[tw04]

Off the top of my head - Germany hosts a disproportionate amount of sensitive data because it's the location of choice for cloud providers storing things for EU member countries. They have lots of fiber, lots of ISPs, plenty of datacenter space, a stable government, and data security laws that meet or exceed everyone else in the EU.

[throwaway2037]

    Germany hosts a disproportionate amount of sensitive data because it's the location of choice for cloud providers storing things for EU member countries.

Hat tip to this. My German teammate and I have discussed exactly this point. The Microsoft Azure cloud has a German specific cloud that targets exactly this market. Some marketing genius made billions for Microsoft with that idea.

One weird thing to me: You are right about "lots of fiber" -- specifically Frankfurt Internet Exchange is (was?) the busiest in the world for a long time. Why does non-urban, non-commercial (retail) Internet access suck so hard in Germany? It is the topic of endless (but understandable) crying by German residents on HN!

[redprince]

> Why does non-urban, non-commercial (retail) Internet access suck so hard in Germany?

To cut a very long story short, what should have happened a long time ago in Germany is to treat internet access at a reasonable speed (however that is determined) like access to electricity or the plain old telephone system: It's the law you get connected like everyone else at the price everyone else pays, even when you are in a very rural setting. Leaving that decision to commercial interests, has lead to very slow or unavailable rural internet infrastructure because either the price would be ridiculously high to become connected or the companies would lose money.

It's political failure, plain and simple.

Looking back in time, the original sin was committed in Germany in the early 80s when the SPD run government understood that fiber optic networks were the future for the telephone system and television distribution. They had a 30 year plan to convert West-Germany's telecom infrastructure to fiber. That was way before the internet, but would that plan have been enacted, Germany would have sat on a high speed fiber infrastructure in the 90s when the Internet exploded onto the scene.

Unfortunately the conservative CDU government under Kohl immediately scrapped that plan when they came into power and went for cable as the distribution medium for TV and the telephone system continued to operate on copper at least on the last mile. So here we are in the 2020s with crappy cable modems and crappy DSL connections. (Where available.)

[throwaway2037]

Did modern Germany (after reunited) ever discuss the idea of a national broadband network, like Australia and New Zealand? I cannot belive more highly industrialised countries have not followed this route. The long term economic impacts will be HUGE.

[jlg23]

> Why does non-urban, non-commercial (retail) Internet access suck so hard in Germany?

Lack of competition and laws tailored to the privatized Deutsche Telekom: If I dig up the street to put fiber optics, they may join in for free. So may I, if they dig up streets - they just don't.