Internet in Germany

DSL

In Germany, DSL is the prevalent internet access technology with over 30 million subscribers. For residential services the Annex B versions of ADSL, ADSL2+, and VDSL2 are used. With over 12 million customers the incumbent Deutsche Telekom is the market leader. Other DSL providers either operate their own hardware on local loops rented from the incumbent in a local loop unbundling (LLU) arrangement, and/or purchase bit-stream access from a provider that operates DSL hardware.^[1]

As of January 2014, a typical monthly cost for "dual-flatrate" internet and telephone service is €25 for ADSL2+ (16 Mbit/s) and €30 for VDSL2 (50 Mbit/s).^[2][3] Some of the most important DSL providers are:

• Deutsche Telekom
• 1&1
• Vodafone
• o2

Providers such as Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone also offer DSL-based triple play services with IPTV, which requires at least 16 Mbit/s for HD quality.

Symmetric DSL connections using the G.shdsl standard are marketed towards business customers.

Alternative technologies

While DSL is the prevalent connection technology in Germany, other technologies may offer lower prices or better availability and speed.

Cable

Internet via cable is offered i.a. by Kabel Deutschland and Unitymedia/Kabel BW (separated geographically). The available download speed is between 10 and 150 Mbit/s. A typical 2-year tariff with 100Mbit/s internet and telephone costs about €35 per month,^[4] with additional HD cable TV about €60.^[5]

FTTH and FTTB

Deutsche Telekom started offering FTTH/FTTB in select regions in 2011, with up to 200 Mbit/s downstream and 10 Mbit/s upstream.^[6] As of January 2014, Deutsche Telekom FTTH was available in 884,000 households, at a price point of €55 for 100 Mbit/s and €60 for 200 Mbit/s service.^[7][8] Regional providers also offer FTTH/FTTB services.

Satellite

Satellite internet is geographically more widely available than land-based technologies. In places where land-based internet access technology (DSL, cable, FTTx) is not available, satellite and UMTS/LTE are the primary means of high-speed internet access. As opposed to UMTS/LTE, satellite internet providers offer flatrates.^[9]

UMTS/HSDPA and LTE

Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone offer fixed location internet service on their UMTS and LTE networks.^[10][11] As of January 2014, there are no flatrates availabe. The included data volume is generally higher for fixed location service than for mobile service at the same price point. As of January 2014, both Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone limit the speed to 384 kbit/s after the data volume of between 10 and 25 GB is used up.^[10][11]

HSDPA with up to 42.2 Mbit/s is offered by all four network operators: Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, o2, and E-Plus. All of them, except E-Plus, also offer LTE with up to 150 Mbit/s. 3G speed is offered by almost 95% of the German cellular network with an average speed of 7.3 Mbit/s. LTE is expanded to almost 97% with an average speed of 12.1 Mbit/s.^[12] A typical 2-year contract with 2GB of LTE speed, unlimited minutes and texts costs around €35.^[13]

History

Until 1995, Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) was a government corporation linked with Deutsche Bundespost. As a government run and owned corporation, Deutsche Telekom was the monopoly ISP until its privatization in 1995, and the dominant ISP thereafter.^[14] Until the 21st century, Deutsche Telekom controlled almost all Internet access by individuals and small businesses.^[14]

Bildschirmtext (BTX) was an early data network service offered by Deutsche Telekom starting in 1983. Later it served as an alternative to the Internet, but was discontinued by 2001.^[15]

Prior to the introduction of DSL and cable internet, voice-band modems and ISDN BRI were the most common residential internet access technologies. ISDN was widespread, with 333 ISDN BRIs per 1000 persons in 2005.^[16] DSL was introduced in Germany by Deutsche Telekom on July 1, 1999 under the brand name T-DSL, with 768 kbit/s downstream and 128 kbit/s upstream.^[17] T-DSL speeds were increased by Deutsche Telekom to 1536/192 kbit/s upstream/downstream in September 2002, 3072/384 kbit/s in April 2004, and 6016/576 kbit/s in mid-2005.^[17] Deutsche Telekom introduced ADSL2+ service with 16000/1024 kbit/s in spring 2006 and VDSL2 with 50000/10000 kbit/s triple play service under the brand name Entertain in October 2006.^[17][18] VDSL2 service without bundled IPTV was introduced in June 2009.^[18] In 2011, Deutsche Telekom introduced Voice over IP (VoIP) in addition to its POTS and ISDN voice services. In February 2013, Deutsche Telekom started switching existing subscribers to VoIP service.^[19]

In 1998, the Federal Network Agency established regulations for local loop unbundling, enabling providers such as Vodafone, Telefónica Germany, QSC, and Versatel to rent the local loop from the incumbent Deutsche Telekom and to operate their own access networks, placing their DSLAMs either in their own central offices (CO) or co-located with the incumbent's.^[20] These ISPs either offered their services directly to the subscriber, or sold bit-stream access to other ISPs.^[21] To compete with the incumbent's POTS and VoIP services, alternative providers introduced voice over IP (VoIP) services, bundled with the DSL access under the name Komplettanschluss.^[20] Starting in 2004, Deutsche Telekom provided IP-level bitstream access to other providers as T-DSL resale.^[22] The "resold" T-DSL was only available to subscribers of Deutsche Telekom's POTS/ISDN service.^[22] In July 2008, Deutsche Telekom introduced bitstream access which does not require the incumbent's POTS/ISDN service, enabling other ISPs to provide combined internet and voice service (with VoIP) on Deutsche Telekom-operated local loops.^[22]

Cable internet access in Germany began with pilot projects in December 2003 and wide deployment followed in late 2004.^[23] A number of political reasons prevented an earlier market adoption of cable internet in Germany.^[24] Until 2001, Deutsche Telekom was the monopoly owner of the German coax cable network, and had no intention to offer in-house competition to its DSL service.^[24] Pressure from regulatory agencies forced Detusche Telekom to sell its cable network, however Deutsche Telekom took measures to delay a possbile cable internet offering.^[24]

LTE internet access was introduced by Deutsche Telekom in 2010 and by Vodafone in 2011.^[25] As part of the 2010 spectrum auction, the regulatory agency BNetzA required bidders to use the spectrum to provide broadband internet access to regions without land-line broadband (DSL, cable, FTTH) access.^[25] For the purpose of land-line broadband replacement, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone introduced fixed location LTE service.

See also

• Internet censorship in Germany

References

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