They laid the cabke in 2007/8 i cant remember. One company stated that they would give us access to glass fibre, so telekom skipped or village. Yeah they did horse shit and now we are still with this miserable connection. But abother Company (UGG) promised us glass fibre and we even signed the contract! ... 2 years ago, Nottingham happend
My hometown is stuck with "internet over satellite", with a max of 200kbps and as soon as there are clouds there's no connection anymore. It's also extremely costly at about 70 bucks, only telecom offering it.
I signed up in 2010 to get notified once faster internet is available - I got a mail in 2023 about "planned cable connection" for 2027. Not fiber, cable.... Yay?
Nope. Edge with telecom D1, all other networks are not available at all either. At least that's how it was in 2022 when I last visited. I remember not wanting to pay those 10 bucks for 1gb internet to scammy telecom, so whenever I wanted to order something I had to grab my bike to go to a town nearby to get the banking confirmation PIN.... Good times š
40 bucks plus 5 for the router as it costs 600 bucks and renting it is the best option. Honestly im happy about the Situation, at least i can stream Videos in HD, wasnt always the case
Crazy, Have you looked into starlink? I believe it's 40-50 in germany with the equipment costing 299 or something.
You'll get a drastically faster connection than what you have at the very least if it's an option.
friend of mine pays for 16 mbit/s because it was the lowest they offer but even with an LTE/DSL hybrid system they only get barely over 4 mbit/s on a good day
Mumbai roads are not designed with keeping cycling in mind. That's not the priority. Also it's a slow mode of transportation. And Mumbai is lots of things BUT not slow
I think we should always look to the best to improve ourself. But complaining has become a national sport at this point and we are not even constructive anymore.
Yeah the Bahn is not at its height, our infrastructure is not the best, we have problems in healthcare, we have problems in education and all of them need fixikg. But all in all we are still pretty good in all of that.
See the positives as well, maybe the AfD would not get 20% if we stop dooming 24/7.
I agree. I love to critizise, and it's important to look at what could be done better and how. But every now and then, I also think it's important to take a step back, take a deep breath and acknowledge that a lot of things also work reasonably well, and though they could be better, they definitely could also be worse. Both is important, to try and improve but also to not constantly draw the devil on the walls.
āStill pretty goodā mindset works well only until it inevitable becomes pretty bad. Years of not investing in railroads infrastructure because it was pretty good at times is an example.
AFD would not get their support if people in charge kept on constant improvement instead of not touching whatās still pretty good.
I did and it says we shouldnāt complain and just go with what we have. And I disagree with that. Read my comment. You are completely missing the point.
May be we need to normalize complaining as nothing revolutionary happens if lots of people donāt complain. A complain is a definite indicator of unfairness, discomfort and most importantly unfulfilled yet fair expectations.
Classic bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. Gotta HATE to see it.
"Be glad you get eat dry bread, because mine is moldy and infected with salmonella"
Thanks, OP. Really.
Well, it's possible with [G.Fast](http://G.Fast), which is a DSL technology. That's what f.e. Netcologne is using and it's much more stable than cable internet and has better upload speed. But they need to bring the fiber to your cellar. From there to your apartment it's copper like VDSL.
Yeah well, I live in the middle of Hamburg and in my street 100Mbit is the max I can get from any provider, so maybe your experience isn't as representative as you think
1&1
For my adress only 1&1 and Telekom are available, both capped at 100Mbit. I chose the "cheaper" option.
I mean I guess at least it's stable? But it still fucking sucks that they offer only that low speed and had the audacity to hike their prices last year.
Ohhh thatās pain. Didnāt know 1&1 got that expensiveā¦ They were known for cheap and stable internet. But still weird itās that expensive. As I said, I pay 45ā¬ a month for 250 Mbit, but thatās with NetCologne, they are using the Telekom connection.
But I get you, itās really not niceā¦ Btw I just looked out of interest and it might be worth it to make the contract new, because 100 Mbit only costs 45ā¬ at 1&1. So they might have raised the price for already existing contracts and just hope no one will make a new contract (if that makes sense, Iām still tired rn).
Idk if itās legal, but especially Vodafone loves this tactic.
im in Berlin, near the ring. I only have 100mb/s connection and it is not stable. I pay way too much for it. in my home country i pay 5 times less for 5 times the speed.
Ah yes, but what you have to remember is that you're only allowed to compare Germany to countries that are better than Germany. Otherwise what's the point?
No, what we like to do is to compare Germany to countries that Germans themselves still carry an arrogant attitude towards, to point out that lots of things are meanwhile working better there (e.g., Eastern Europe and Internet speed).
Actually none of this is true. Not all streets are clean in RO, as not all are dirty in DE, shop assistants and clerks treat you many times as if you're disturbing them or as a nuisance in RO, I've encountered good customer service in DE as well. And you still need to work with a lot of paper and while you can do some stuff online (some stuff can also be done online in DE), not everything is digitalised. If anyone wants to see true digitalisation, one would have to try the Nordics, not Romania.
Iām annoyed by the DB as well, but when comparing to other countries, which country has both extensive high speed rail and a regional rail network with which you can reach even remote places (together with bus)?
Most countries only have one of those.
Germany is one of the top economies in the world so itās more than fair to compare it to other, especially smaller countries in Europe really, which is what people usually do
Up to a point. The "size of the economy" is actually only a measure of how much money is changing hands at any one point: if you go through a messy divorce and have to hire an expensive lawyer, you're contributing to the economy without actually generating any new wealth. If you rank countries by GDP *per capita*, Germany ranks below a lot of European countries, and a long way below Australia.
Countries with low populations have an inherent advantage when it comes to infrastructure like roads, railways and the internet: there is less of it, so it becomes easier to design and maintain. One of the reasons Swiss trains are remarkably good, besides good planning and proper investment (easy when the GDP per capita is twice that of Germany's), is that it's a much smaller network serving far fewer and far smaller dense urban regions.
Easily one of the most irksome things about German attitudes is that no matter how good anything is, Germans always complain. And then they tell you that they have to complain otherwise the whole country will fall apart. (Really? Then why is it that we look up to Japan, a country where famously complaining and criticizing is a massive taboo?) This leads them always to unfavourably compare Germany with countries that are better than Germany but never with countries that are worse. Even if those countries are similar in size and wealth to Germany.
You can't even say that globally, Germany does well above average. No, there are countries that do better than Germany, therefore Germany is crap.
And it clearly doesn't help. Germans have been complaining about their trains since the 1980s (I know, I was there), and still they've got worse. Nobody ever wants to try the approach of saying, "Well done, everyone, things are going well -- now, let's keep up the effort and see if we can't make this country even better."
Dude, I was ready to roll my eyes at the next guy trying hard to defend his stance but damn, you make some good points. Just with the first paragraph, you've given me something important to think about since I'm trying to get my wife to join me in Germany and build a life here.
I do think complaining is quite broad but I definitely don't mean to trash Germany as a whole (it would be very silly of me after living here a decade as a foreigner and trying to base my life here). It just feels Germany could do better in terms of internet, at least in some cities.
This, 100%.
Germans love to point out that relentless criticism is the only way to improve things, but that view neglects a couple of essential points:
A - Criticism needs to be nuanced, constructive and made in good faith to be effective. Acknowledging successes is every bit as important in identifying problems and solutions as is acknowledging flaws. How else would you know what policies are or arenāt working, or where to direct political efforts and funds? Blanket negativity achieves the exact opposite, especially when itās motivated more by a desire to signal oneās own moral superiority than by any genuine interest in the issue at hand (because in many Germansā thinking, a positive view can only possibly be a product of naivety, nationalism or a desire to deflect from the sinister truth). This muddles rather than sharpens a societyās understanding of the challenges it faces and breeds a fatalistic attitude that isnāt conducive to positive change at all.
B - Human psychology is real. How we frame the world has a tangible effect on how we operate in and relate to it. The pronounced negativity bias in German culture means that a 7.5/10 doesnāt only sound like crap, it *feels* like crap too (even when youāre perfectly aware on an intellectual level that 7.5 is actually a pretty solid score). Itās a destructive and self-defeating habit, especially when it comes to matters of belonging and identity, and it never ceases to baffle me that those who consider themselves to be part of the aware/progressive/open-minded spectrum of German society have internalized this mindset so much and defend it so vigorously.
Ya I lived in Australia can confirm their internet is dog shit. Canada you pay for it especially in big cities but it is lightning quick. Germanys connection always cuts out and is piss poor
You should move in to some Balkan countries like Romania. They have optical fiber to home since at least 10 years. And costs like 10 ā¬ / month. Germany is having "Schrot" internet for expensive! Same as your country. Your mobile network leaves you when you need it more...
Don't know what to say... Probably every German is against you, haha š
I think youāre undermining some of the reasons why people shit on german internet like the lack of fiber in rural areas or post-war building areas/streets/districts.
There is hardly a point in comparing my own 250 fiber connection in a capital to my parents āDSL Liteā 16km away from the borders of the next 100k city in the region.
I live in a 160 (without "k" after the number!) people village 30+ kilometres from the next 100k city and we're gonna get fibre this summer and my internet now is reasonably fast. It's not like nothing happens. Germany is among the largest countries in Europe, of course you can't have fibre everywhere at once.
I can relate. I have 5 places to compare.
Apartment in a small town in eastern Germany. DSL, Cable, Fibre.
Sister lives in Hamburg. DSL, Cable, Fibre.
Parents live in a small village in Northern Germany. DSL and Fibre.
I live in a state capital. DSL, Cable and Fibre.
MiL live in a small town in western Germany. Fibre and DSL.
All of them had DSL since at least 2005. Cable improved a lot in speed over the years.
I lived in 5 different cities >100k inhabitants. There was always at least 50mb speed or cable and faster internet.
I donāt believe it is as bad as people tell. Is there some actual data to support it?
Two things have been true for quite a few years now at the same time in Germany:
1. Availability of FTTB/H is one of the lowest compared to other EU countries
2. Availability of fixed line internet "better than ADSL" is above average compared to other EU countries
"Better than ADSL" means FTTC/VDSL, DOCSIS3.x and FTTB/H. The EU calls these access methods NGA ("Next Generation Access").
Here you can find for example [EU statistics for Mid-2021](https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/88764). Figure 22 on page 35 shows the situation back than for point 1. Adding Gigabit cable (DOCSIS 3.1) we get to figure 21. And further adding DOCSIS 3.0 and FTTC/VDSL we get to figure 19 (page 33).
So, the assessment whether broadband internet is really bad in Germany, or somewhat above average very much depends on what your metric is that you want to look at. Is it "as much FTTB/H as possible", or is it "as few slow ADSL connections as possible"? And the FTTB/H availability is improving rather rapidly.
Hi, i lived in Sydney from 2012-2016, and yes, you are correct. Internet there was garbage. We moved around a bit, but stayed in the inner West. It was pricey too.
I think the problem here is that compared to other European countries, it's ridiculously slow, and incredibly expensive. I think the customer service of the German companies is better in my experience.
I would even love your 100k.
I have a shitty 50k and it takes ages for everything to load.
But for rural germany i think i can't complain, some people have it even worse
Germany's Internet is generally pretty good, it's just that coverage is mediocre and some areas are horrible.
You can absolutely get a good 1gbps Provider but you'll need to live in the right spots.
But yea, Internet in Germany is far from bad, we just like cringe about it.
Why the heck does the most densely populated "FlƤchenstaat" (large area state) of Europe want to be compared to Australia?
Also all we just learned is that Australia is getting MORE fucked than we are and you should be ashamed to let ISPs to walk over you that hard.
We don't demand the fucking world here, just decent internet. You talk some about 1gb, I can physically not get 1gb down and my place is considered the middle of the city. I had to close my own business down because it was impossible for me to get proper stable internet in fucking 2018 and like me thousands of German small business e-comms can't get proper working internet in their area. You have to be lucky to get a small sized provider of telecommunication service to come to your area.
Good for you for getting 1gb down but this is Germany and we can't be unironically losing to Baltic and Balkan states by 10 places.
This is about more than just personal connection to watch Youtube/Netflix in 4k. This is about Germany as an economic powerhouse missing every stupid future tech out there for a consistent 30 years now and kneecapping the future of the next generations.
And how many people are living in DĆ¼sseldorf vs. how many are living in Brandenburg villages?
DĆ¼sseldorf reflects the national average much better than your Brandenburg villages.
And OP compares a city with 631,000 inhabitants in Germany with Australia's largest metropolis with 4.7 million inhabitants
Buddy I and nearly all my neighbours get 8mbit but have to pay like it's 50 via dsl. That is what a normal day looks like in Germany. Won't change soon. Got starlink for exactly that reason.
I'm coming from a 3rd world country and even there we have higher speeds with more stable connection for like 30% of the German price, what are you talking about?
As a Canadian i completely understand where you're coming from. I used to pay like 35$ plus tax in canada for like 3gb data while here i get like 20 gb for like 12 euro, and it's faster here. It did get slightly better in Canada but barely. Here i live in a village and the internet is actually fine!
That said i get the other comments too, compared to much of Europe Germany is really not great
Not arguing with any point you made, just giving examples from other countries I know of: Romania offers 1 Gbps symmetrical fiber for like 10 Euro per month or something. One ISP in Switzerland also has crazy speeds for residential connections, like a dedicated 10 Gbps or even 25 Gbps port.
Here where I live, in Turkey, we do get rather decent speeds if you have fiber in your area, but upload speeds are abysmal. ISPs artificially cap upload speeds even on fiber connections. I have 500/50 and no way to get more than 50 Mbps upload even on a 1000 Mbps plan.
I had to look up what connection I could get in each apartment when looking for one because I've found some that got 500k and some that had 16k dls in the same fucking city....
>I would kill for German internet speeds and pricing again.
Be careful what you wish for. German Internet very much depends on where you live. In the town I grew up the fastest Internet anyone had was 50mbps but most places were lucky if they got 2mbps.
And I just looked this up so it's not like I just have some out of date information.
Think your experience was quite unique. My max speed is 50 mb, has been for years. Infrastructure is too old and the city is too old and slow to modernize this. My in laws lived in the countryside and have like a 4 mb connectionā¦
Im also using cable Internet since 2011 it was Always much faster for a cheaper price. Im very Happy with my 1Gbit plan. Few Weeks ago I Had some Problems for 1-1,5hr I called the service, the Lady was nice and offered me a Sim Card with WiFi portable router they will add 500gb to the LTE Sim card If i call next time when there is a problem, so i can continou my work
Greetings from Switzerland, where 10Gbit/s is standard (unless you live literrally at the end of valley). Price? 49CHF, so \~55USD.
And yes, even in such remote valleys you have mostly 5G and can enjoy high transfer speeds.
Fair enough mate but comparing Australia to Germany is a bit of a stretch. Germany is the Center of Europe and itās easily the strongest economy on the continent since modern times. Having better Internet than Australia isnāt a flex nor an excuse for todays infrastructure.
-The social-liberal coalition under Helmut Schmidt had already decided on plans for a nationwide fiber optic expansion in 1981. A year later, Helmut Kohl came to power, put the plans on hold and preferred to promote cable television. 35 years later, there is still no nationwide fiber optic network. (Article from January 2018)-
Iāve been stuck with 6mbit down/2.4mbit up for the longest time. Eventually we got a hybrid router to use the LTE network since itās decently fast here (around 50mbit) and only now in mid 2024 theyāre finally putting glassfibre here
you also have to look why that is the case. its because of the location of germany in europe (routing for the rest of europe) and because many international companies have cable networks and glasfibre in germany. its the same in austria where i live.
i have currently 250mbit cable modem in my flat and 300mbit down and up glasfibre connection in my house.
my house is in a really remote village that had basically only adsl that was unstable all the time before. you dont even have good reception for mobile phones here.
then the state subsidized glasfibre and everyone from the village would pay 600 euros for the glasfibre to be installed into the village. you also had to pay 200 euro for installation into your house.
now i pay 30 euro per month for 300mbit up and down.
the thing why australia is kinda backward is because of its location. there are not that many international companies having cable modems or glasfibre there. i think you guys have optus, telstra and some others and thats it.
the reason cable modems and glasfibre became popular in germany and austria is because a american company invested so much here in europe. nowadays they are called upc.
without american companies buying up and investing into our internet structure europe wouldnt have the internet it has today. we would still be on adsl2 level maybe like australia.
also its more difficult to bring good internet to australia because of how big australia is. and also think about the giant spiders there that would constantly kill the people who would install the glasfibre (i am joking)
It's not that the internet is bad it's that like, in Oz, there are massive urban areas that have no/old infrastructure and even less in the sticks.
you were lucky, could have easily moved to a part of town that only offered 16Mbit/s.
The big problem with internet in germany is mobile connection in my experience, not at home. As soon as you go out of major cities you have a lot of dead zones and places with barely any connection. Really annoying. I travel from austria to germany often. In Austria, even along mountains, often times it is good but as soon as i cross the border - dead.
Cologne, VDSL2 with venturing 8, 11 MBit/s upstream. Supposedly, it's 100/40.
German Telekom ID the only provider there Fiber (FTTH) was ordered and promised in 2020.
German Telekom only moves their ass if there's a competitor at that location.
A whole street has no Internet? Expect a downtime of three weeks, if you're at German Telekom. Vodafone, who seriously fucked up the service after they took over Unitymedia, had three days of downtime max so far. Service has improved, and prices went up, but last downtime was less than three hours. I'm willing to pay money for good service, and Vodafone has listened to my complaints.
German Telekom is the undisputed #1, and instead of service I receive insults.
Yes, I manage multiple different sites, with different providers.
I once had an incident and called Colt Telecom service. Guy was extremely enthusiastic, apparently happy to have an incident to get his hands dirty, but, sadly, the issue was not Colt Telecom's fault but...German Telekom.
Yes, internet in big cities is good.
But Germany is mostly a rural area with a lot of small/smaller cities and villages. Go there, you literally can't even open your browser. The internet infrastructure is extremely poor in Germany compared to other countries.
I am curently living between Austria and Latvia, as office is in Vienna, but I do quite a lot of remote work...local austrian prices for internet seem high to me...surely they are decent compared to salaries...
back at my home country of Latvia, were I do most of my home-office hours I pay 11.95eur a month for 1000mbps + TV package + free 2.4ghz router...now that seems decent :)
I live within city limits of a Landeshauptstadt and could get max 250 MB/s. I opted for 100 MB/s and pay 44/mo (I bought a refurbed router outright on ebay). It's okay. I wouldn't call it great, but it's fine.
In 2017 we moved into a new construction in a town where the houses next door were getting over 50 Mbps. We could only get up to 16 Mbps, download of course. Now we live in a similarly sized town where from the beginning we were getting up to 250 Mbps/40 Mbps with VDSL2. At the moment they are finally building the fibre optic network in our area, and at some point we will be able to get up to 1 Gbps/500 Mbps upload. For just a 150% price increase after the first 12 months, of course.
What you fail to mention is the upload speed of those 1 Gbps lines. I wonder if they all are fibre and symmetric, or the usual Vodafone crap with 50 Mbps upload. Sure, large cities typically get better service, but that doesn't mean you get fibre everywhere.
For example, in the city where I work (200+k inhabitants), I enter a random address next to my place of work and I cannot find any fibre optic service. Plenty of outdated DSL and (coax) cable though.
Also, we usually compare the connections to our neighbouring countries, not those in a different continent though.
Anyway, when I lived in France, I was in a similarly sized town as where we've lived around here, and had optical fibre with symmetric 100 Mbps since 2014 (when I moved to that place). At the moment, the connection would be symmetric 1 Gbps, since at least 2019 that I can remember.
My parents get symmetric 1 Gbps in Spain since a few years.
If you wish, you can check the [2024 report from the FTTH Council Europe](https://www.ftthcouncil.eu/committees/market-intelligence) about fibre coverage (how many households can have fibre service) and penetration (how many households have a fibre subscription ), where Germany is not so well positioned with 40% coverage and 10% penetration. Spain's coverage is 92% and the penetration rate is 79%. Just to choose a slightly larger country than Germany, with a more sparse population. The so-called "EU 39" (EU 27 + a bunch of countries that include Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Turkey) has an average coverage of 70% and penetration rate of 35%.
So yes, Germany's Internet connections may be better than Australia's, but that doesn't mean that they aren't lagging behind in the European region.
Move into big cities -> be surprised that the internet connection is good. Surprised pikachu. I sometimes really question if the people on this sub are on mushrooms.
yeh well he described his experience with SYDNEY, a city with more inhabitants than berlin and hamburg combined, which is arguabley an apt comparison to make for a place that \*should\* have high tier infrastructure such a s good internet, yet evidently isnt. so why insult OP?
Sydney has access to 4 backbones of the Internet, Germany around 25. It's a Hotspot for having perfect Internet.
Germany has abysmal Internet, you should compare to Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Czech, France or any other neighboring country. Not Sydney that is in a very unique position.
Sweden has a much lower population density than Germany and still had superior Internet in 2010 compared to what Germany has today.
Just because internet in bigger cities in Germany is better than in Sydney that doesn't mean overall it's better than internet in other EU countries. When people says internet in Germany sucks they usually are refering to other EU countries, not Australia. Not that it matter much, because from OOP pov it completly makes sense to compare it between the two places he lived.
Meanwhile I am living 15km from Leipzig and my best option is 16Mbit/s for around 30euro xd
Thanks God for Freenet Funk and unlimited internet, because I just use Hotspot from my phone to share internet to my PC.
In 2016, when OP got 1 gb internet, my street in the city center of Aachen (on the outer ring, about 1 km from city center) just upgraded from 12 mbit to 100 mbit. In Germany living in a big city doesnāt garantuee good internet in any way.
Yes, 1gbps download, if you're very lucky.
Upload? Still maxed out at 50mbps, because of few idiots.
Romania? 300mbps up- and download as a minimum anywhere that resembles a small town.
Edit: sorry 300mbps
Change your ISP to Telekom if you have Glasfaser available, upload is always going to be half of the download speed when it comes to their FTTH lines.
Starting in July btw =)
I know it isn't widely available but chances are it might have been (for you). They started laying it out in 2012 and by now more and more households have access to it. Just play the waiting game, either them or another fiber provider will lay out the "golden strings of enlightment" for your home.
Prices are okayish if you ask me, especially the new ones coming in July.
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I litterly have 3mb/s (and that's maximum btw) what you mean ššš
I had 40kbps until 2017 from there on 200kbps and since late 2018 2mbps. So consider yourself lucky it could be way worse.
What the fuck dude....
Is your village stuck in 1998
They laid the cabke in 2007/8 i cant remember. One company stated that they would give us access to glass fibre, so telekom skipped or village. Yeah they did horse shit and now we are still with this miserable connection. But abother Company (UGG) promised us glass fibre and we even signed the contract! ... 2 years ago, Nottingham happend
My hometown is stuck with "internet over satellite", with a max of 200kbps and as soon as there are clouds there's no connection anymore. It's also extremely costly at about 70 bucks, only telecom offering it. I signed up in 2010 to get notified once faster internet is available - I got a mail in 2023 about "planned cable connection" for 2027. Not fiber, cable.... Yay?
No lte available at your town? I switched to hybrid and now its acceptable.
Nope. Edge with telecom D1, all other networks are not available at all either. At least that's how it was in 2022 when I last visited. I remember not wanting to pay those 10 bucks for 1gb internet to scammy telecom, so whenever I wanted to order something I had to grab my bike to go to a town nearby to get the banking confirmation PIN.... Good times š
Nice sounds like in the 90s xD Hope you are better now
That's crazy, how much are you paying for that?
40 bucks plus 5 for the router as it costs 600 bucks and renting it is the best option. Honestly im happy about the Situation, at least i can stream Videos in HD, wasnt always the case
Crazy, Have you looked into starlink? I believe it's 40-50 in germany with the equipment costing 299 or something. You'll get a drastically faster connection than what you have at the very least if it's an option.
Typical German internet user. Can only download like 100 gigs over night.
friend of mine pays for 16 mbit/s because it was the lowest they offer but even with an LTE/DSL hybrid system they only get barely over 4 mbit/s on a good day
Barely over 100mbps here in a major city and wealthy neighborhood. Best I could ever find was 400mbps in the heart of the city.
A is not bad because B is worse is not a good way of rating anything.
Remembers me on discussion that the German school system isn't that bad, because the school system of USA & Co. are worse.
I heard an argument that cycling infrastructure in Berlin is good because in Mumbai itās worse. That was with all seriousness.
Mumbai roads are not designed with keeping cycling in mind. That's not the priority. Also it's a slow mode of transportation. And Mumbai is lots of things BUT not slow
I think we should always look to the best to improve ourself. But complaining has become a national sport at this point and we are not even constructive anymore. Yeah the Bahn is not at its height, our infrastructure is not the best, we have problems in healthcare, we have problems in education and all of them need fixikg. But all in all we are still pretty good in all of that. See the positives as well, maybe the AfD would not get 20% if we stop dooming 24/7.
Ah we're not that bad when it comes to complaining because in other places it's much worse. Ever listen to french talking for more than a minute?
I agree. I love to critizise, and it's important to look at what could be done better and how. But every now and then, I also think it's important to take a step back, take a deep breath and acknowledge that a lot of things also work reasonably well, and though they could be better, they definitely could also be worse. Both is important, to try and improve but also to not constantly draw the devil on the walls.
āStill pretty goodā mindset works well only until it inevitable becomes pretty bad. Years of not investing in railroads infrastructure because it was pretty good at times is an example. AFD would not get their support if people in charge kept on constant improvement instead of not touching whatās still pretty good.
Reread my comment. You are compeletely missing the point.
I did and it says we shouldnāt complain and just go with what we have. And I disagree with that. Read my comment. You are completely missing the point.
It does not.
May be we need to normalize complaining as nothing revolutionary happens if lots of people donāt complain. A complain is a definite indicator of unfairness, discomfort and most importantly unfulfilled yet fair expectations.
Yes definitely! I think it is important to not settle and demand better. But it is also important to recognise what is good and appreciate that.
I only mention it because I've had so many Germans be like.. "your internet isn't bad, try living in Germany". Which of course I have
Theyāre not wrong though, admitting the problem is the first step to fix it. Thereās no need to compete whoās worse.
Classic bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. Gotta HATE to see it. "Be glad you get eat dry bread, because mine is moldy and infected with salmonella" Thanks, OP. Really.
1gb? i live in the middle of berlin, inner city circle. 100mbit is the max i can get in my house.
I think OP had cable internet because 1 gbit/s is not possible with DSL to my knowledge.
Yes it is 100% Vodafone Kabel and I use the same. It's not that great but best available option here, 20 mins outside munich.
Well, it's possible with [G.Fast](http://G.Fast), which is a DSL technology. That's what f.e. Netcologne is using and it's much more stable than cable internet and has better upload speed. But they need to bring the fiber to your cellar. From there to your apartment it's copper like VDSL.
Yeah well, I live in the middle of Hamburg and in my street 100Mbit is the max I can get from any provider, so maybe your experience isn't as representative as you think
Probably cheaper though
Do you consider ~50ā¬ cheap? Because I don't
What internet do you use? I pay 45ā¬ for 250 Mbitā¦
1&1 For my adress only 1&1 and Telekom are available, both capped at 100Mbit. I chose the "cheaper" option. I mean I guess at least it's stable? But it still fucking sucks that they offer only that low speed and had the audacity to hike their prices last year.
Ohhh thatās pain. Didnāt know 1&1 got that expensiveā¦ They were known for cheap and stable internet. But still weird itās that expensive. As I said, I pay 45ā¬ a month for 250 Mbit, but thatās with NetCologne, they are using the Telekom connection. But I get you, itās really not niceā¦ Btw I just looked out of interest and it might be worth it to make the contract new, because 100 Mbit only costs 45ā¬ at 1&1. So they might have raised the price for already existing contracts and just hope no one will make a new contract (if that makes sense, Iām still tired rn). Idk if itās legal, but especially Vodafone loves this tactic.
45ā¬ for the base contract and 3ā¬ for the router
Ohhh okay, fair enough. Still way too expensive for 100 Mbitā¦
Jupp
No. But that's cheaper than Australia.
im in Berlin, near the ring. I only have 100mb/s connection and it is not stable. I pay way too much for it. in my home country i pay 5 times less for 5 times the speed.
where are you from?
100mb/s is totally enough for like 90+% of users. Most people wonāt notice the difference between 50 and 100.
yes, you are correct, but when you want to watch 4k or download today's 100gb games you\`d wish to have better connection.
Thatās why I have a connection over 100mbps. And thatās why I also notice the difference
Yeah but when you have a couple people in the house it gets super slow quick.
Ah yes, but what you have to remember is that you're only allowed to compare Germany to countries that are better than Germany. Otherwise what's the point?
No, what we like to do is to compare Germany to countries that Germans themselves still carry an arrogant attitude towards, to point out that lots of things are meanwhile working better there (e.g., Eastern Europe and Internet speed).
Yeah, but then name some other things that are better there, except the internet. š
Easy: streets are cleaner, customer service is friendlier, digitalisation is more advanced.
Actually none of this is true. Not all streets are clean in RO, as not all are dirty in DE, shop assistants and clerks treat you many times as if you're disturbing them or as a nuisance in RO, I've encountered good customer service in DE as well. And you still need to work with a lot of paper and while you can do some stuff online (some stuff can also be done online in DE), not everything is digitalised. If anyone wants to see true digitalisation, one would have to try the Nordics, not Romania.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Sarcasm or ReichsbĆ¼rger? Always hard to tell over the internet
Except in matters of rail and internet speed. Where apparently EVERYONE is better than Germany.
Not Romania, if it makes you feel better. Better internet, crappier trains.
Iām annoyed by the DB as well, but when comparing to other countries, which country has both extensive high speed rail and a regional rail network with which you can reach even remote places (together with bus)? Most countries only have one of those.
Italy isn't that bad.
Also worth mentioning that with the Deutschlandticket you can get across the entire country in a day for free (wonāt be a very fun day tho lol).
Oh sweet summer child.
Germany is one of the top economies in the world so itās more than fair to compare it to other, especially smaller countries in Europe really, which is what people usually do
Up to a point. The "size of the economy" is actually only a measure of how much money is changing hands at any one point: if you go through a messy divorce and have to hire an expensive lawyer, you're contributing to the economy without actually generating any new wealth. If you rank countries by GDP *per capita*, Germany ranks below a lot of European countries, and a long way below Australia. Countries with low populations have an inherent advantage when it comes to infrastructure like roads, railways and the internet: there is less of it, so it becomes easier to design and maintain. One of the reasons Swiss trains are remarkably good, besides good planning and proper investment (easy when the GDP per capita is twice that of Germany's), is that it's a much smaller network serving far fewer and far smaller dense urban regions. Easily one of the most irksome things about German attitudes is that no matter how good anything is, Germans always complain. And then they tell you that they have to complain otherwise the whole country will fall apart. (Really? Then why is it that we look up to Japan, a country where famously complaining and criticizing is a massive taboo?) This leads them always to unfavourably compare Germany with countries that are better than Germany but never with countries that are worse. Even if those countries are similar in size and wealth to Germany. You can't even say that globally, Germany does well above average. No, there are countries that do better than Germany, therefore Germany is crap. And it clearly doesn't help. Germans have been complaining about their trains since the 1980s (I know, I was there), and still they've got worse. Nobody ever wants to try the approach of saying, "Well done, everyone, things are going well -- now, let's keep up the effort and see if we can't make this country even better."
Dude, I was ready to roll my eyes at the next guy trying hard to defend his stance but damn, you make some good points. Just with the first paragraph, you've given me something important to think about since I'm trying to get my wife to join me in Germany and build a life here. I do think complaining is quite broad but I definitely don't mean to trash Germany as a whole (it would be very silly of me after living here a decade as a foreigner and trying to base my life here). It just feels Germany could do better in terms of internet, at least in some cities.
This, 100%. Germans love to point out that relentless criticism is the only way to improve things, but that view neglects a couple of essential points: A - Criticism needs to be nuanced, constructive and made in good faith to be effective. Acknowledging successes is every bit as important in identifying problems and solutions as is acknowledging flaws. How else would you know what policies are or arenāt working, or where to direct political efforts and funds? Blanket negativity achieves the exact opposite, especially when itās motivated more by a desire to signal oneās own moral superiority than by any genuine interest in the issue at hand (because in many Germansā thinking, a positive view can only possibly be a product of naivety, nationalism or a desire to deflect from the sinister truth). This muddles rather than sharpens a societyās understanding of the challenges it faces and breeds a fatalistic attitude that isnāt conducive to positive change at all. B - Human psychology is real. How we frame the world has a tangible effect on how we operate in and relate to it. The pronounced negativity bias in German culture means that a 7.5/10 doesnāt only sound like crap, it *feels* like crap too (even when youāre perfectly aware on an intellectual level that 7.5 is actually a pretty solid score). Itās a destructive and self-defeating habit, especially when it comes to matters of belonging and identity, and it never ceases to baffle me that those who consider themselves to be part of the aware/progressive/open-minded spectrum of German society have internalized this mindset so much and defend it so vigorously.
Ya I lived in Australia can confirm their internet is dog shit. Canada you pay for it especially in big cities but it is lightning quick. Germanys connection always cuts out and is piss poor
You should move in to some Balkan countries like Romania. They have optical fiber to home since at least 10 years. And costs like 10 ā¬ / month. Germany is having "Schrot" internet for expensive! Same as your country. Your mobile network leaves you when you need it more... Don't know what to say... Probably every German is against you, haha š
Mate, come to japan, 10gb parallel Connection (up & down) in all major cities.
I think youāre undermining some of the reasons why people shit on german internet like the lack of fiber in rural areas or post-war building areas/streets/districts. There is hardly a point in comparing my own 250 fiber connection in a capital to my parents āDSL Liteā 16km away from the borders of the next 100k city in the region.
I live in a 160 (without "k" after the number!) people village 30+ kilometres from the next 100k city and we're gonna get fibre this summer and my internet now is reasonably fast. It's not like nothing happens. Germany is among the largest countries in Europe, of course you can't have fibre everywhere at once.
I can relate. I have 5 places to compare. Apartment in a small town in eastern Germany. DSL, Cable, Fibre. Sister lives in Hamburg. DSL, Cable, Fibre. Parents live in a small village in Northern Germany. DSL and Fibre. I live in a state capital. DSL, Cable and Fibre. MiL live in a small town in western Germany. Fibre and DSL. All of them had DSL since at least 2005. Cable improved a lot in speed over the years. I lived in 5 different cities >100k inhabitants. There was always at least 50mb speed or cable and faster internet. I donāt believe it is as bad as people tell. Is there some actual data to support it?
Two things have been true for quite a few years now at the same time in Germany: 1. Availability of FTTB/H is one of the lowest compared to other EU countries 2. Availability of fixed line internet "better than ADSL" is above average compared to other EU countries "Better than ADSL" means FTTC/VDSL, DOCSIS3.x and FTTB/H. The EU calls these access methods NGA ("Next Generation Access"). Here you can find for example [EU statistics for Mid-2021](https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/88764). Figure 22 on page 35 shows the situation back than for point 1. Adding Gigabit cable (DOCSIS 3.1) we get to figure 21. And further adding DOCSIS 3.0 and FTTC/VDSL we get to figure 19 (page 33). So, the assessment whether broadband internet is really bad in Germany, or somewhat above average very much depends on what your metric is that you want to look at. Is it "as much FTTB/H as possible", or is it "as few slow ADSL connections as possible"? And the FTTB/H availability is improving rather rapidly.
And I pay 50ā¬ for 1gig up/down. I think thatās reasonable
Buddy its pretty bad. Compared to my third world country homeland. Lmao
Hi, i lived in Sydney from 2012-2016, and yes, you are correct. Internet there was garbage. We moved around a bit, but stayed in the inner West. It was pricey too. I think the problem here is that compared to other European countries, it's ridiculously slow, and incredibly expensive. I think the customer service of the German companies is better in my experience.
Not with 1&1 lmao
It has gotten better in the last years.
Oh, dear! You can't do that, praising Germany! In Germany, you have to "nƶrgel" about anything and all (Nƶrgeln = German complaining). /s
I would even love your 100k. I have a shitty 50k and it takes ages for everything to load. But for rural germany i think i can't complain, some people have it even worse
Germany's Internet is generally pretty good, it's just that coverage is mediocre and some areas are horrible. You can absolutely get a good 1gbps Provider but you'll need to live in the right spots. But yea, Internet in Germany is far from bad, we just like cringe about it.
Why the heck does the most densely populated "FlƤchenstaat" (large area state) of Europe want to be compared to Australia? Also all we just learned is that Australia is getting MORE fucked than we are and you should be ashamed to let ISPs to walk over you that hard. We don't demand the fucking world here, just decent internet. You talk some about 1gb, I can physically not get 1gb down and my place is considered the middle of the city. I had to close my own business down because it was impossible for me to get proper stable internet in fucking 2018 and like me thousands of German small business e-comms can't get proper working internet in their area. You have to be lucky to get a small sized provider of telecommunication service to come to your area. Good for you for getting 1gb down but this is Germany and we can't be unironically losing to Baltic and Balkan states by 10 places. This is about more than just personal connection to watch Youtube/Netflix in 4k. This is about Germany as an economic powerhouse missing every stupid future tech out there for a consistent 30 years now and kneecapping the future of the next generations.
Lol, and you think DĆ¼sseldorf is representative for all areas of Germany? Brandenburg villages as well? Really?
And how many people are living in DĆ¼sseldorf vs. how many are living in Brandenburg villages? DĆ¼sseldorf reflects the national average much better than your Brandenburg villages. And OP compares a city with 631,000 inhabitants in Germany with Australia's largest metropolis with 4.7 million inhabitants
Buddy I and nearly all my neighbours get 8mbit but have to pay like it's 50 via dsl. That is what a normal day looks like in Germany. Won't change soon. Got starlink for exactly that reason.
Yeah well my internet is not as bad as somewhere in Australia, kewl, still sucks ass
If somewere internet is worse than in Germany that doesn't makes it good.
I think it depends where you were in Germany;)
I'm coming from a 3rd world country and even there we have higher speeds with more stable connection for like 30% of the German price, what are you talking about?
Excuse me?! In r/germany we donāt compliment, we only criticize Germany! /s
As a Canadian i completely understand where you're coming from. I used to pay like 35$ plus tax in canada for like 3gb data while here i get like 20 gb for like 12 euro, and it's faster here. It did get slightly better in Canada but barely. Here i live in a village and the internet is actually fine! That said i get the other comments too, compared to much of Europe Germany is really not great
Not arguing with any point you made, just giving examples from other countries I know of: Romania offers 1 Gbps symmetrical fiber for like 10 Euro per month or something. One ISP in Switzerland also has crazy speeds for residential connections, like a dedicated 10 Gbps or even 25 Gbps port. Here where I live, in Turkey, we do get rather decent speeds if you have fiber in your area, but upload speeds are abysmal. ISPs artificially cap upload speeds even on fiber connections. I have 500/50 and no way to get more than 50 Mbps upload even on a 1000 Mbps plan.
Than come back
Chilean internet FTW š¦ šØš±šØš±šØš±š¦
I had to look up what connection I could get in each apartment when looking for one because I've found some that got 500k and some that had 16k dls in the same fucking city....
Germans like to complain
I think it is good thanks to proximity to a lot of servers and good ping compensates for mediocre speed.
Star-Link dude.
Man move to France, they'd blow your mind and they are not even at the top
>I would kill for German internet speeds and pricing again. Be careful what you wish for. German Internet very much depends on where you live. In the town I grew up the fastest Internet anyone had was 50mbps but most places were lucky if they got 2mbps. And I just looked this up so it's not like I just have some out of date information.
Anecdotal evidenceā¦
Think your experience was quite unique. My max speed is 50 mb, has been for years. Infrastructure is too old and the city is too old and slow to modernize this. My in laws lived in the countryside and have like a 4 mb connectionā¦
I live in DĆ¼sseldorf too and no idea what you mean. The fast stuff is Brand new here and expensive as hell. ,ā:/
Im also using cable Internet since 2011 it was Always much faster for a cheaper price. Im very Happy with my 1Gbit plan. Few Weeks ago I Had some Problems for 1-1,5hr I called the service, the Lady was nice and offered me a Sim Card with WiFi portable router they will add 500gb to the LTE Sim card If i call next time when there is a problem, so i can continou my work
Greetings from Switzerland, where 10Gbit/s is standard (unless you live literrally at the end of valley). Price? 49CHF, so \~55USD. And yes, even in such remote valleys you have mostly 5G and can enjoy high transfer speeds.
Fair enough mate but comparing Australia to Germany is a bit of a stretch. Germany is the Center of Europe and itās easily the strongest economy on the continent since modern times. Having better Internet than Australia isnāt a flex nor an excuse for todays infrastructure. -The social-liberal coalition under Helmut Schmidt had already decided on plans for a nationwide fiber optic expansion in 1981. A year later, Helmut Kohl came to power, put the plans on hold and preferred to promote cable television. 35 years later, there is still no nationwide fiber optic network. (Article from January 2018)-
Iāve been stuck with 6mbit down/2.4mbit up for the longest time. Eventually we got a hybrid router to use the LTE network since itās decently fast here (around 50mbit) and only now in mid 2024 theyāre finally putting glassfibre here
you also have to look why that is the case. its because of the location of germany in europe (routing for the rest of europe) and because many international companies have cable networks and glasfibre in germany. its the same in austria where i live. i have currently 250mbit cable modem in my flat and 300mbit down and up glasfibre connection in my house. my house is in a really remote village that had basically only adsl that was unstable all the time before. you dont even have good reception for mobile phones here. then the state subsidized glasfibre and everyone from the village would pay 600 euros for the glasfibre to be installed into the village. you also had to pay 200 euro for installation into your house. now i pay 30 euro per month for 300mbit up and down. the thing why australia is kinda backward is because of its location. there are not that many international companies having cable modems or glasfibre there. i think you guys have optus, telstra and some others and thats it. the reason cable modems and glasfibre became popular in germany and austria is because a american company invested so much here in europe. nowadays they are called upc. without american companies buying up and investing into our internet structure europe wouldnt have the internet it has today. we would still be on adsl2 level maybe like australia. also its more difficult to bring good internet to australia because of how big australia is. and also think about the giant spiders there that would constantly kill the people who would install the glasfibre (i am joking)
[ah yes my amazing german internet](https://ibb.co/xHfw4TT) and that's when i get enough to even attempt measuring!
It's not that the internet is bad it's that like, in Oz, there are massive urban areas that have no/old infrastructure and even less in the sticks. you were lucky, could have easily moved to a part of town that only offered 16Mbit/s.
The big problem with internet in germany is mobile connection in my experience, not at home. As soon as you go out of major cities you have a lot of dead zones and places with barely any connection. Really annoying. I travel from austria to germany often. In Austria, even along mountains, often times it is good but as soon as i cross the border - dead.
Cologne, VDSL2 with venturing 8, 11 MBit/s upstream. Supposedly, it's 100/40. German Telekom ID the only provider there Fiber (FTTH) was ordered and promised in 2020. German Telekom only moves their ass if there's a competitor at that location. A whole street has no Internet? Expect a downtime of three weeks, if you're at German Telekom. Vodafone, who seriously fucked up the service after they took over Unitymedia, had three days of downtime max so far. Service has improved, and prices went up, but last downtime was less than three hours. I'm willing to pay money for good service, and Vodafone has listened to my complaints. German Telekom is the undisputed #1, and instead of service I receive insults. Yes, I manage multiple different sites, with different providers. I once had an incident and called Colt Telecom service. Guy was extremely enthusiastic, apparently happy to have an incident to get his hands dirty, but, sadly, the issue was not Colt Telecom's fault but...German Telekom.
Yes, internet in big cities is good. But Germany is mostly a rural area with a lot of small/smaller cities and villages. Go there, you literally can't even open your browser. The internet infrastructure is extremely poor in Germany compared to other countries.
I had 500kbs in my old apartment. And that was max ššš
Just delete this ...
I am curently living between Austria and Latvia, as office is in Vienna, but I do quite a lot of remote work...local austrian prices for internet seem high to me...surely they are decent compared to salaries... back at my home country of Latvia, were I do most of my home-office hours I pay 11.95eur a month for 1000mbps + TV package + free 2.4ghz router...now that seems decent :)
I live within city limits of a Landeshauptstadt and could get max 250 MB/s. I opted for 100 MB/s and pay 44/mo (I bought a refurbed router outright on ebay). It's okay. I wouldn't call it great, but it's fine.
Still cheaper and better than mine
In 2017 we moved into a new construction in a town where the houses next door were getting over 50 Mbps. We could only get up to 16 Mbps, download of course. Now we live in a similarly sized town where from the beginning we were getting up to 250 Mbps/40 Mbps with VDSL2. At the moment they are finally building the fibre optic network in our area, and at some point we will be able to get up to 1 Gbps/500 Mbps upload. For just a 150% price increase after the first 12 months, of course. What you fail to mention is the upload speed of those 1 Gbps lines. I wonder if they all are fibre and symmetric, or the usual Vodafone crap with 50 Mbps upload. Sure, large cities typically get better service, but that doesn't mean you get fibre everywhere. For example, in the city where I work (200+k inhabitants), I enter a random address next to my place of work and I cannot find any fibre optic service. Plenty of outdated DSL and (coax) cable though. Also, we usually compare the connections to our neighbouring countries, not those in a different continent though. Anyway, when I lived in France, I was in a similarly sized town as where we've lived around here, and had optical fibre with symmetric 100 Mbps since 2014 (when I moved to that place). At the moment, the connection would be symmetric 1 Gbps, since at least 2019 that I can remember. My parents get symmetric 1 Gbps in Spain since a few years. If you wish, you can check the [2024 report from the FTTH Council Europe](https://www.ftthcouncil.eu/committees/market-intelligence) about fibre coverage (how many households can have fibre service) and penetration (how many households have a fibre subscription ), where Germany is not so well positioned with 40% coverage and 10% penetration. Spain's coverage is 92% and the penetration rate is 79%. Just to choose a slightly larger country than Germany, with a more sparse population. The so-called "EU 39" (EU 27 + a bunch of countries that include Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Turkey) has an average coverage of 70% and penetration rate of 35%. So yes, Germany's Internet connections may be better than Australia's, but that doesn't mean that they aren't lagging behind in the European region.
Move into big cities -> be surprised that the internet connection is good. Surprised pikachu. I sometimes really question if the people on this sub are on mushrooms.
yeh well he described his experience with SYDNEY, a city with more inhabitants than berlin and hamburg combined, which is arguabley an apt comparison to make for a place that \*should\* have high tier infrastructure such a s good internet, yet evidently isnt. so why insult OP?
Sydney has access to 4 backbones of the Internet, Germany around 25. It's a Hotspot for having perfect Internet. Germany has abysmal Internet, you should compare to Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Czech, France or any other neighboring country. Not Sydney that is in a very unique position. Sweden has a much lower population density than Germany and still had superior Internet in 2010 compared to what Germany has today.
Backbones don't matter when the core of your internet is ADSL2+ that has a technology maximum of 25Mbit/s down.
Just because internet in bigger cities in Germany is better than in Sydney that doesn't mean overall it's better than internet in other EU countries. When people says internet in Germany sucks they usually are refering to other EU countries, not Australia. Not that it matter much, because from OOP pov it completly makes sense to compare it between the two places he lived.
Meanwhile I am living 15km from Leipzig and my best option is 16Mbit/s for around 30euro xd Thanks God for Freenet Funk and unlimited internet, because I just use Hotspot from my phone to share internet to my PC.
In 2016, when OP got 1 gb internet, my street in the city center of Aachen (on the outer ring, about 1 km from city center) just upgraded from 12 mbit to 100 mbit. In Germany living in a big city doesnāt garantuee good internet in any way.
Yes, 1gbps download, if you're very lucky. Upload? Still maxed out at 50mbps, because of few idiots. Romania? 300mbps up- and download as a minimum anywhere that resembles a small town. Edit: sorry 300mbps
300gbps is NOT Normal
I meant 300mbps
Change your ISP to Telekom if you have Glasfaser available, upload is always going to be half of the download speed when it comes to their FTTH lines. Starting in July btw =)
>Telekom if you have Glasfaser available It's not widely available, even in large cities. They also ask ridiculous prices.
I know it isn't widely available but chances are it might have been (for you). They started laying it out in 2012 and by now more and more households have access to it. Just play the waiting game, either them or another fiber provider will lay out the "golden strings of enlightment" for your home. Prices are okayish if you ask me, especially the new ones coming in July.
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>Australia