There's a very obvious reason for why mobile Internet in Germany is flaky, slow yet at the same time ridiculously expensive: During the UMTS spectrum licence a

There's a very obvious reason for why mobile Internet in Germany is flaky, slow yet at the same time ridiculously expensive: During the UMTS spectrum licence auction in 2000 the incumbents, state-owned T-Mobil and Mannesmann (later bought by Vodafone) feared new entrants to the market and in order to keep other players out of the market placed bids much higher than the amount those licences could be reasonably expected to bring in in the subsequent years. In the meantime, Germany and its finance minister at the time rejoiced in the sudden, unexpected windfall. The whole spectacle was even televised. People just generally and shortsightedly assumed that the higher the amount raised by the auction the better. The auction's 'winners' however wrote off the costs over the next few years and didn't make enough profit to properly invest in the necessary infrastructure. Apparently, none of the participants learned from this disaster because in 2019 when the 5G licences were up for sale they by and large committed the same mistakes again (though not to the same frivolous extent as in 2000): https://www.euronews.com/2019/06/12/germany-raises-6-point-55-billion-euros-in-epic-5g-spectrum-auction https://www.euronews.com/2019/06/12/germany-raises-6-point-5...