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As an American living and working in Germany as an engineer for the past year or so (in a large city, at that), this really shocked me actually. I thought that

As an American living and working in Germany as an engineer for the past year or so (in a large city, at that), this really shocked me actually. I thought that maybe my landlady was cheap, but it turned out there were actually virtually no better options available. It seemed kind of out of phase with the image Germany tries to project. So many other utilities and services here are really much better than their counterparts in the States. This was kind of a shock.

_dmd 13y ago
why not use http://www.kabeldeutschland.de/ http://www.kabeldeutschland.de/? their service is available in most rural areas and goes up to 100Mb/s. i am actually surprised the author doesn't even mention them...
- mars 13y ago
  Kabel Deutschland is throttling as well. Unity media just revealed that they dont have any plans to do so. They also off 128 mbit for 60 eur per month.
- grobmeier 13y ago
  Unfortunately Kabel is not available in my region (south bavaria, west from munich)
wolfgke 13y ago
As a German I say: German engineering is still of really high quality and there are lots of companies (especially in mechanical engineering) that make use of this knowledge. But the German gouvernment has missed the information revolution and many powerful companies (Deutsche Telekom, TV companies, etc.) see anything that has to do with the internet as danger for their business models - thus they lobby a lot for laws against anything that endangers their business models and especially internet startups. See for example > http://www.uni-muenster.de/Jura.itm/hoeren/materialien/Skript/Skript_Internetrecht_Oktober_2012.pdf http://www.uni-muenster.de/Jura.itm/hoeren/materialien/Skrip... to see how complicated the law has become there - full of legal mines. For the same reason the idea to found a public corporation that builds a modern fiber network which internet providers can rent on equal terms (an idea that is discussed) will probably never be done.
- thomasjames 13y ago
  Even though a lot of infrastructure (i.e., Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Post, Deutsche Telekom) has been privatized, it is interesting how the former state monopolies are just still de facto monopolies within Germany. They also compete well internationally. I am personally looking forward to the US privatizing some more of its infrastructure and hope the results are positive. Also, I agree about German mechanical engineering... but I am biased. I work for a mechanical engineering consultancy out here. There is a very high level of professionalism among the Diplom-Ingenieur graduates from German universities. It is also nice how there are more jobs for mechanical engineering out here that aren't so tied up in the defense and aerospace industries. It's good for the soul.

_dmd 13y ago

why not use http://www.kabeldeutschland.de/ http://www.kabeldeutschland.de/? their service is available in most rural areas and goes up to 100Mb/s. i am actually surprised the author doesn't even mention them...

mars 13y ago
Kabel Deutschland is throttling as well. Unity media just revealed that they dont have any plans to do so. They also off 128 mbit for 60 eur per month.
grobmeier 13y ago
Unfortunately Kabel is not available in my region (south bavaria, west from munich)

wolfgke 13y ago

As a German I say: German engineering is still of really high quality and there are lots of companies (especially in mechanical engineering) that make use of this knowledge. But the German gouvernment has missed the information revolution and many powerful companies (Deutsche Telekom, TV companies, etc.) see anything that has to do with the internet as danger for their business models - thus they lobby a lot for laws against anything that endangers their business models and especially internet startups. See for example > http://www.uni-muenster.de/Jura.itm/hoeren/materialien/Skript/Skript_Internetrecht_Oktober_2012.pdf http://www.uni-muenster.de/Jura.itm/hoeren/materialien/Skrip... to see how complicated the law has become there - full of legal mines. For the same reason the idea to found a public corporation that builds a modern fiber network which internet providers can rent on equal terms (an idea that is discussed) will probably never be done.

thomasjames 13y ago
Even though a lot of infrastructure (i.e., Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Post, Deutsche Telekom) has been privatized, it is interesting how the former state monopolies are just still de facto monopolies within Germany. They also compete well internationally. I am personally looking forward to the US privatizing some more of its infrastructure and hope the results are positive. Also, I agree about German mechanical engineering... but I am biased. I work for a mechanical engineering consultancy out here. There is a very high level of professionalism among the Diplom-Ingenieur graduates from German universities. It is also nice how there are more jobs for mechanical engineering out here that aren't so tied up in the defense and aerospace industries. It's good for the soul.