Why Germans put up with snail-speed internet
Why Germans put up with snail-speed internet
english.elpais.com
Why Germans put up with snail-speed internet
37 comments
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because the old Kanzler Kohl, decades ago, chose copper instead of fiber optic. I believe his family member was in the copper business..
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What are you talking about? The whole of Europe was doing ADSL by then in 2000-2010. Fiber didn't start being a common thing until 2015 at the earliest.
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are you crazy? I had fiber in Slovenia in 2008.
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no no, sure most people had adsl in the early 00's using the pre existing phone network, but on the building new infrastructure front it was in the early 00s fiber really began picking up its stride in most places. If you started building out internet infrastructure in the early 00's using copper you were way behind the curve.
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It wasn't a family member of his, but a family member of his post minister, a Mr Schwarz-Schilling, who was in the copper cable business. Kohl and his entire government are synonymous with incredible levels of corruption and nepotism. Kohl made corruption a kind of national sport for German politicians. Our upcoming Chancellor, Friedrich Merz is of his ilk.
This is how West Germany chose copper, when even the by then almost bankrupt (and ruled by even more senile backwards looking geezers) GDR was already starting to lay down fiber optic.
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This is how West Germany chose copper, when even the by then almost bankrupt (and ruled by even more senile backwards looking geezers) GDR was already starting to lay down fiber optic.
In fairness, fiber optics were cheaper and easier to lay and worked better. So of course the socialists would adopt it first. They just wouldn't monetize it properly such that they had the incentive to keep expanding it at an accelerated pace, until everyone in the country was paying $100/mo for $2/mo worth of internet.
For a real expansionist system, you either need people who are as greedy as they are ruthless (capitalism) or as ideological as they are hyper-competitive (dengism).
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I think the spread of cable television also played a big role in this. It seems that the public broadcasters were too left-wing for Kohl. It was hoped that the private channels would provide more sympathetic coverage or at least a better distraction.
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37 comments