column
Just now the radio hole summit of the Federal Government took place in Meseberg. However, the mobile phone network in Germany is so spectacularly bad that even the term "radio hole" is a euphemistically insolent. Actually, one must speak of islands of reception in the offline sea.
This goes so far that the German railway in Bavaria on their flat screens in the train has programmed its own advertisement for "no network". And even if you have reception, that means little. The "E" in the smartphone display actually stands for the mobile radio standard EDGE, but in reality for "Effline". And if LTE is there, it's slow. A recent study on the average LTE speed on behalf of the Greens parliamentary group shows: Of 32 investigated mobile phone companies in Europe, the three German providers rank 29, 30 and 32.
But why is that so? In the interview, Minister of Economic Affairs Altmaier indicates the existence of a culprit: the red-green federal government under Chancellor Schröder and their license auction. This statement creates the rare feat, while not being completely wrong, being quite wrong and foolhardy. Although the reasoning landscape for the spooky mobile quality is complex. But if one speaks of Schröder, one must not keep silent about Kohl and above all Merkel. Nor does the entrepreneurial, politically provoked failure history of Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica (O2). Above all, however, one has to speak of the area in which politics and economy overlap. Because the most important single reason for the debacleous communication infrastructure in Germany is called: Lobbyism. And not the form that is part of a democracy, ie representation of interests. But the linguistic lobbyism, which is about so much money, that it leads into the gray area of corruption. Or should one say: in the black area?
Christian Schwarz-Schilling has been a post minister under Helmut Kohl since 1982 and set up the German mobile network at the end of the eighties. His understanding of politics in terms of infrastructure can be guessed at a disturbing fact: Until a few hours (!) Before his swearing-in as a post minister - Schwarz-Schilling was involved in a copper cable company. He sold his shares in Nixdorf. At that time, the company was "one of the most important newcomers in the cable business". In contrast to most of the expert advice, Schwarz-Schilling pushed ahead with the extensive investment in copper cables instead of fiber optics, in other words, acted politically in the interests of the purchaser of his shares. The black-shilling responsible cell phone licensing at least 30 years ago called the SPIEGEL "a festival of lobbyists."
The liberalization of the mobile communications market was without alternative - but it was fiercely faked in the manner of Rhenish capitalism. Kohl, Schroeder and Merkel agree that they always put in the wrong moment either on the market, if one had to intervene by the state. Or on the state, if you would have let the market act. In between, was muffled.
As early as 2019, 56 kilobits per second are officially considered sufficient
In 2000, to take up again Peter Altmeier's statement, Hans Eichel redeemed a whopping $ 99 billion in a single frequency auction by the state for UMTS rights of use. Germany is thus the eternal world champion in per capita costs for mobile radio licenses. The telcos often explain that in Germany a lot of money has been pulled out of the infrastructure pots and the network expansion has suffered. This approach is not entirely wrong, but incomplete. For one thing, at least from today's perspective, the imposed duties were not exactly overambitious: within five years, the providers had to provide just 50 percent of the population with UMTS, and some could not do that either.
On the other hand, nineteen years have passed since the year 2000, the UMTS license costs were written off a few years later and it would have been possible to invest in between. This has happened in far too small measure, because the governments Merkel have touched the Telekom with gloves from a material against which velvet acts like sandpaper. The state owns 31.9 percent of Telekom, which made 2018 a turnover of over 75 billion euros, more than Facebook, Tesla, Twitter and Spotify taken together. Such sums automatically arouse desires. Also political.
The balance of short-term profit thinking and long-term infrastructure investment has gone catastrophically wrong because Merkel and her CSU infrastructure ministers demanded as little as possible from her third-party enterprise. To date, the authorities are working for this purpose with completely absurd statistics and definitions, thus reducing the pressure on data providers. Just recently, the Federal Network Agency, which reports to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, has declared that Internet access at 56 kilobits per second is officially sufficient, as "functional". The Bundestag member and network specialist Anke Domscheit-Berg has calculated that with this speed the call of the website with the complaint form of the Federal Network Agency would take nine minutes. Lastly, the network agency warned against a roaming obligation for 5G - so in plain English, that users have more frequent reception. And these people regulate the mobile phone market.
Billionaire proceeds used to worship the sacred black zero
Merkel has also allowed the Federal Network Agency to formulate rather lax terms for mobile operators. The LTE frequency auctions in 2010 and 2015 could have insisted that mobile coverage was the first priority. It would have been possible to carry out reverse auctions where the companies that promised the highest investment amount would win the contract. That did not happen because they performed a lobbying dance. Instead of forcing the telcos to face the deadlocks, the state has again redeemed a fine billions, which the federal government in principle used to worship their sacred black zero.
The bitter truth is that all previous governments have taken care of Merkel a quirky quark for digitization and its infrastructures. The whole field has always been seen as a bargaining chip and not as a strategically essential goal. Otherwise, as in many other countries, you would either have invested massively in the digital infrastructure or given massive market incentives. Or at least aggressively reduced the lengthy approval process. Or targeted state-controlled buildings put into play for the installation of radio masts. Or, or, or. Merkel's gigantic error in mobile communications is not just what she did, but what she did not do. To finally sell the damn state telecom shares.
Because Vodafone and Telefonica are anything but innocent of the Mobilfunkmisere. On the contrary, they have made themselves in the lee of the third-tier top dog a lukewarm mobile phone latency. Experts in the telecommunications market also see a problem in the lack of competition. In fact, Germany has only three real mobile operators, in other countries this number is often far higher. These three have arranged with each other. Competition is stimulating business, it's said, but non-competition is definitely paralyzing it. As well as too high prices.
Price query time:
12.09.2019, 11:24 clock
No guarantee
DISPLAY
Sasha Lobo
Reality shock: ten lessons from the present
Publishing company:
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Pages:
400
Price:
EUR 22,00
Buy from Amazon Buy from Thalia
Product information is purely editorial and independent. The so-called affiliate links above, we usually receive a commission from the dealer when buying. More information here.
A late consequence of the UMTS auction was namely that the mobile radio products in Germany were not offered cheap in order to win as many customers as possible. But very expensive to redeem as fast as possible a lot of money. Which in turn reduces demand, which in turn makes investments less attractive. A vicious circle carved by politicians and companies with the participation of the German population, which on the one hand values the digital in principle less than one does in other countries. And on the other hand, radio masts especially bad if they are placed in their own sight.
All of these factors ultimately make Germany one of the most adventurous countries in the EU. For a gigabyte you pay here on average 6.14 euros. In Sweden, it is 3.23 €, in France 2.64 €, in Finland 1.02 €. In Poland, the cheapest provider sold the gigabyte for less than 12 cents, less than a fiftieth of the average price in Germany. If you wanted to stream the first season of the German series "Dark" on Netflix in HD via mobile phone and live in Berlin - then it would be cheaper to take a taxi to Poland and look there than at home. Really true*. Really sad.
* Calculation: The Berlin city limit is about 71 kilometers from the Polish border, resulting in taxi costs of just under 114 euros. A Netflix series needs three gigabytes of data per hour, which corresponds to 18.42 euros in Germany and 35 cents in Poland , The first season of the series "Dark" takes 496 minutes, eight-and-a-half hours. At € 6.14 per gigabyte and three gigabytes per hour, there are 152 euros in Germany. In Poland, however, 2.90 euros.
Note: I worked well for both Telekom and Vodafone before starting to work in 2011. This has not affected the content of this text.