[HN Gopher] Zero G: Some German mobile users still waiting for a...
___________________________________________________________________
Zero G: Some German mobile users still waiting for a signal
Author : jonbaer
Score : 36 points
Date : 2020-08-21 11:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| [deleted]
| metters wrote:
| If you sign a new contract with an internet provider in Germany ,
| you will have to wait up to three weeks until somebody comes and
| turns one switch and you have Internet.
|
| In South Korea they will connect you on the afternoon of the same
| day.
|
| Sources: I am German and my neighbours are Korean (not the best
| Korea kind of Koreans)
| simonklitj wrote:
| Yessir, same thing in Denmark. Ordered Wi-Fi for my new
| apartment two weeks before I moved there, just so I knew it
| would be activated when I moved in. Ridiculous.
|
| I do think some of the new fiber companies are same-day,
| though.
| jacquesm wrote:
| On one occasion I was given a complimentary hotspot+SIM to
| use while waiting for the installer to show up. That wasn't a
| good sign.
| kleiba wrote:
| It's even worse: when you cancel a contract, they can turn it
| off remotely, but when you get a new contract, a technician has
| to come out and turn it on.
| mihaaly wrote:
| I had the same in Cambridge, UK. Probably not 3 weeks but at
| least 2. Ridiculous.
| avalys wrote:
| If you rely solely on things you read online, you might think
| that the US cellular infrastructure is a backward, antiquated,
| uncompetitive, monopolistic disaster, and that the progressive
| and forward-thinking European societies have done far better.
|
| Yet the reality is, every time I go to Europe, I am struck by how
| irregular and slow cellular reception is, even in major cities
| (I've been in Paris, Frankfurt, Munich, Milan, Zurich in the past
| year). And yet today in the United States, it's basically a given
| that you will have a fast and reliable 4G connection available
| throughout the entire country, as long as you're not in literal
| wilderness.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Cell phones were widespread in Europe before they become so in
| the US.
|
| In the "Bell System" phase US landline phone service really was
| "best in the world" because you had some public oversight over
| a private monopoly.
|
| In 2000 in the U.S. you could pick up a landline phone that
| wasn't paid for, call the operator, and get your service turned
| on that day. At that time you could wait a few weeks in Germany
| to get a line installed or you could go to a cell phone shop
| and walk out with "a handy".
|
| In the mobile age Europe pulled far ahead of the U.S. where
| mobile phones were held back by the stigma that texas oil
| wildcatter rich jerks had car phones in the 1970s.
| nullspace wrote:
| > And yet today in the United States, it's basically a given
| that you will have a fast and reliable 4G connection available
| throughout the entire country, as long as you're not in literal
| wilderness.
|
| Don't have a dog in this, but just wanted to say this is not at
| all true. There are so many places nowhere near wilderness
| where you would struggle to find a useable 4g connection.
|
| (I've lived near some places like this in the northeast - I
| have to guess that the avalys has not traveled around that much
| in the US)
| toast0 wrote:
| > And yet today in the United States, it's basically a given
| that you will have a fast and reliable 4G connection available
| throughout the entire country, as long as you're not in literal
| wilderness.
|
| Hah. I live on a hilly forested island. One of the secondary
| shopping centers has basically no coverage for at&t, no
| coverage indoors for t-mobile, and weak verizon coverage.
| Sprint has basically zero coverage of the whole island. When I
| bike around the island, I go in and out of coverage although I
| mostly follow the roads.
|
| When we lose power, the towers shut off after 3-5 hours. Of
| course, that's better than my DSL which turns off instantly (I
| have a generator and a UPS for the DSL modem, but the remote
| terminal apparently doesn't)
|
| We're in commuting distance to Seattle.
| thefounder wrote:
| >> I am struck by how irregular and slow cellular reception is,
| even in major cities
|
| Did you use a local SIM?
|
| Maybe is your network/roaming data plan. Some(most) networks
| throttle/restrict your bandwidth when in you are in roaming.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| Formerly in telecom infrastructure; this is correct. Due to
| the way roaming works, pre-LTE you'd be routed back to your
| home country while roaming (still the same way on LTE
| depending on network config).
| fossuser wrote:
| This aligns with my experience in London.
|
| I spent a good couple hours troubleshooting my phone until
| someone told me the entire telecom had an outage.
|
| Something I've never seen in the US.
|
| This happened twice in the short time I was there and this was
| with their largest network provider.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to compare carriers based on a unique
| outage; however the US does have something going for them:
| national roaming.
|
| Typically carriers have arrangements between them to use
| competitors' networks in areas where their own ones are
| unavailable.
|
| This is unheard of in Europe which is a shame; it would be a
| much more efficient use of the spectrum if any subscriber
| could connect to any available carrier.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| > Something I've never seen in the US
|
| T-Mobile:
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/17/21293950/t-mobile-
| outage-...
|
| Verizon:
| https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/01/31/verizon-
| outage...
|
| AT&T: https://www.kltv.com/2020/08/17/att-outage-affecting-
| custome...
|
| Sprint: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2020/0
| 7/22/di...
|
| All of them together:
| https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/15/t-mobile-att-verizon-outage/
| fossuser wrote:
| Fair point - though in those cases they did make the news.
|
| The London outages seemed common enough to not be news.
|
| Hard to say without more data though.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > And yet today in the United States, it's basically a given
| that you will have a fast and reliable 4G connection available
| throughout the entire country, as long as you're not in literal
| wilderness.
|
| Most of the land area in the US _is_ wilderness, though (okay,
| maybe half? Certainly at least a third).
|
| We're used to having coverage along major highways through long
| stretches of the country - yes - but as soon as you make a turn
| for a rural road and drive for a few miles you'll lose signal.
| neiman wrote:
| > every time I go to Europe
|
| Seems to me you go to only a specific part of Europe, i.e.,
| central Europe.
|
| I live in Europe and spend the last 3 years traveling/working
| around it. It is not one entity, and cellular infrastructure in
| one country implies _nothing_ on that of another country.
|
| So yes, Germany internet infrastructure and cellular prices is
| terrible, but Poland, Czech Republic, Ireland and many others
| got fantastic infrastructure, at least from my experience.
| dataking wrote:
| I think this comment is spot on. I've used cellular services
| in both Germany and Denmark extensively and they are nothing
| alike. Germany has spotty coverage; in Denmark, you have
| coverage pretty much everywhere even in rural areas. This is
| not just geography, it is also deliberate government policy.
| mihaaly wrote:
| The US is worse still. We had 1.5 days continuous driving
| without signal, including one town (Page). Also California,
| which is probably not the end of the world, I recall a tech
| centered region is there, right?, so it has more blind spots
| than people.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| > Zurich
|
| Switzerland's cell coverage is consistently ranked in the
| European top 5, along Netherlands and Scandinavian countries. I
| work at a company where hundreds of employees get to commute
| and work on the train, sometimes 3-4 times a week (pre-covid),
| and I don't know anyone who complains about cell coverage or
| speed.
|
| I personally live next to a cow field and have access to 10
| Gbps FTTH and 5G from two carriers.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Funny thing then: I did a 1 hour video conference at pretty
| high resolution from roughly the Belarusian border a few weeks
| ago. It definitely qualified as 'the edge of nowhere' rather
| than the middle and it worked _flawlessly_. This was using a
| cellular hotspot so yet another hop. The counter party was in
| Amsterdam.
|
| In the major cities I've never had a single problem bandwidth
| wise either so I really don't know how you are set up for
| roaming but I'd be looking at my provider rather than at the
| infrastructure, which as far as I can see is pretty good.
| pensatoio wrote:
| > "But even the coverage of the current 4G network still isn't
| sufficient, especially in rural areas,"
|
| Ah yes, yet another wonderful example where 5G will excel.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| A huge part of the reason is that the providers had to pay well
| over 50 billion EUR for the frequency licensing.
|
| Back in the early 2000s finance minister Eichel wanted to achieve
| the "schwarze null" (positive budget), and in attempting so, this
| idiot fucked up digitalisation in Germany for _decades_ , as the
| providers had to take out huge loans and had to re-pay them
| instead of being able to invest in building out the networks or
| offer affordable services!
|
| The problem is compounded by idiot NIMBYs believing that
| radiation is harmful and causes cancer - in many of the total
| blackout regions it is local citizen groups that _vocally_
| protest against phone providers putting up masts for years now
| (and there are no laws that give providers eminent domain rights
| or other enforcement tools), and the recent 5g conspiracy
| theories have made the situation even worse. Ironically the same
| people then complain why young people leave and no one new moves
| there.
|
| For the historical part, Heise has a decent chronology (that
| unfortunately lacks any mention of Eichel or political dumbness):
| https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/15-Jahre-UMTS-Auktio...
| tormeh wrote:
| >the providers had to take out huge loans and had to re-pay
| them instead of being able to invest in building out the
| networks or offer affordable services!
|
| What's your alternative? Should the licenses have been given
| away to some blessed companies? I hardly think you can fault
| the regulator for holding a proper auction. The failing here
| was clearly on the companies' part as they overestimated the
| impact UMTS would have. That the companies then have the
| audacity to try to get the money back from the government is
| slightly shocking - "plz socialize these losses lol".
|
| The problem is clearly solvable. The government could just pay
| for the coverage to be built out (payment pending operational
| towers, obviously).
| tpmx wrote:
| Those stories about how Kohl messed up the "future of Internet"
| by going for copper instead of fiber in the late 90s never made
| sense to me. How about just trying again instead of just giving
| up?
|
| a) Germany has a very high population density (232 people per
| km^2)
|
| b) Germany is kind of rich
|
| These two factors makes me think there is something else at play.
|
| And then there is this - wow, lack of GSM coverage in such a
| densely populated country?
|
| In my experience this would would only be explained by systematic
| incompetence, systematic corruption or a combination of the two.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-08-22 23:00 UTC)