Germany – Make Your Home Safer

Can you really make a sweeping generalization about a country's Internet speed and declare it to be good or bad? In the case of Germany the answer is no because as we'll see below, there are a number of factors at play regarding the Internet speed that you might receive in your home. There's also another potential factor in terms of your home design itself that can negatively impact your Wifi speed that I didn't truly appreciate when I first moved to Germany. While Internet rates of 250 Mbps are now widely available in big cities, many towns and remote villages in Germany still have copper cable and thus much slower speeds. Even with fast Internet, concrete walls and floors in most homes are notorious for slowing down Internet speed especially if you live in a big house. So while German Internet speed can be very regional, your home's building materials also very much impact your Internet speed. Without use of a repeater or other device, even a fast Internet speed of 100 Mbps will only work on 2 floors of your home at best and not at all in the basement. Let's take a closer look at the reality of German Internet speeds. If you live in Germany and are having trouble with your Internet speed, I'll include some personal anecdotes to help you resolve the issue. Why your Internet might be slow in Germany There are several reasons that Internet is often slow in German cities and especially small remote towns: Political decisions regarding technology upgrades dating back to the 1980s. Poor customer service coupled with iron clad enforceable contracts. German home design which slows down even a fast connection. Let's take a closer look at each of these reasons and explain why each matters to your Internet speed. Political decisions regarding technology upgrades dating back to the 1980s In the 1980s, the German government headed by Helmut Kohl ultimately decided against a planned investment in fiber optics and instead expanded the existing cable network. Since the Internet wasn't a thing yet, it wasn't noticeable until years later that this was a huge mistake. Combined with a lack of motivation to do anything by either politicians or the prevailing telco in the country, Germany quickly fell behind the rest of the EU and many other countries around the world in terms of Internet speeds. This still exists currently when you compare global Internet speeds and see that Germany is middling at best. When we moved to the Frankfurt area in 2014 - Main Taunus Kreis for those who know the area - our local town offered a maximum Internet speed of 15 Mbps. That was the fastest speed possible due to the cabling underground in our town. In the town we'd just moved from in Canada, we received 50 Mbps although 100 Mbps was already available, too. I was told by our German ISP that realistically, the fastest we'd probably end up getting on our devices was 12 Mbps at best even though we paid for 15 Mbps. Using Speedtest and other Internet speed checks showed that in reality we were often getting 8 Mbps - 10 Mbps on a good day. 8 months after we moved in, the town announced that they were upgrading underground cabling and would soon offer 50 Mbps Internet speed. All the cable boxes around town had big bright stickers on them announcing the upgrade and we got offers in the mail from several ISPs including our current one. In fact, part of the area that needed new cabling in our town was in front of the home we lived in, on the side of the home and right at the bottom of our driveway. They dug up part of our driveway without any warning - we'll get the to the poor customer service you tend to get here below - and left it dug up for about 4 weeks before returning and slowly finishing the job which involved laying new high speed-capable Internet cabling. Our town soon had the promised 50 Mbps and we ordered it. While we noticed a definite increase in speed, the best we could get was 20 Mbps - 30 Mbps. Better than before, but still not great. A short while later, our town suddenly introduced 100 Mbps speed. So we switched to that higher speed and got a brand new modem for that reason. And now the best were were getting was around 50 Mbps although in practice it was often much lower. Why was this happening? This leads us to reason #2 your German Internet connection might be slow... Poor customer service coupled with iron clad enforceable contracts In Germany, contracts are pretty airtight and a number of odd rules exist regarding certain contracts that you sign. For example, up until December 1, 2021 once your 1 year telecom contract ran out, it would automatically roll over for another 12 months unless you canceled it. If you upgraded to a newer cellphone or Internet plan, you'd get a new 12 month contract to replace the old one. The same thing happened with a local sports organization we joined so our kids could attend gymnastics: If we didn't cancel the membership 60 days before the end of the year, it would renew for another 12 months beginning on January 1. So if you're used to canceling a contract with 30 or 60 days notice anytime, you were out of luck. Contracts are beloved here and are often very hard to get out of. Customer service can often be spotty at best since once you're locked into a contract, you're locked in. It's also rare in my experience to find any sort of minimum service level guarantee. If you pay for 100 Mpbs Internet speed, you're actually paying for up to 100 Mbps. "Up to" being the operative words. If you're receiving an Internet signal of some kind over 0 Mbps, the service is being fulfilled in the eyes of the law. So I was surprised to notice in our telco contract that while we paid for 100 Mbps, our ISP actually somehow guaranteed that we'd get at least 56 Mbps consistently. Given that they I didn't see a minimum service guarantee before, I was surprised not only to see it but that it would be that low. They were guaranteeing that at worst, you'd get 56% of the speed you were paying for. Doesn't sound like much of a guarantee, does it? So while we were paying for 100 Mbps, in reality we would get at best 30 Mbps - 40 Mbps most days. We weren't getting anywhere close to the stated speed. But there was another reason for that. Which we'll discuss below! German home design which slows down even a fast connection In order to get Internet on every floor of a German house that is built with concrete, you'll need to place your modem as close to the middle floor of the home as possible and then add 1 repeater on every other floor to boost the signal. German homes tend to be built with concrete and it's one of the materials that will easily slow down even a lightning fast Internet connection. While wood-framed homes in North America give little trouble to your Internet connection and you'll probably get by with just one modem anywhere in the house, you can't do that in Germany in a concrete home especially if it's large. Without the repeater, any floor and corner room away from the modem will suffer and produce a weak and slow Internet signal. Unless your modem is in the basement, you'll likely get 0 connectivity downstairs, without a repeater or booster. In our house with one modem on the middle floor, the Internet on that floor was fine. On the floor above (top floor of the house), it was a decent connection except in the side office room which on some days would be virtually 0. On the ground floor one floor below the modem location, the connection was generally good but often the kitchen area would have a negligible signal. It's located two floors directly above the side office room that also had trouble. And the Wifi connection in the basement was 0. The moment you walked three quarters of the way down the stairs, the signal was lost. So when we moved to a new house with fiber optic cable, we simply transferred our existing Internet connection to the house to see how it would perform. In a word, it didn't perform well. In our newer, bigger and also concrete house, we again put the modem on the middle floor. Internet was fine on that floor. The top floor however had a spotty and very slow Wifi connection. The ground floor of the new house - which in the other house had decent speed - was now very poor at times and worse at others. The kitchen was a dead zone. And the basement was a complete dead zone as with the other house we lived in. So we asked around and took our neighbors' advice. We upgraded to the newest model modem and bought two repeaters. The modem stayed on the middle floor and we put one repeater on the top floor and another on the main floor. We used an existing repeater that I had lying around, for the basement. So what happened? The repeaters certainly do the trick. We get close to - if not exactly - 100 Mbps at times on the top two floors. The ground floor is 40+ Mbps and the basement is around 20+ Mbps mostly. More than enough to get a good connection in the basement anyways. We're happy with the result. But it's the repeaters that make the difference. If not for them, we'd have even worse Internet than we had at the other house since our new house is larger. Summary In Germany, Internet speeds are somewhat regional. While big cities generally offer high speed Wifi connections with fiber optics being slowly rolled out particularly in new homes, smaller and remote towns are a different story. The more remote the location, the more likely you are to still receive slow and in some cases spotty Internet in Germany. But the other big issue you have to consider is the design of your house. Specifically, a large concrete house with multiple floors will cause your Wifi signal to suffer badly. With use of repeaters or signal boosters, you will typically get decent Internet on perhaps one or two floors but will not get any connection in the basement. You may also find corner rooms are deadzones. Ask your neighbors about their experience and also inquire with your ISP as to what they suggest. The larger your home and the more concrete floors and walls you have, the more you'll need to use a repeater and probably need one on each floor of your home if you desire Internet throughout.