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>“The whole problem in Germany is the lack of fiber-to-the-home strategy by Deutsche Telekom DTEGY -0.52% and other carriers, No, it is not. The problem could

>“The whole problem in Germany is the lack of fiber-to-the-home strategy by Deutsche Telekom DTEGY -0.52% and other carriers, No, it is not. The problem could have been solved decades ago. Helmut Kohl of the CDU (conservative party) turned back a decision of his predecessor to role out a fiber network across Germany that would have been constructed from the 80ies until the millenium [1]. Germany could have had fiber to the home for 20 years at the least reachable areas and for 35 in major cities. Rumor has it that nowadays, Telekom is postponing fiber because they don't want to sublicense their network to other carriers so they wait until they are getting a better deal. This is funny because Telekom is owned by many German small sharesholders (since that's how they have privatized the former public agency) - which has led to a situation where Germans don't get better internet because they are hoping for higher profits. [1]https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Der-Kampf-um-die-Glasfaser-oder-Der-verpasste-Breitbandausbau-in-Deutschland-3952581.html https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Der-Kam...

boyter 7y ago
Hah! That’s exactly what happened in Australia. There is legit talk about changing the hugest plans here from 100/40 to 120/20. It’s that bad. Which is moot anyway because 40% of the “new” network probably cannot get that speed anyway.
- cknight 7y ago
  German internet didn't seem so bad to me, and I suspect it is because I am Australian. The parallels between Telstra and Telekom were uncanny. In Germany eventually I ended up with 50mbit VDSL which was fine, but having to get Telekom out to connect a phone line in a new building was not fun. Lots of hoops had to be jumped through. Coming back home to Sydney, stuck on 3mbit ADSL2+ (4km from exchange) was also not fun, but at least it was upgraded to HFC NBN a year later. We're making progress... but as in Germany, it all depends on where you live.
- IntelMiner 7y ago
  Australia's situation is fairly different. And reeks of all the wrong steps of privatization of infrastructure Telstra (at the time "Telecom Australia") was drawing up plans to roll out FTTH all the way back in 1994(!) before being privatized whole cloth in 1998 Some of their delightful missteps leading up to (and during) the NBN rollout included - Selling Dial-Up services cheaper than competitors by virtue of not needing to pay line rental or other fees - Describing ADSL as a "fetish" and saying ISDN was "good enough" - Running a competitor's (Optus) HFC rollout into the ground. Large swathes of Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane to this day have "Telstra Cable" on one side of a street and "Optus Cable" on the other, simply because Telstra wanted to bankrupt Optus out of trying to avoid using their copper network, and thus, paying fees - Breaking the ADSL 1 standard to prevent having to buy more DSLAM backhaul. The 8/1 ADSL standard was changed to "at most" 1.5/256 - Attempting to roll out FTTN across the country in 2006, on the provision that they NOT be required to allow competing providers access to their equipment (this was a large part of what precipitated Labor's original NBN vision in 2007) - Stalling NBN negotiations as long as possible while gold plating their "4G" network, along with NewsCorp (which owns a 33% stake in Telstra) parroting the "WIRELESS IS THE FUTURE!" line, complete with ads for the "FASTEST 4G NETWORK IN AUSTRALIA" - Staffing the entire NBN board after the LNP victory in 2013 with "ex" Telstra executives, whom were not required to divest their shares in Telstra, while actively negotiating terms to use Telstra's network(!) There's many other egregious Telstra incidents like charging 5x the market rate for peering on their network (being the biggest ISP has its "perks") and repeated nation-wide outages of their services due to outsourced network operations, but these are the ones directly related to the NBN today

boyter 7y ago

Hah! That’s exactly what happened in Australia. There is legit talk about changing the hugest plans here from 100/40 to 120/20. It’s that bad. Which is moot anyway because 40% of the “new” network probably cannot get that speed anyway.

cknight 7y ago
German internet didn't seem so bad to me, and I suspect it is because I am Australian. The parallels between Telstra and Telekom were uncanny. In Germany eventually I ended up with 50mbit VDSL which was fine, but having to get Telekom out to connect a phone line in a new building was not fun. Lots of hoops had to be jumped through. Coming back home to Sydney, stuck on 3mbit ADSL2+ (4km from exchange) was also not fun, but at least it was upgraded to HFC NBN a year later. We're making progress... but as in Germany, it all depends on where you live.
IntelMiner 7y ago
Australia's situation is fairly different. And reeks of all the wrong steps of privatization of infrastructure Telstra (at the time "Telecom Australia") was drawing up plans to roll out FTTH all the way back in 1994(!) before being privatized whole cloth in 1998 Some of their delightful missteps leading up to (and during) the NBN rollout included - Selling Dial-Up services cheaper than competitors by virtue of not needing to pay line rental or other fees - Describing ADSL as a "fetish" and saying ISDN was "good enough" - Running a competitor's (Optus) HFC rollout into the ground. Large swathes of Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane to this day have "Telstra Cable" on one side of a street and "Optus Cable" on the other, simply because Telstra wanted to bankrupt Optus out of trying to avoid using their copper network, and thus, paying fees - Breaking the ADSL 1 standard to prevent having to buy more DSLAM backhaul. The 8/1 ADSL standard was changed to "at most" 1.5/256 - Attempting to roll out FTTN across the country in 2006, on the provision that they NOT be required to allow competing providers access to their equipment (this was a large part of what precipitated Labor's original NBN vision in 2007) - Stalling NBN negotiations as long as possible while gold plating their "4G" network, along with NewsCorp (which owns a 33% stake in Telstra) parroting the "WIRELESS IS THE FUTURE!" line, complete with ads for the "FASTEST 4G NETWORK IN AUSTRALIA" - Staffing the entire NBN board after the LNP victory in 2013 with "ex" Telstra executives, whom were not required to divest their shares in Telstra, while actively negotiating terms to use Telstra's network(!) There's many other egregious Telstra incidents like charging 5x the market rate for peering on their network (being the biggest ISP has its "perks") and repeated nation-wide outages of their services due to outsourced network operations, but these are the ones directly related to the NBN today