn't D1 or Vodafone. O2 has okay coverage in cities, but anywhere else it's mediocre to bad.

I used it in Recklinghausen, Dortmund, Dusseldorf and Koln, so yeah, within the cities. You're right, on the motorways the speed was sometimes atrocious, less than 1Mbps
Post reply on HN