[Fanmade]

I'm from a third world country(Germany) and we don't have cheap LTE access. I pay more than 40€/month (about 50 USD) for 4GB of LTE and I got my contract for half of what it would normally cost. The reception is very poor and I barely ever see the LTE popping up on my phone, most times it's just 3G. And that's in the ex-capitol of Germany. If I visit my parents, which live barely a 45 minute drive outside of the city, I got no phone reception at all (not even emergency calls). My provider (Vodafone) claims to have the best coverage of Germany. Wired internet is very spotty, too. There are still a lot of parts within the cities, where you barely get a downstream of 1 Mbit/s. So yes, when I say that Germany is a "third world country", I mean it (at least regarding the internet coverage). I'm a web developer (my wife is an admin) and when we searched for a new home, we've had to turn down a lot of offers, because the houses/flats didn't have a proper internet connection. Now we're getting our internet though cable but because the cables are to old, we can't get TV over cable at the same time.

Sorry, needed to get that out. I'm a little frustrated here, because I have been in several poor countries (Africa, Thailand, Moldowa) and they've all had a way better internet coverage than Germany.

[ccozan]

Fellow German here. I know this issues. But I think the Bayerns strategy worked. They subsidied all the fiber from Telekom, and now we have in the south of Bayern incredible internet speeds at acceptable price : 110Mbit/35Mbit for about 40 euros. I can double that for extra 10 euros.

LTE is everywhere and in my home town I get 20Mbs/5Mbs rates over Vodafone. There is only one place, literally in the middle of a dense forest ( part of a Wandertour ) where there is no signal at all. The highways are well covered, I normally skype and other VoIP apps work flawless.

So while we are talking about Germany, let's not forget this is a federal state and each state can individually influence the development. Not sure if USA is the same.

[PuffinBlue]

I feel your pain. Germany is a bit of an anomaly in the 'West'. Even mobile contracts are stupidly hard to get out of.

I lived in Germany for about 5 years. Half of that the last 300m of connection to my house were over the thinnest legally allowable copper wire. 3.2mbps max speed down on a very very good day (usually sub 2mbps), about a tenth or slightly more up.

My in-laws previous house was semi-detached and the neighbours house have fiber, but theirs didn't. Same actual building but KabelDeutschland wouldn't run an extension just 2 meters to the wall on my in-laws actual house.

And I mean 'won't' not "couldn't". They scoped the cost and agreed to pay for it to be done, even at the overinflated price, and KD actually said they didn't want to do it.

[swiley]

>I'm from a third world country(Germany)

I was under the impression that "third world" was supposed to be defined as "a country that was not on the axis or allied side during all of World War 2." Your use of the term directly contradicts this definition.

[schiffern]

I was under the impression that it was irony. ;)

Also it was the Cold War, not WWII. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

>The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Communist Bloc.

[disiplus]

my sister lives in germany and i go there sometimes, internet in germany is just so weird, thank god for no roaming in eu now, so i can at least use my sim there.