Recommended best internet and phone providers - Germany

We are moving to Berlin and need to hook up internet/phone provider. Can anyone recommend the ones with the best prices and customer services. We need to have an international phone package as well as we call the US and Austria on a regular basis. Thanks.

Difficult question, and one that is rarely considered around here. Did you try searching this forum?

I've been shopping around a bit myself lately, and it seems that Alice offers the best deal.
Though slightly more expensive (€10 extra per month over the 1st year compared to, for example, O2 or Vodafone), they operate on a monthly rolling contract basis.
ie, you can quit with a month's notice. I think this compares favourably to most of the other major providers, for whom the standard appears to be a 2 year contract,
with charges averaging €20/month for the initial 12 months, and €30/month thereafter.

Their Festnetz package also includes 7.9c/min calls 24/7 to both Austria and the US of A, which seems pretty reasonable to me. (TBF I haven't really looked into that from any other providers)
The main drawback I see is that you have to pay €30 for a WLAN router, which maybe is a bit of a scam. But in the long run, maybe its not so bad.

I still haven't decided for definite tho, so if anyone cares to correct me on any of the above, I'd be delighted to hear it!

getupgetdown - having previously had Alice, I wouldn't recommend going with them, as their internet service is very unpredictable and often drops for long periods of time. I've heard similar complaints from others who had Alice, too.

I used to have Arcor ADSL but that took almost 2 months to finally get installed, and the speed was below par (we were too far from the central).
After 6 months we even got disconnected because their billing system suddenly changed the billing address to someone else (someone I don't know with the same last name, living 900km to the east of where I live) and when I changed it back (online) they thought I had moved and started a moving procedure. I of course refused to cooperate but no matter what I told them they just kept on telling me they had to send a technician over to 'test' the connection and blablabla. Fortunately for me the procedure was similar to a new connection procedure so after I stopped replying to their letters for an appointment, they initiated a Kündigung and haven't heard from them since. Still have the modem though
Then I moved and got Kabel Deutschland. What a difference! I signed up online and 2 days later I got a phone call from a friendly lady asking me when I was free for an appointment with the technician. I moved 2 weeks later so I told her in 2 weeks and that was it. The technician came on time, set-up everything in 15 minutes and was connected without problems. Haven't had any connection drops, slow speed or anything since I got it.

Cable is generally more reliable than DSL, the cables are thicker and less prone to wear and tear and it seems to me the German telephone lines are a old (at least where I used to live). With cable, it also doesn't matter how far you are from the central server to get good speeds.
If Kabel Deutschland is available in your area I wouldn't think twice.

If people out there also want DSL with a static IP - a must for me then try www.titan-dsl.de
Not sure of how good they are or the quality of their service, but I must have a static IP for work and this looks good enough.

Anyone know of others that offer this for a reasonable amount and that can Ipv6 natively?

You answered your own question. Titan offer IPv6, as do rh-tec

I meant other than Titan of course.

So you have an answer of course

C'mon, Deutsche Telekom can't be that bad. (wonder why no one has mentioned them)

I would always choose Telekom, but they are not the cheapest and are probably the best of a bad lot. It's horses for courses...

My error. Should had been, "I wonder why no one hadn't mentioned them."

Never had problems with Deutsche Telekom, although a bit expensive than the competiton.

When you hooked up to the net, why not just use Skype from Germany to the US is €0,020 per minute. http://www.skype.com/prices/callrates/#allRatesTab

Because it's bloody expensive in comparison to landline services!
You conveniently forgot to mention the Skype connection charge of €0,045 cents/call (so a one-minute call to find an answering machine at home costs €0,065). A daytime call to the USA with Estart (Call-by-call - precede the call with 01095) costs €0,0048 - less than half a cent per minute!) and 24/7 or €0,0063/minute 24/7 using Tellfon (pre-dial 01074), so you get 12 or more minutes for the price of 1 minute of Skype. Not to mention sometimes dubious call quality, the fact you need a PC switched on and a silly headset and have to pre-pay for your calls.

I have that Arcor Flatrate and I found out a year or so back when i called home in SA, their charge rate was killing me, and well since Im using Skype, I can phone back to Cape Town regularly and for me its a bargain, when compared to what I was paying when I was at Arcor, before that netcologne and freenet. By now I have good quality, before I know what you mean...bad quality calls etc...I have a standard PC mic and use the PC speakers. All in all quite happy:-D