Tag: Germany

Article

La ville de Berlin lance une application «contre les nazis» | La Figaro (French language | Langue Française)

From the horse’s mouth

Berlin Against Nazis (Berlin Gegen Nazis)

Press Release (German Language / Deutsche Sprache)

My Comments

Another smartphone app has been developed for the community good, this time in Germany. Here, it is a notification app to distribute information about the issue of neo-Nazism to people who live in Berlin.

“Against Nazis” (“Gegen Nazis”), which this fully-free app is called, serves more as a bulletin-board app which shows what is going on around town concerning neo-Nazi activity through the use of push notifications and an interactive map. Through these technologies, this information is distributed effectively real-time. This app allows users to act on the information in order to show solidarity against the neo-Nazi activity that is going on near them or to effectively strengthen the network’s activity. This app has been delivered in German, English and Turkish because of Germany having a distinct presence of Turkish people.

It has been developed by the “Berlin Gegen Nazis” (Berlin Against Nazis) network which is supported by the Berlin local government. This was brought on by a member of this network who was engaged in an anti-Nazi march in Rudolf Hess’s home town when a far-right group effectively took over that march.

The neo-Nazi groups still maintain a presence in Germany although they have a low impact on the national polls and on Berlin’s polls. In relation to Berlin, they have presence in poorer areas of the city like Schöneweide in the former East Berlin. It is also known that people who lived in the former East-Germany areas were soft towards the extreme-right ideology.

This is another way where the mobile phone platforms are being used for the public good especially due to the ease of access that these platforms provide. It also involves creating an information-delivery backbone which is cost-effective for these community organisations.

Articles (German language / Deutsche Sprache)

Telekom will für Breitband-Aufbau Kabelanbieter kaufen | Gizmodo.de

Breitband-Ausbau wird zweistelligen Milliardenbetrag kosten | Der Spiegel

My Comments

Deutsche Telekom has been raising concern about assuring that the whole of Germany has access to decent-standard broadband Internet and have been interested in buying in to smaller cable-broadband services in that country to achieve that goal.

But are they the entity who has to carry the burden for rural broadband service, which requires huge investments? This is although they have been previously the government-run monopoly telecommunications operator for Germany.

Here, they were having to need EUR€10 billion to get a broadband service of at least 50Mbps over 90% of Germany with them needing to cover the remote areas which represents 10% for another EUR€15 billion. They also raised the issue of competing services needing federal money to achieve this same goal.

I see a reality where no other government or public-private entity is putting their hand up to provide rural broadband in that country. Germany’s political layout with the individual States (Bundesländer), especially the “Area States” (Flächeländer) could put themselves in a better position if the States (Baden-Württenburg, Bavaria, Lower Saxony, North-Rhine-Westphalia and co) or subordinate government divisions could underpin the works needed to be done.

This is something that has taken place in some other European countries like the UK and France where local or regional governments put their hand in their pocket for broadband enrichment projects in their territories. This is with a view to seeing investment take place for their areas with a view to attracting major employers like research, education or technology to their areas or to see their local economy on a level or better playing field with other areas.

Similarly, allowing for a truly competitive environment for Internet service where there isn’t favouritism for existing carriers may also be a chance for the other carriers to invest more in to Germany and see all of the nation covered with real broadband.

Article – German Language

Drosselkom: Telekom-Tarife: Wo Sie Flatrates und wo eine Drosselung bekommen | 02.12.2013 | Technik | news.de

My Comments

Previously I had touched on the issue of government involvement with providing competitive telecoms and Internet service. This was more about assuring that incumbent operators aren’t being given an unfair advantage over competing operators and is a situation that is happening in the USA but also happening in Germany.

In the USA where cable-TV companies and incumbent telcos in areas where there isn’t much in the way of competitive Internet service, the customers are being given an increasingly raw deal and are starting to face volume-limited tariff charts in a similar vein to what is happening in Australia and New Zealand and also what happens with mobile-broadband services.

Germany is facing an Internet market where their telecommunications regulator, Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), is being too favourable with Deutsche Telekom who is the incumbent telecommunications provider in that country. But there are not as many competitors in the telecoms and Internet-service space and they aren’t operating on a level playing field to what Deutsche Telekom is operating on.

What has been happening there is that Deutsche Telekom who were previously offering “flat-rate” Internet packages are moving towards similar packages to what is offered in Australia where there is bandwidth throttling and volume-driven packages. This has caused Deutsche Telekom to end up being called “Throttle-Kom” (Drosselkom) and there is consumer-law-based litigation taking place in some of the states (Lander) concerning breach of contract in relation to the “flat-rate” services.

Personally, I would like to see this also looked at by the European Commission in relation to a required level of competition for telecommunications and Internet services in built-up areas especially if Germany is to seek EU aid for communications projects. Similarly, German government departments at both the federal and state (Lander) level who have responsibility concerning competition and consumer issues need to have the country’s telecommunications and Internet-service market looked at.

Over the last decade, France and the UK have taken steps to assure competitive telecom service including Ofcom (UK’s telecoms regulator) hauling British Telecom over the coals to have them provide competitive access to the local loop at reasonable prices. This has been because the telecommunications regulators and the competition / consumer regulators have had real teeth and didn’t curry favour with particular operators.

If a country needs a lively Internet and telecommunications market where everyone can have access to a quality service at affordable prices, the telecoms regulators in that country need to work the market on a level playing field. Here, they cannot let incumbent telecoms and cable-TV operators run amok or apply double standards between incumbent and competitive operators.

Article

Broadband for rural areas: financed by the EIB and WIBank | European Union Press Releases

My Comments

Some more public money has been put up in the European Union towards facilitating next-generation Internet in rural Europe. This time, it is taking place in the middle of Germany.

Here, the European Investment Bank had put €80m towards Hessen government’s promotional bank (WIBank) to lend to companies to develop next-generation broadband in that state. They want to have this service pass pass 75% of households by 2014 with a desirable throughput of 50Mb/s.

It is seen to be part of “Digital Agenda For Europe” which is needed to satisfy increased data volumes that are now occurring in Europe. Hessen’s main urban centres like Wiesbaden and Frankfurt have the high-throughput infrastructure but there is a desire to get the high-speed broadband out to peri-urban areas, small towns and rural areas.

This may require building out of VDSL2 infrastructure in more of the towns and establishing the FTTP fibre-optic infrastructure in the dense areas like most of Frankfurt. Personally, I would also like to see the VDSL2 infrastructure moved towards FTTC (fibre-to-the-curb) where there are the shorter runs so as to increase the bandwidth available.

The Hessen broadband development is being set up to permit competitive business but is also to be seen by the European Union as an example of a next-generation urban-rural broadband deployment.

It is another of the European publicly-funded broadband-improvement developments that needs to be observed by countries considering the implementation of broadband improvements using public money.

Article – in German language

Breitbandanschlüsse für Königsbrunn – VDSL kommt

My comments and English summary of this article

Now Königsbrunn in Bavaria, Germany is to receive VDSL next-generation broadband Internet service, which means that it is time to make sure that the FritzBox that you plan to use in that town can now work with VDSL2 technology.

Just lately, the “groundbreaking” or “turning the first sod” ceremony took place in that town for the works that were associated with the extension of the network infrastructure for this service.

The work will initially cover the southern side of the town which is the newly-developed industrial zone, with a goal to have the area “wired up” and running by 2012. This infrastructure is expected to pass around 380 subscribers in that neighbournood. The next target will be to cover the north of the city but this will be a difficult assignment with the old established buildings and infrastructure that has existed before.

Money has come to this project from the local government (33000€) and the Bayern (Bavaria) state government (78000€) This is although there is a federal grant to local government of €100000 for next-generation-broadband projects, which is part of the goal to have 3 out of 4 German households to have access to this technology.

This effort was summed up by a comment by the Kónigsbrunn mayor — “To be viable in the future”, which is something to be thought of with the planning of these technologies.

I would say that this applies to neighbourhoods in many ways such as a town attracting larger employers or households also becoming workplaces such as the “teleworking / telecommuting” practices or creation of micro-businesses that benefit from the Internet.

 

Telekom startet FTTH-Ausbau für VDSL in Potsdam – VDSL.de (Germany – German language)

My comments

The fat pipe is becoming fatter in Germany

Deutsche Telekom are intending to roll out FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) next-generation broadband into Potsdam, Germany. This is although there is a great penetration of VDSL-driven FTTC (fibre-to-the-curb / fibre-to-the-cabinet) setups in most of Germany, including this capital city of Berlin-Brandenburg.

They intend to have this fibre infrastructure pass at least 21,000 households in the southern and western areas of this city. Building owners will need to give Deutsche Telekom a permit to give the “go-ahead” for the fibre-optic installation work to start in their building, as would be required for most telecommunications works in these buildings; but this could be simply a formality as they realise the benefits of this technology for their tenants.

The deployment pricing will be similar to what has been called for Australia’s National Broadband Network where the installation will be free when the service is rolled out to the area but will cost more for installations commenced after the rollout.

As well, Deutsche Telekom do have a long-term intent to roll out FTTH next-generation broadband to Germany’s major cities.

Moving from FTTC to FTTH

What has interested me about this work is that it is an example of being able to move from an FTTC or FTTN setup with a copper run from a street box to the customer’s door; to an FTTH / FTTP setup which has fibre-optic all the way to the customer’s door. Thi is done while reusing existing fibre-optic cabling infrastructure rather than laying down new infrastructure.

Some of the FTTC or FTTN setups like a few of the deployments occurring in rural Britain are being designed with support for migration to the all-fibre layouts. So anyone who does want to advocate for a part-fibre part-copper setup for a next-generation broadband rollout would need to factor in a future-proof arrangement for FTTH/FTTP all-fibre setups down the track. As well, this approach can cater for environments where some buildings like offices or educational facilities could have an all-fibre rune but as needs change, other buildings could have the all-fibre run. Similarly, it can allow reuse of existing head-end equipment used for the copper deployment like DSLAMs on newer extensions of the part-copper part-fibre setup such as entry to new neighbourhoods for example.

So this setup means that even a part-copper part-fibre setup like an FTTC setup could benefit from higher throughput speeds by moving towards an all-fibre setup while retaining the existing fibre-optic backbone infrastructure.

Customers please note with these conversions

When these networks switch over from a VDSL2-based part-copper part-fibre network to an all-fibre network, you will have to move from a DSL modem router to a broadband router with an Ethernet WAN (Internet) port.

Some high-end modem routers will have a dual-WAN setup which uses an Ethernet port as a secondary WAN port and this may be in the form of a LAN port that can become a WAN port or as a dedicated WAN port. It is worth checking if your modem-router has this setup by referring to its instruction manual or manufacturer’s Website.

Articles – all in German language

Kabel Deutschland: Highspeed-Internet für knapp 20 Euro pro Monat – COMPUTER BILD

From the horse’s mouth

Information page on Kabel Deutschland’s Website

Translated facts and my comments

It certainly shows that the DOCSIS-based cable modem is being forgotten as a broadband technology. This is especially as people think of the “switched” DSL technologies (ADSL and VDSL) and the hot-shot fibre-to-the-door technologies as the preferred broadband setups for the home network.

In Germany, Kabel Deutschland who is the main cable-TV provider there, are offering 100Mb/s “headline-speed” broadband and VoIP telephony for 20€ per month for the first 12 months (which is the minimum contract length). Then it will go to a month-by-month rate of 40€ per month for the same service. There is even the option of a 802.11n Wi-Fi router with 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports on the LAN side for €49.90.

Like all European telephony+broadband and “triple-play” contracts, this one offers the “all-you-can-talk” for landline telephones in the country and for a few euro extra per month, “all-you-can-talk” to the common destinations in Europe, North America and Australia.

This service will be offered where Kabel Deutschland are running DOCSIS 3.0 technology for cable broadband which is at the moment 40% of the country.

This is an example of what lively competition can offer for telephony and broadband Internet. It also shows what can happen if another technology becomes popular in a country and companies who are standing behind a particular technology like cable Internet need to put this on the “radar”.