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Comment by bauerd | Hacker News Reader

I live in a German state capital, one stop away from central station. Best I can get is 50 Mbit/s.

German internet infrastructure drives me crazy when I visit. I live in Sweden and broadband here is really good, both mobile and land-based ones, whenever I go to a major German city (München, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg) I suffer with 4G, I suffer with my friends' or offices' internet connection. It's not even the slowness that bothers me more, it's the spottiness: 4G signals dropping to 3G and depending on the area even to 2G (haven't seen this happen the last time I visited in 2019 but definitely saw it before).

Home broadband have issues that the operator can't solve quickly (once working from home at a friend's place we got the house apartment internet cut off for a couple of days), Telekom sucks, their customer support sucks, sending a technician can take a month or more sometimes.

It feels so damn backwards, even more for the largest economy in the EU, not investing in digitalisation (both infrastructure and public services) is gonna bite Germany's ass for the next decade. Can't believe most bureaucracy is still done through paper-based mail, or faxes.

The Big T in Germany has strong ties in the government, both regional and central. They don't have to innovate when they can just block others via lobbying.

Ex Telekom worker here.

This is not surprising for a ex-government agency that is still substantially government owned. Somewhat anti-competitive, expensive, and they clearly have no sense of urgency with regard to fibre.

But more than half their revenue is now from the US Market, which they didn't enter in such a privileged position.

Anyway, 100% of Germany to be covered with FTTH by 2030 :)

https://www.telekom.com/resource/blob/619512/394bebe64a0f87d...

I have in a 140k city 500/50, up to 1000/50 are possible. No caps, 47 EUR/month. It is not stellar, but certainly more than enough for my needs.

I would say Germany was hurt a lot though the de-facto monopoly of the Telekom and DSL, relying on copper wires. Telekom had even after privatisation a monopoly on the last mile and 0 motivation to invest. It is only when the internet over TV Cable became popular, they started to panic. They are still offering 250/50 DSL in some areas, but only if there is no TV Cable vendor. Otherwise they have no chance it is a lost battle for them. In my are DSL is only 16/2,4 because why bother to upgrade? They are not competitive.

Other problem in Germany is that the landlord decides which providers he lets in his house - it is usually one and only one TV Cable vendor, if multiple vendors are operating in the area.

What impact should the central station have?

I work in the communication industry and we call this "A problem that can be solved by money" - while on wireless we have "Problems based on the law of physics".

In Eurasia railway companies often run fibre because they already have rights to the tracks. More importantly, one stop from a central station is basically city centre with high population density.

So? We have fully developed fiber networks everywhere in EU, but the last 500m ... 200m to every building is expensive (this about tree structures).

But it's less expensive per subscriber (and therefore more profitable and more expected to be delivered) when you have higher pop density.

It only looks to you like less expensive. Opening a street inner city and put something in the ground gets more and more expensive (think factors) the higher the building density and 'other things in the ground' get.

I recommend to start a business if YOU know how to keep the investment down.

This is really not some controversial discovery. Providers already know this and take full advantage. It's common for multi-tenants buildings to be wired by 2-3 ISPs and even nearby single family housing to have only one with serious installation costs on top.

Barring regulatory failure, providers don't even need to "open a street" precisely because of the other installations that already exist where wires can be run alongside.

>What impact should the central station have?

It would be a major destination, so one would expect fast cables to be laid out there (and be available in the close area). That's the case with important areas where I live at least.

Even new buildings in central Berlin are being built without Fiber, which is pretty hard comprehend.

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