Internet in Germany

Deutsche Telekom started offering FTTH/FTTB in select regions in 2011, with up to 200 Mbit/s downstream and 100 Mbit/s upstream.[10] 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.[11][12] 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, Deutsche Glasfaser and 1&1. As of January 2021, fiber offers internet speeds of up to 1000 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 flatrates.[13]

Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone offer fixed location internet service on their UMTS and LTE networks.[14][15] 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.[14][15]

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).[16] In the same test, LTE coverage was measured at between 15% and 80%, depending on provider and location (rural vs. city).[16] A typical 2-year contract with 2GB of LTE speed, unlimited minutes and texts costs around €40 per month.[17][18]

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 BNetzA 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.