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Comment by harryf | Hacker News Reader

The other fun part is getting your office connected to the Internet - Deutsche Telekom will happily take 5 weeks to respond to what should be their most simplest of requests

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Not just Germany but I found the same problem in Amsterdam when I tried to set up Internet for my apartment. It took 2 weeks for it to be enabled and it was really surprising since it takes about a day or two to get it setup in AZ.

Surprising! In Bangalore, it's a matter of a day or two.

No it is not. It all depends on the area in Bangalore. Most of the time the sockets would not be available because of high demand and very low supply (because of no interest in expanding the capacity). The government owned BSNL has problem of poor quality (cable cuts and service outage). Please note I am not talking about wireless technologies and only wired.

I really hope it improves though.

Deutsche Telekom (owner of T-Mobile) is the most expensive piece of shit ever, and they take forever to do anything. But that’s intentional. They want to make it as hard as possible to switch, so you never even attempt it.

The funny thing is that if you live in Germany, you grow up thinking that it's completely normal that Deutsche Telekom takes 4 weeks to get your internet connection hooked up when you move houses.

I was actually completely shocked when I moved to California, signed up with an internet provider, and had a technician come to my house the next day. Crazy!

Here in Neukölln Berlin, 4 weeks is normal for whatever DSL provider you choose, O2 tech support treats you with utter contempt when THEY fuck up, and connection quality is all over the place. Cable is barely available.

Fucked up customer service is not isolated to O2, it is totally the same with Vodafone too. Quality of service is pretty shit as well. In the German market, you just have to choose best of the worst, which is pretty bad if you are in the country side.

Moving Kabel Deutschland (now Vodafone unfortunately) takes 3-4 days if your new building has the cabling done.

Good to hear! The experience I described above was indeed a number of years ago, but also compare your comment to the one by m_fayer.

How do you work if you have no Internet? Coffee shops? (Or, heaven forfend, you go to an office for 16 hours/day?)

Internet availability is not a problem. Just check cable availability and your up and running with 100Mbits+ in a few days.

In Germany you are not allowed to work more than 10 hours/day, only on special cases.

I just switched to Telekom for my Internet connection (private, not business), and while their service isn't perfect, I was still quite impressed with the whole process.

(Other DSL companies can be hell, because they don't own much of the infrastructure, so you'll get stuck in endless finger pointing and shifting of blame. Cable internet providers have their own problems, but are generally a good option, as well.)

DSL is still used in Berlin? Over telephone lines?

Yes, in all German cities. Usually 100Mbps down, 40Mbps up via DSL. That’s what I’m using myself, too.

Currently work is being done to upgrade the phone network to 500/200 in the next years.

I didn't know that it's possible to do 100Mbps on telephone line. Last time I used DSL, there was 8 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up, but practically much less.

telephone lines owned by the Government (Telekom, private in theory, owned by the Government on paper), no less!

there is some DOCSIS (cable) service, mostly from Vodafone but also a smaller provider named telecolumbus.

There was versatel, but 1&1 smartly purchased it at what I believe to be an absolute steal. They have what is clearly the widest fiber network reach outside of Telekom, and 1&1 is actually going out there and selling it.

I could, if I really wanted to, get 1Gbps symmetrical for only 500EUR/month. The catch is the ~3000EUR install and minimum 3 year commitment. but, at least the option is there. Telekom, if they have fiber "available" at your address, will offer you 20Mbps for around 700EUR a month, then do this really weird delivery of an STM-1 (155Mbps) circuit, broken out into E3s (45Mbps) to a Cisco ASR1002 (a 5000EUR device, easily), that is converted to a rate limited GigE interface. Oh, and the install fee is about 1200EUR and takes a solid six weeks...but only if you call every day to remind them.

Berlin internet connectivity is a sick and twisted joke.

This reminds me my conversation with a salesperson in a Deutsche Telekom retail shop in Berlin. The fastest DSL in my apartment was 6 Mbit/s. No VDSL available because "all sockets are taken" probably by the neighbours or by the business on the ground floor - the guy was literally blaming their shitty connection on my neighbours. I was this close to killing him with the chair he was sitting on.

xDSL is still used in most places. It generally works well and the infrastructure has been in place for a long time, which is the reason broadband has become so accessible. Fiber is gradually replacing it, but it's a major investment to lay fiber. So xDSL is going to be around for a long time, especially to deliver broadband to customers for whom fiber doesn't make economic sense.

They are the Comcast of Germany.

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