
Ask HN: Why is internet access so expensive in Germany? - RichardHeart
Their neighbors crush them in access per dollar.  Why?
======
zmix
Writing this from Germany:

The question at hand was not for wireless internet access, but for internet
access. That includes all forms of carriers. Not so long ago, I found wireless
internet access to be very steep in price, too, but since it has changed a
little. Wired access is usually carried over either ADSL or VDSL or cable
here. In some areas (metroploitan, mostly) the introduction of fibre has
begun.

Prices range from 20€-50€, with speeds ranging from 16mb/s to 100mb/s in the
downstream and 1mb/s to 40mb/s in the upstream. Most of these offers include
unlimited landline calls within Germany (flatrate), some of them add extras,
like WiFi on the go or IPTV.

I don't find this to be expensive. Especially, since there is seldomly horror-
stories like the ones coming from Verizone customers, etc.

On the mobile-side, pure data-flatrates can be had for below 10€, including
3GB of bandwidth. All-Net-Flats, which include a flatrate for national calls
into all networks, 4GB data (>40mb/s), flat SMS, are to be had at a starting
30€/month, when contracted for 2 years.

And, in the end, let's be honest: Most people do not need more than 5mb/s. At
least not per person. Small multi-user households may be fine with 16mb/s,
people reading HackerNews, however, obviously need much, much more ;-)

~~~
poushkar
Well, we probably live in different Germanies :)

I am writing this comment from an S-Bahn train going through the Berlin center
right now, on iPhone SE, no cover cases, no jailbrake.

My mobile operator is contract Congstar and at the moment connection status is
switching back and forth from "no service" to Edge to 3G. 3g is present only
about 60% of the time.

I had similar quality problems with T-Mobile as well before I quit it.

Their LTE was present only in the city center, but not inside buildings.

And I tested it with few different phones.

Everyone I know complains about mobile internet quality.

My friends back in Ukraine have been making video calls on their phones for at
least 3 years now and me, living in the center of Europe, cannot load a HN
page sometimes.

~~~
zmix
No we don't. But, as it seems, we talk about two completely different topics
;)

The question at hand (see the title) was not about mobile-internet-quality,
but about _high_ _prices_ for internet in Germany in general. That is two
different topics. Just now I read on Golem.de, that 1&1 Versatel offers
200MBit/s for 30€. I don't think that is expensive.

------
fanpuns
Are you speaking about mobile or internet to the home? Also, which neighbors
and do you have a specific comparison?

As @zmix states, my experience with internet to the home is pretty good and
reasonable (to me anyway). It's even a little faster in FFM (120 down from
Unity and you actually get that whens speed testing too) for the same price.
I've lived in Austria and Switzerland and I don't find that they are
"crush"ing Germany. Switzerland offers a tantalizing 1gb down service, but
when you actually plug in an address it's hard to find buildings that are
wired for that (and they seem to know it because the plans that step down from
that are only nominally less even though the speed is massively different).

Speaking specifically of mobile, I don't find access to be that expensive
(unless you go with Telekom), but I will second (or third) the lack of
coverage. I have O2 and find that it basically doesn't work outside of cities.
The train ride between FFM and Mannheim is a signal desert for me which is
crazy because this is a very busy corridor. If this is what you meant by
access, then I would probably agree since mobile data coverage outside of
cities seems to at least exist in other places.

------
tpetry
Wireless internet access is so expensive because Germany made an auction for
all mobile providers to buy the 3G frequencies needed for operating a 3G
network. The problem was the providers bid insanely high amounts of money for
these frequencies, all together they have been sold for 50.8 billion euros
(today this would be 54 billion USD).

But the huge cost for 3G did not end with this. Every provider was required to
use it's frequencies and deliver 3G to a specified percent of the population.
So on top of the high auction prices they had very high costs for actually
putting many transceivers.

And this is, why wireless is so insanely expensive in Germany. It all started
with an auction and companies paying too much...

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
Interesting. It's the government's fault in Canada too but for a different
reason (protectionism). I know the right in the US sound crazy to some people
but they do seem to have at least half a point about this stuff.

~~~
NetStrikeForce
Well, in the US you have incompatible networks and poor coverage outside
cities. I know the US is _yuuuge_ , so that adds to the problem, but from
outside it seems they've got a cartel issue...

------
miguelrochefort
How much is that?

