xDSL Providers

, Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom

Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....

 has more than 10 million DSL customers in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, making Germany one of the top DSL countries in the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

. Deutsche Telekom has a number of resellers, and many ISPs providing the service for it. Alternatively, there are DSL providers in Germany which have their own DSL network who rent the copper lines from the incumbent in a LLU

Local loop unbundling

Local loop unbundling is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises...

 arrangement.

The market is dynamic with lower prices and new technologies emerging rapidly, but a common problem is that most offers have very long contract terms of 1 or 2 years.

DSL coverage is incomplete in some rural areas.

Deutsche Telekom is building a VDSL network in summer 2006, but there is a political quarrel, (they demand exemption from the regulation, which the current German government wants to allow, but the EU does not). It is supposed to offer up to 50 Mbit/s download, 10 Mbit/s upload speeds and is intended to be used with proprietary digital TV offers, including live Bundesliga

Fußball-Bundesliga

The Fußball-Bundesliga is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of Germany's football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. It is contested by 18 teams and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the 2. Bundesliga...

 football matches.

Alternative technologies

Connection technologies other than DSL are not widely used in Germany so far, due to a lack of viable offers, but are starting to get interesting.

Cable

Until recently, cable internet was not available, because the cable TV infrastructure was owned by Deutsche Telekom, which promoted DSL and neglected the cable network. It was sold after political pressure a few years ago, and is now owned by Kabel Deutschland

Kabel Deutschland

-Company:Kabel Deutschland operates in 13 of the 16 states . In 2006, of the 15.4 million households passed by their cable the company served 9.6 million, however only one third of these are direct customers of Kabel Deutschland, since especially in large apartment complexes the in-house cable...

, Kabel BW, Unitymedia etc. (separated geographically), which slowly invest into upgrading the cable network's bandwidth/capacity and making it 2-way-capable. The available download speed is between 16 and 128 Mbit/s.

Optical Fibre

Germany has implemented in certain regions of the country FTTx Technologies and providing up to 100 Mbit/s downloads and 10 Mbit/s uploads for a flat monthly price of €29,90.

Satellite

Satellite links can be used by those who are not covered by DSL or other technologies. Companies like T-DSL Satellite and skyDSL are involved. They are one-way links based on DVB-S, require an uplink via dialup, which often has to be paid-for by the minute. Some offers, with two-way satellite connections, exist for consumers. Satellite inherently has high latency, and is thus the second choice for most people.

Mobile internet: UMTS/HSDPA

UMTS is becoming an interesting alternative where available, at speeds of up to 384 kbit/s download and 64 kbit/s upload, particularly since E-Plus/Base offers a true mobile flatrate for roughly €50/month. O2 has an offer based on UMTS/GSM, (but it is limited to the home), called Genion Homezone. The big mobile providers T-Mobile

T-Mobile

T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...

 and Vodafone

Vodafone

Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...

, now offer tariffs with 5 Gbyte/month of data transfer included, with the advantage of HSDPA (up to 7,2 Mbit/s download) availability on all UMTS nodes.

Wimax

WiMAX

WiMAX is a communication technology for wirelessly delivering high-speed Internet service to large geographical areas. The 2005 WiMAX revision provided bit rates up to 40 Mbit/s with the 2011 update up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations...

is also available in Germany.