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.<p>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/minutes about once a day and once or twice a month it'll be out for longer. I have had this and similar issues up and down the east coast in 5 different locations.<p>Maybe the experiences with Telekom in Frankfurt and with Kabel BW have been above the norm, but for I never/rarely had connectivity issues and it has always been much cheaper.
T-Mobile in the States is, if possible, even worse. I visited Puerto Rico in February and decided on a T-Mobile stick because the one I use in Budapest works perfectly. In PR, though, there were URLs that simply didn't go through - and there is literally no support. None; you simply can't get support at all. No phone, no email - just a "community support" forum where you can post things if you feel like blowing off steam. And it still cost $10/GB.<p>Not only that, you can only purchase a new block of 5 GB <i>after</i> your current one has already been used up. Before then they simply don't take your money - unless you set up autopay. And you can't purchase time online, because the URL forwards to nowhere - see above lack of any support facility. You can't even report this breakage.<p>So you have to do it by phone. But there are two systems; first you have to load money onto your account, then you can use the money on your account to pay for a new 5GB block - but these are two different systems with two different numbers and they each require you to punch in your phone number and a PIN code. Different PIN codes, if I recall. And again, no human support at all.<p>But then let me tell you about our T-Mobile cell phones here in Budapest. My phone started sending me "premium" SMS messages at 1500 ft a pop (about $7.50 per premium message) until the entire balance was used up. As service messages so they don't show in the Inbox. T-Mobile was able to block that, but my wife's phone started mysteriously "accessing the Internet" (it's not a smart phone), again at something like 500 ft per access, invisibly, until her balance was used up. The only recourse is to go to a T-Mobile store and stand in line for half an hour, because they do kind of have phone support here in Hungary, but the only thing they can tell you is to go to the store and wait in line.<p>The store has no permission to escalate to technicians. The people in the store "disabled" Internet on my wife's phone three separate times; the theft continued each time. Sometimes they'd refund some money and apologize and swear up and down that everything was disabled.<p>Finally, it seems to have stopped on its own. Maybe it was a system misconfiguration, maybe not. It's impossible to know, because clearly T-Mobile itself has no idea.<p>Their Internet stick (in Hungary) works great, though. So I continue to use them - it's just that if there's ever a problem they are entirely unable to fix it. The entire company is so Balkanized and so incredibly poorly managed that they can only barely function if nothing goes wrong.
Its not really as bad as this article claims.<p>- 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<p>- 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.<p>- the situation in the US is even worse, still alot of people on dialup in rural areas<p>- 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
At the same time that I think it's important to complain, the post seems too much like a spoiled complaint.<p>"Don't move your startup there"? Is the poster aware that several startups work with internet worse than that? Internet quality is one important factor, but it is not the only one. I'd even say there are more important factors.<p>Complains about D-Telekom but offers no alternative? (and that's why government monopolies are BS)<p>Disclaimer: I may be moving to Germany in a couple of weeks so I may still regret this post
Badly written article, lacking improtant facts and misrepresenting things (e.g. there is not just Telekom in Germany...) just to finally go all alarmist. :/
I had exactly the same experience when I still lived in Germany. I lived in a rural area and the fastest internet connection was DSL 1000. It wasn't possible to watch youtube videos fluently, software upgrades took ages and video calls were a pain.
It's depressing that many governments simply don't understand that providing high speed cheap internet should be the number 1 priority for encouraging growth in technology sectors.
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.<p>Broadband access is defined as 380kbit/s and customer service is terrible.<p>By the way: T-Mobile is part of "Telekom".<p>But if you choose the right street in the right city, getting 100mbit for 50euros (flatrate) is not a problem.
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.<p>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.<p>(fiber and coaxial networks are private, these are not the public debts you are looking for ;-)