because the old Kanzler Kohl, decades ago, chose copper instead of fiber optic. I believe his family member was in the copper business..
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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It wasn't a family member of his, but a family member of his post minister, a Mr Schwarz-Schilling, who was in the copper cable business. Kohl and his entire government are synonymous with incredible levels of corruption and nepotism. Kohl made corruption a kind of national sport for German politicians. Our upcoming Chancellor, Friedrich Merz is of his ilk.
This is how West Germany chose copper, when even the by then almost bankrupt (and ruled by even more senile backwards looking geezers) GDR was already starting to lay down fiber optic.
I think the spread of cable television also played a big role in this. It seems that the public broadcasters were too left-wing for Kohl. It was hoped that the private channels would provide more sympathetic coverage or at least a better distraction.
"accept and continue" or "subscribe and decline" lol
Never seen such a blatant violation of gdpr, as if it was read as a guidebook instead of laws on what you can't do
It's very common for German news sites as well, but then not for the Swedish ones. I think news sites in some countries have an exemption?
Perhaps, all I know is the button "reject all" should be available and it took many years and fines before some of them actually complied and even then most tried to hide it
Nobody is "putting up with snail-speed internet" here. The problem is that there really is nothing for me to do to get fiber or higher mobile speeds. I can even see a mobile tower from here and it still is slow.
I just talked to a colleague of mine today who declined to have fiber internet installed at no extra cost. Because his DSL is fast enough.
So yes, some (a lot) people do put up with it.
In terms of mobile internet, Germany barely reaches 68.91 Mbps
The snails in Germany must be somewhat faster than the ones around here.
Blitzed off amphetamines, them snails are.
The problem really boils down to a combination of NIMBYism and even more importantly lobbying. Telecom lobbied the German government to allow them to not upgrade to copper cables and upgrade those with better backend infrastructure as well. However that is always going to be worse then proper fiber.
For mobile in most countries the government issues licenses with built in fines, if certain coverage quality is not reached. Germany did not do this and the conservative government even repeated that mistake with 5G. The issue is that there are only three network providers and obviously upgrades cost money, which means less profits.
Germany has a cultural problem of deeply ingrained technophobia when it comes to all things computers. Any technology that's not absolutely dumbed down to the point a trained monkey could operate it, is seen as too complicated. And the political and managerial caste running this real life absurd comedy show are used to dictating E-Mails to their secretary rather than dealing with the "complicated technology" of writing it themselves...
You can't expect from people like that to possibly grasp the complexity of the difference between a slow connection and a slow device.
Source?
Am German and have been living in Germany for more than 4 decades by now. Couldn't help but making some observations. Even though I'd rather not have for my sanity's sake.
That's right, and we have a lot of old people in key positions making decisions about technological advances. The infrastructure is quite poor compared to other countries. Mobile data is still very expensive in Germany. The list goes on...
I was surprised I found 3g mobile networks still available while we have shut them off in Italy years ago.
5g is almost useless if you compare speed and range to 4g (similar speed with much more range) but 3g is getting old now.
3G shut off some years ago. It's 2G which is still around mostly for emergency purposes, slated to shut down 2028-2030. Companies really don't like wasting frequency bands on old standards but you can't just cut off e.g. car and elevator emergency phones.
and we have a lot of old people in key positions making decisions about technological advances
My grandma used to say "age is all in your head". She was right.
If you look at the typical decision makers, they tend to make a distinctly senile impression, regardless of how old they actually are. It's less the age, and more the utter stupidity that will inevitably develop in a ruling caste that doesn't need to fend for itself anymore, because they are so filthy rich that they can have all the work done for them by others. It's a self perpetuating circlejerk of old privileged imbeciles teaching young privileged imbeciles their ways. Of course, all the young imbeciles can possibly learn this way is utter stupidity paired with insane levels of confidence. This is going to work fine exactly as long as the privileged imbeciles treat those who are doing their work for them alright and leave them enough freedom to do their work well. Once they begin treating them badly and start micromanaging, shit is going to go sideways.
Echoes of - "The internet is not a dump truck, it's a series of tubes".
Why should it be different in other European countries in this regard? I mean, is there a sociological or cultural reason for this? Or is it simply german grumpiness?
I don't have a direct comparison to other European countries from day to day up close observation, but the little observation I have tells me that many other countries do have an at least slightly more welcoming culture towards computers and their use. At least there seems to be an expectation to know how to use devices and software needed for one's work, while in Germany, the excuse "that's too complicated" frequently flies.
Can confirm. Example: Was on a work trip in Tibilisi, Georgia last year, and 5G coverage everywhere, fiber everywhere, even the smoothie bar next to our site had wireless and usb chargers embedded in their countertops. Free (albeit somewhat clogged) wifi throughout the city. Younger, or far more flexible demographics and mental flexibility and willingness to use technology. No letterbox to be seen as nearly every communication is digital. Getting a SIM takes 5 minutes with digital verification in the shop, even for a German (looking at you, Postident!).
Hey at least you are not Japan
Article does not cover the why question, only partly how it came to that situation: A government stuck in the past. I'd like to add that laying cable/fiber costs money, so the providers like to milk that invest as long as possible. So while we have ftc here, there's still multiple dslams on that curb distributing the net though copper to the homes. Some even still set up with adsl line cards (15 mbps instead of 250), although newly built. Some efforts are being made to provide fth, but these are hard to distribute in 1950 era buildings. These costs are mainly not recoverable by rent, need a heavy planning effort and all tenants in that building would be bound to one provider for one or two years, which most of mine do strictly not want. Not only the government is stuck in the past here. When I asked my provider if I could have fiber and dsl as fallback and for testing those few who understood the question just laughed.
so the providers like to milk that invest as long as possible.
Might want to add that the providers, especially the Telekom, largely got that investment for free, because it was paid for by the tax payer before the postal service, which was in charge of telecommunications, was privatised and split up into multiple companies.
The privatisations starting from the 1990s were a wholesale theft of public property.
I work in the telco industry (specifically mobile networks) in Germany, there are heaps of reasons for heaps of issues⦠cbf to start listing them now but feel free to ask I guess
Are you waiting for Godot... sorry, 6G?