 | This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information.(March 2024) |
The prevalent means of connecting to the Internet in Germany is DSL, introduced by Deutsche Telekom in 1999. Other technologies such as Cable, FTTH and FTTB (fiber), Satellite, UMTS/HSDPA (mobile) and LTE are available as alternatives.
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. [1] Other DSL providers either operate their 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. The end user typically expects a TAE connector socket to connect their modem.
As of April 2024, a typical monthly cost for "dual flat rate" internet and telephone service start at €25 for ADSL2+ (16 Mbit/s downlink, 1 Mbit/s uplink) and €30 for VDSL2 (50 Mbit/s downlink, 10 Mbit/s uplink). [2] [3] Some of the major nationwide DSL providers are: [1]
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.
Starting in 2013, all newly deployed Deutsche Telekom VDSL2 nodes support G.vector technology. [4] Beginning in August 2014, vectored VDSL2 service with data rates of up to 100 Mbit/s downlink and 40 Mbit/s uplink is available from Deutsche Telekom. [5] Existing VDSL2 deployments in major cities will be upgraded to G.vector in 2016. [6] Deutsche Telekom launched a 500 Mbit/s service in September 2017, with an initial monthly subscription fee of €119.95. [7]
Symmetric DSL (SDSL) connections using G.shdsl technology are marketed to business customers. Providers offering SDSL include Deutsche Telekom, QSC, and Versatel.
According to a statistic from Statista, Vodafone, Germany's largest cable internet provider, had 7.65 Million cable internet customers at the end of Q2, 2020. Though still significantly lower the amount of DSL customers, this number has risen in recent years. This is likely due to the higher maximum speeds compared to DSL and relatively well priced plans.
Internet via cable is offered by Kabel Deutschland and Unitymedia (separated geographically), both of which are now owned by Vodafone. There are other smaller providers that do not operate nationwide, such as Tele Columbus's child company, PYUR. Since November 2014 both Unitymedia and Kabel Deutschland offer connections with up to 200 Mbit/s in downstream. [7] Unitymedia started its 400 Mbit/s connections in January 2016, and Vodafone Kabel Deutschland offers 400 Mbit/s since June 2016. [8] As of January 2021, both companies offer cable internet up to 1000 Mbit/s costing (not incl. special offers for new customers or similar) €88 per month from PYUR and €49.99 per month from Vodafone. Vodafone has the highest nationwide availability for gigabit internet, now at 22 million households according to an update from Vodafone. Both companies also offer upload speeds up to 50 Mbit/s. These plans currently use DOCSIS 3.1, with support for EuroDOCSIS 3.0. Vodafone plans the first field tests of DOCSIS 4.0 (with support for up to 10 Gbit/s downstream and 6 Gbit/s upstream) as soon as the new hardware generation becomes available. These should be available before 2022 at the Düsseldorfer Digitalisierungskonzern. Cable internet is currently the most readily available way to get gigabit internet as a private customer, however fiber internet offers the same or faster speeds in a growing but still limited list of regions.
While DSL and Cable are the prevalent connection technology in Germany, other technologies may offer lower prices or better availability and speed.
Deutsche Telekom started offering FTTH/FTTB in select regions in 2011, with up to 200 Mbit/s downstream and 100 Mbit/s upstream. [9] As of January 2014, Deutsche Telekom FTTH was available in 884,000 households, at a price point of €55 for 100/50 Mbit/s and €60 for 200/100 Mbit/s service. [10] [11] Regional providers also offer FTTH/FTTB services, e.g. M-Net in Munich, wilhelm.tel in Hamburg, NetCologne in Cologne, and NetAachen in Aachen. Since late 2018, more companies have started increasing fiber (FTTH and FTTB) internet availability across Germany such as Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Greenfiber, Deutsche Glasfaser and 1&1. As of May 2021, fiber offers internet speeds of up to 10.000 Mbit/s in select regions.
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 flat rates. [12]
Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone offer fixed location internet service on their UMTS and LTE networks. [13] [14] As of December 2014, there are no flatrates available. The included data volume is generally higher for fixed location service than for mobile service at the same price point. As of December 2014, both Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone limit the speed to 384 kbit/s after the data volume of between 10 and 30 GB is used up. [13] [14]
UMTS/HSDPA with up to 42.2 Mbit/s and LTE with up to 375 Mbit/s is offered by all four network operators: Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, o2, and E-Plus. In 2013, Chip measured average downstream UMTS/GPRS data rates of between 2.4 and 7.9 Mbit/s and average downstream LTE/UMTS/GPRS data rates of between 3.2 and 16.0 Mbit/s, depending on both provider and location (rural vs. city). [15] In the same test, LTE coverage was measured at between 15% and 80%, depending on provider and location (rural vs. city). [15] A typical 2-year contract with 2 GB of LTE speed, unlimited minutes and texts costs around €40 per month. [16] [17]
The first Internet email from the US to Germany was sent in 1984. [18] Germany was the third country on CSNET, after the U.S. initiated the network in 1981 and Israel joined earlier in 1984. [19] [nb 1]
The postal service Deutsche Bundespost held a monopoly on telecommunications until 1989. Thereafter, Deutsche Telekom was spun off as a separate company, in preparation for the privatization of the postal service. As a government run and owned corporation, Deutsche Telekom effectively remained the monopoly ISP until its privatization in 1995, and the dominant ISP thereafter. [20] Until the 21st century, Deutsche Telekom controlled almost all Internet access by individuals and small businesses. [20]
Bildschirmtext (BTX) was an early data network service offered by Deutsche Bundespost starting in 1983. Later, under the tenure of Deutsche Telekom, it was marketed as an alternative to the Internet, but was discontinued by 2001. [21]
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. [22] 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. [23] 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. [23] 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. [23] [24] VDSL2 service without bundled IPTV was introduced in June 2009. [24] In 2011, Deutsche Telekom introduced Voice over IP (VoIP) services over ADSL2+ Annex J. In February 2013, Deutsche Telekom started switching existing POTS and ISDN voice service subscribers to VoIP service. [25] In August 2014, Deutsche Telekom became the first service provider to offer vectored VDSL2 using G.vector technology, offering 100/40 Mbit/s. [5]
In 1998, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) established regulations for local loop unbundling, enabling providers such as Vodafone, Telefónica Germany (O2), 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. [26] These ISPs either offered their services directly to the subscriber, or sold bit-stream access to other ISPs. [27] To compete with the incumbent's POTS and ISDN voice services, alternative providers introduced voice over IP (VoIP) bundled with their DSL internet services under the name Komplettanschluss. [26] Starting in 2004, Deutsche Telekom provided IP-level bitstream access to other providers under the name T-DSL resale. [28] The "resold" T-DSL was only available to subscribers of Deutsche Telekom's POTS/ISDN service. [28] In July 2008, Deutsche Telekom introduced bitstream access which does not require the incumbent's POTS/ISDN service, enabling competing ISPs to provide combined internet and VoIP service (Komplettanschluss) on Deutsche Telekom-operated local loops. [28] G.vector is not compatible with local loop unbundling, because G.vector can only be feasibly deployed by one provider per serving area interface. The regulator BNetzA conceived a "vectoring list", on which providers can claim cabinets on a first-come-first-served basis. To prevent a monopoly, this provider is required to offer bit-stream access to its competitors. [29]
Cable internet access in Germany began with pilot projects in December 2003 and wide deployment followed in late 2004. [30] A number of political reasons prevented an earlier market adoption of cable internet in Germany. [31] 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. [31] Pressure from regulatory agencies forced Deutsche Telekom to sell its cable network, however Deutsche Telekom took measures to delay a possible cable internet offering. [31]
LTE internet access was introduced by Deutsche Telekom in 2010 and by Vodafone in 2011. [32] As part of the 2010 spectrum auction, the regulatory agency Federal Network Agency required bidders to use the spectrum to provide broadband internet access to regions with only limited land-line broadband (DSL, cable, FTTH) access. [32] For the purpose of land-line broadband replacement, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone introduced fixed location LTE service.
Internet censorship in Germany is practiced by law as well as the effect of some court decisions. An example of content censored by law is the removal of web sites from Google search results that deny the holocaust, which is a felony under German law.
Most cases of Internet censorship in Germany, however, occur after state court rulings. One example is a 2009 court order, forbidding German Wikipedia to disclose the identity of Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber, two criminals convicted of the murder of the Bavarian actor Walter Sedlmayr. In another case, Wikipedia.de (an Internet domain run by Wikimedia Deutschland) was prohibited from pointing to the actual Wikipedia content. The court order was as a temporary injunction in a case filed by politician Lutz Heilmann over claims in a German Wikipedia article regarding his past involvement with the former German Democratic Republic's intelligence service Stasi. [33]
Telecommunications in Ireland operate in a regulated competitive market that provides customers with a wide array of advanced digital services. This article explores Ireland's telecommunications infrastructure including: fixed and mobile networks, The voice, data and Internet services, cable television, developments in next-generation networks and broadcast networks for radio and television.
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Work on the standard began in 1980 at Bell Labs and was formally standardized in 1988 in the CCITT "Red Book". By the time the standard was released, newer networking systems with much greater speeds were available, and ISDN saw relatively little uptake in the wider market. One estimate suggests ISDN use peaked at a worldwide total of 25 million subscribers at a time when 1.3 billion analog lines were in use. ISDN has largely been replaced with digital subscriber line (DSL) systems of much higher performance.
Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), the most commonly installed DSL technology, for Internet access.
Very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) and very high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) are digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies providing data transmission faster than the earlier standards of asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) G.992.1, G.992.3 (ADSL2) and G.992.5 (ADSL2+).
A digital subscriber line access multiplexer is a network device, often located in telephone exchanges, that connects multiple customer digital subscriber line (DSL) interfaces to a high-speed digital communications channel using multiplexing techniques. Its cable internet (DOCSIS) counterpart is the cable modem termination system.
Bell Internet, originally and frequently still called Sympatico, is the residential Internet service provider (ISP) division of BCE Inc. As of May 3, 2012, Bell Internet had over 3 million subscribers in Ontario and Quebec, making it the largest ISP in Canada.
Slovak Telekom is the convergent telco provider with the largest internet, fixed-line, digital TV, ICT and mobile services portfolio. The company is wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG.
Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public.
In the field of telecommunications, the concept of triple play service refers to the provision of three essential services — high-speed broadband Internet access, television, and latency-sensitive telephone services — all delivered over a single broadband connection. This approach emphasizes the convergence of multiple services by a single supplier, aiming to enhance user convenience and streamline service delivery.
Vodafone Deutschland GmbH is the largest cable television operator in Germany. Kabel Deutschland was subject to a hostile takeover bid by the British Vodafone Group in September 2013; the deal was approved in December 2013 and finalised on 29 January 2014. Until the takeover the company name was Kabel Deutschland.
The Internet in South Africa, one of the most technologically resourced countries on the African continent, is expanding. The internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .za is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (.ZADNA) and was granted to South Africa by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1990. Over 60% of Internet traffic generated on the African continent originates from South Africa. As of 2020, 41.5 million people were Internet users.
Internet access is widely available in New Zealand, with 94% of New Zealanders having access to the internet as of January 2021. It first became accessible to university students in the country in 1989. As of June 2018, there are 1,867,000 broadband connections, of which 1,524,000 are residential and 361,000 are business or government.
Internet in Brazil was launched in 1988, becoming commercialy available in May 1995. As of 2023, Brazil ranked fifth in the world with 181.8 million internet users. The country had an internet penetration rate of 86.6% as of January 2024. In July 2024, Brazil ranked 24th in the Ookla Broadband Ranking, with a median fixed broadband speed of 165.59 Mbit/s. Also, as per December 2021, Brazil had 41,4 million fixed broadband accesses, most of them FTTH. However, as per 2020, most Brazilians access the Internet through a mobile connection, with more than 200 million mobile internet access.
Broadband Internet in Israel has been available since the late 1990s in theory, but it only became practically accessible to most customers in 2001. By 2008, Israel had become one of the few countries with developed broadband capabilities across two types of infrastructure—cable and DSL—reaching over 95% of the population. Actual broadband market penetration stands at 77%, ranked 7th in the world. In 2010, Israel was ranked 26th in The Economist's Digital Economy Rankings. In 2022, Israel was ranked first for digital quality of life by Surfshark.
Vodafone GmbH is a telecommunications operator in Germany owned by Vodafone Group Plc and headquartered in Düsseldorf. It provides mobile phone, LTE, 5G, cable internet, landlines, cable TV, and IPTV services. As of the third quarter of 2021, Vodafone GmbH has more than 31 million mobile customers in Germany, making it the third-largest provider of mobile phone services in Germany. The company's headquarters are in the suburb of Heerdt in Düsseldorf, with regional offices throughout Germany. Vodafone Germany's main competitors are 1&1 Mobilfunk, Telekom Deutschland and Telefónica Germany.
Iceland is among the top countries in the world in terms of Internet deployment and use. 99.68% of Icelanders used in the internet in 2021.
In Romania, there are 18.8 million connections to the Internet. Romania's country code is .ro. The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states. There were over 600 000 domains registered under .ro at the end of 2012.
1&1 AG is a German telecommunications service and landline and mobile telecommunications provider headquartered in Montabaur, Rhineland-Palatinate and listed on the TecDAX. Since 2017, the majority of the company has belonged to United Internet.
Telecommunications in Germany is highly developed. The German telecommunication market has been fully liberalized since January 1, 1998. Germany is served by an extensive system of automatic telephone exchanges connected by modern networks of fiber-optic cable, coaxial cable, microwave radio relay, and a domestic satellite system; cellular telephone service is widely available, expanding rapidly, and includes roaming service to foreign countries. As a result of intensive capital expenditures since reunification, the formerly antiquated system of the eastern part of the country has been rapidly modernized to the most advanced technology. Deutsche Telekom began rolling out FTTH networks in ten cities in 2011, following the launch of pilot projects in Hennigsdorf, Braunschweig and Dresden in 2010.
