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Comment by igl | Hacker News Reader

Data caps do not exist for non-mobile Internet connections in Germany. The speed of the Internet is still increasing. We are at a point where i don't even care about getting more. Bandwidths of 250mbit are announced to come to the market in the coming years. I can live with stable 50mbit. The real problem are rural areas where people are stuck with 2mbit/256kbit lines and throwing away net neutrality will not change a damn thing about this. Laying kilometers of fibreglass into the ground for less than 500 customers will never be profitable. Even if they can charge half of them with a premium fee.

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During my training I knew a guy whose ISP sent him a letter threatening to cancel his contract if he kept taking the "flat rate" literally. Admittedly, that was one of the really cheap ISPs whose business model was selling "flat rate" accounts to people who would most likely never make substantial use of them.

Also, some ISPs have at least the option in their contracts to throttle the bandwidth after a certain amount of traffic. AFAIK, no ISP has used that option yet, so it has not been challenged in court.

People living in rural areas do have problem, indeed. I know a woman who until a year ago was stuck with freaking ISDN. There are many cases of rural communities pretty much begging the Telekom (Germany's largest ISP, I think) to hook them up with DSL, the Telekom ignoring their requests until the moment those communities start talking with some other ISP. The moment that happens, Telekom will hook them up with DSL faster than anyone can say "Internet".

So far i only heard of o2 (telefonica) having bandwidth throttles and when you can choose o2 you can usually choose other providers. Most cities have local providers with really good connections, stable rates and no overly expensive prices. Kabel Deutschland is a problem. Their 100mbit is a joke and not better than 16mbit from a proper provider. I wonder if its just the cable technology or them throttling traffic randomly. They alsp give me horrendous international routing. Websites not located within europe go through 300 hops are slow and unenjoyable. I had better experiences in the same city with other ISPs.

This is really bad for rural communities. Not only for having not internet but alos for their Economy. I know a company who are stuck with 1mbit and after experimenting with satellite internet and mobile-internet they are pretty much on the brick to move towards the city. Is everyone left behind is suppose to grow potatos for a job?

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