ADSL in Germany

As of first quarter of 2005, Deutsche Telekom has approximately 6.4 million DSL customers in Germany (called T-DSL), making Germany one of the top DSL countries. T-DSL has a number of resellers, and many ISPs providing service for it. Alternatively, there are DSL providers in Germany which have their own DSL network and only rent the copper lines, e.g. Arcor, QSC, AliceDSL and Telefonica.

Deutsche Telekom offers T-DSL:

    * 1024/128 (€17)

    * 2048/192 (€20)

    * 6016/576 (€25)

    * 16000/1024 (€30)

A telephone contract with Deutsche Telekom (16€ analogue, 25€ ISDN) is required.

Major resellers of T-DSL are T-Online and 1&1, and all have identical prices for T-DSL so far.

! (except: Freenet.de they take for 2048/192 just 17€ - like others will take for 1024/128) ! (6016/576 even cost just 19.99€ and the tarif for the flat is 0€)

These prices do not include ISP fees, which are typically an additional €5-10 (flatrate, all speeds) and vary, also depending on location. Such ISPs include T-Online, Congster (both Deutsche Telekom), 1&1 and GMX (both United Internet), all of which use/resell the T-Com IP backbone (though 1&1 has been using Telefónica's network for their 16 Mbps service).

Actual Internet transfer rates via the T-Com IP backbone are typically close to the maximum of the DSL connection speed, including connections to the USA (as long as the actual server permits it, of course).

Arcor offers 2048/192 (€15), 6144/640 (€20), 16128/800 (€23). These prices already include the ISP flatrate, but require a telephone contract with Arcor.

Telefonica has its own DSL infrastructure with 40% coverage based on line sharing and its own backbone, formerly MediaWays. It is used in part by AOL (4th with 1 million customers) and Freenet, but Telefonica itself does not sell to endusers in Germany. AOL uses T-DSL where Telefonica has no coverage.

QSC offers Q-DSL home with 1,5 or 2,5 Mbps combined download and upload speed, and the customer chooses how much of it is upload. Prices are 30 and 40 €/month, respectively, plus activation fee.

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

The market is very much in movement, prices dropping and new technologies emerging rapidly, but some offers have very long contract terms of 1 or 2 years.

Coverage is not very good, many towns with a few thousand people have no DSL offers.