3072kbps DSL flatrate in Germany

Bandwidth addicts like me will be keen to hear that from the 1st of June a 3Mbps DSL flat rate service will come out from t-online!

Thats 4 times faster than normal DSL. I believe the upload will be 384kbps too, and all for 50 euros per month.

More info here

Bear in mind though (and I say this every time whenever a topic like this is started) that you have to pay an additional 20 euro's per month for the T-DSL connection! The people at T-Punkt don't tell you that.

bear in mind that there is the line rental fee too.

that makes,

approx 14 euro line rental
approx 20 euro DSL
and... 50 euro Flatrate

sit and wait... prices are bound to become reasonable at some stage.

an min 85 euro phone bill per month + call charges is not very attractive

or is line rental included in the 50 euro?

And bear in mind that the Deutsch Telekom folk and their ilk (T-Punkt, T-Mobile, etc.) are the most incompetent individuals I've ever had the mispleasure of dealing with. Knowing what I know now, I'd never recommend them to anyone. Their business practices border on fraudulent (not just my experience).

That said, I already have T-DSL and if I can upgrade to 3072kbps without committing hari-kari in the process, I'll do so.

Agree with u DW , they're absolute SHIT!

sounds good!

and bear in mind that at that speed you can download millions of movies etc to recoup your costs

And bear in mind that Arcor now do a 3000 service too (starting today).

I was about to sign up for arcor 1500/256 flatrate, switching from my T-Online slw-flatrate when all of a sudden the tarrifs change.

They do flatrate on a 1024/128 line but thew 2000mbps and 3000mbps services have a variable flatrate.. up to 25GB a month will cost you 54.84 or 59.89 a month all in (including dsl rent and isdn line). This is still cheaper than my current slow T-DSL.

However if you creep over 25MB in a month, the monthly charge will creep up another 25eur...

So now I have to re-think about what I want to do.. after I had spent so long thinking it over already...

Typical huh!

Tom...
(new here by the way, hi! )

Don't forget that if/when you move to Arcor it can be frought with problems, and when you finally change over you will no longer be able to use the cheaper providers for alternative network calls, especially to foreign parts.

The new DSL3000 from Telekom is available from April, but it won't be available everywhere. Only around 50% of currently enabledDSL exchanges will be able to supply it, and from those, only about half the current DSL subscribers will be able to upgrade - those less than 4km from the exchange (the standard distance for DSL768 is 6.5km). It costs €24.95 on top of whatever telephone connection you already have.

T-Online have not yet announced any flatrate packages to go with the 3000 (or 2000) service, so what their cost, if even available, remains to be seen.

There is, however a DSL3000 Business package directly from Telekom for €55.67 including 5Gb transfer or €112.66 for flatrate, not including the cost of the phone line...

Current 768/128 ("Normal") DSL users will be offered an upgrade to the new DSL1000 (1024/128) later in April. Cost will rise to €16.99 in addition to your phone (analogue/ISDN) line. This represents and increase of between €4 and €7 a month for ISDN users, depending on the type of ISDN line and a reduction of €3 for analogue users.

YL6

Just got an ad from T-Com about the new T-DSL 2000. Apparently you pay "keinen Cent mehr Grundpreis!"

Great. But notice they don't tell you anything about tarif costs, until you go to the online signup page. Then they tell you that you can't use T-DSL 2000 with the existing T-DSL flat tarif. You have to change to the "DSL flat 2000" tarif which costs you €39.95 (instead of €29.95 for the normal DSL flat tarif).

That's a special offer for internet signups - normally the tarif would cost €59.95.

Don't know if there are any other conditions with that tarif. Didn't bother reading any more about it...

If you choose not to switch to the T-DSL 2000 they'll automatically switch you over to T-DSL 1000 (1024 kbit/s down, 128 kbit/s up) anyway on May 1st for no charge. Also, from 1st April they'll reduce your Grundpreis from €19.99 to €16.99.

So I know what I'll be doing. Nothing. And I'll have a faster connection for less money.

What happens if you have T-DSL 1500? Do you get 2MB/sec for free?

I dream of DSL, any DSL will do.

Has anyone got the DSL connection and noticed a speed increase since 1st May?

I do.

But no.

Point to watch on all these offers, as was mentioned before by Tom17, is the monthly Gb limit on how much you can download before you start paying extra.

I am very lucky to have a DSL flat rate with NO limit, so upgrading to a "faster" (and I can debate this point as well ! ) is just not a viable option. Slower, but on all the time, and downloading as much as I want without paying extra. "Purfick, me old Jubblies !! "

Me too

and no

I haven't noticed any difference either, but then I haven't been downloading anything in huge volume recently. Just normal surfing.

Not that it really matters that much. It's fast enough for me anyway, and now I'm paying less for it...

This Sat I got a letter from DT inviting me to switch to DSL 2000 by May 31, but if I wouldn't I'd get the new DSL 1000 automatically starting 1 Jan 05 (currently I have DSL 768).

Not sure though if I should switch to DSL 2000 now. The letter said it'd be free if I do it by May 31, after that it will cost 53 Euros to switch, also there wouldn't be an increase of the line fee. But knowing DT, there must be a catch – e.g. I doubt I could keep the T-Online flat rate I currently have, my suspicion is with DSL 2000 it will either be volume controlled or the flat rate fee will be increased.

Problem is, the letter mentioned nothing about provider fees, and calling DT customer service 3 times will give you 3 different answers...

Ah – guess I should have read the thread more carefully, all the info is already there: DSL 2000 flat rate will cost 39,95 opposed to 29,95 for DSL 1000.

Still, would have been nice to have some mention of that from DT rather than having to do my own research.

As always with Telekom and T-Online you need to read the small print. No-one will automatically be converted to T-DSL1000 or T-DSL2000 (the customer contracts don't allow it). You'll need to apply for it (although letters are currently going out inviting customers to apply). For some people it will actually be cheaper. For example, if you have the old 768 service on an analogue line then it currently costs €19.99/month (plus the cost of the phone line, plus your internet provision costs). If you convert to DSL1000 then it only costs €16.99 a month so it's cheaper to convert to the higher speed. If you move to DSL2000 then it's €19.99 so you get almost 3 times the speed for the same price.

For those with DSL on ISDN lines the price is the same, or (if you have an OLD ISDN contract) then slightly more to upgrade to the next new rate.

There is normally a €49.95 one-time changeover charge, but until the end of May existing DSL customers can change over here for free.

As already noted, this is only the half of it. You then need to upgrade your access to suite the new speed. T-Online remains hideously expensive - the best deal for flat rate remains Tiscali at €18.90/month for the 1000 service, or €37.90 for the 2000 service. They don't yet have a 3000 service, but it's coming. GMX still offer 1000MB per month for free at all speeds here. The flatrate providers are restricting bandwidth, so even if you do have a faster line and a slower ISP you won't get increased bandwidth. The limited providers with xMb or x minnutes per month are in the main independant of line speed...

YL6

The upgrade details are here:
http://www.t-com.de/t-dsl-upgrade

If you are on DSL 768 over ISDN (like me) it costs €11.19 pm now. DSL 2000 costs €19.99 but they give you 6 months for €16.99. DSL 1000 will cost €16.99. I'm with 1&1 as the ISP and there doesn't seem to be any extra charge for the increased connection speed.

I think I already said most of that, including the upgrade link.

There are a number of different "legacy" contracts still running for both ISDN and analogue lines - the prices all differ according to the line and DSL combination. The best deal is for anyone who has the "old" ISDN-XXL (Sundays only free) where DSL768 still costs only 9.99 including 16% MwSt (VAT). Your 11.19 rate doesn't include MwSt, so actually costs you 12.99...

Telekom have to give at least 6 months notice to change an old contract, which is why they are "encouraging" people to convert of their own free will.

YL6

I'll have to double-check the letter I got then. I'm pretty sure it said they'd upgrade it automatically and I don't have to do anything...

Excuse me if I am encroaching on your monopoly rights in providing telecoms information. I didn't see the link and you hadn't provided exact details on pricing for those with DSL over ISDN (like myself). I looked into it as I fancy converting and posted my findings.

Yorkshirelad6 has given nothing but good advice and i do not think he deserves that sort of comment...

YourshireLad is a big lad, he can stand up for himself. I probably should have added a smilie, but am encountering a bit of smilie fatigue at the moment, because of the number encountered on here everyday. Anayway I was posting information that was not included in the original post (apart from the link).


I thought it did, but you're probably right, it explains the €4 increase for DSL 1000.

@ mysteryman...

no Probs

Navigating through Telekom doublespeak is both a minefield and a jungle (can it be both?). They are working hard to recover from interminable business losses, and you can see the effect on their business strategy to secure and sometimes trap customers. Newly trained customer "support" people are on commision so are out to sell-sell-sell, no matter whether it's the best deal for the customer or not. After almost 20 minutes of a customer ranting about why his new telephone line was 8 weeks (!) late in being installed, I heard one customer rep have the gall to ask if they'd considered "T-mobile" (cellphone) - i.e start a new mobile contract - as an interim solution to phone calls while they were waiting for Telekom to get their fingers out of their anus and connect the landline...

Partly because of German regulatory issues there are loads of different options, many left over from earlier days. They have, at least tried to clean up their DSL act by making it a simple add-on to a standard line service, rather than integrated as before. Now they have to persuade the customer base to change over (or force them to). For some (especially analogue customers) it is to their advantage (cheaper) for many, it's not... Encouraging people to take faster speeds is a good deal for Telekom - very little additional overhead, much more income. I question whether most "men in the street" really need this extra speed. In so many cases Internet bottlenecks elsewhere reduce the overall effect in any case. So many people spending their time on Kazaa, Overnet, Filedonkey, etc., are fooled if they think their downloads will speed up. Most people serving them the files are on asynchronous broadband in any case, so can't supply data at much more than 128-256kbits/second - around than 5% the speed of their blazingly fast, new DSL3000 connection.

heho...

YL6

You might not be able to get faster p2p downloads, but it at least means you can run multiple downloads, and still have some bandwidth left for gunning down Muhajadeen on Kumawar.

but then you need Fastpath, and that costs more too

YL6

My thinking exactly. I doubt if I'll see that much of a bandwidth benefit if I upgrade to DSL 2000, since the bottleneck typically is at the other end.

If I recall what it said in the DT letter correctly, I don't need to do a thing if I don't want to upgrade, and will be switched to DSL 1000 (from currently 768) automatically as of Jan 05 – so that's what I'll do: nothing!

Sorry, my apologies ... it is true that many (but not all) 768ers will be switched to DSL1000 next year... this gets around the 6-months notice of contract change that Telekom are obliged to give and attempts to sort out the jungle of different customer deals...

YL6

@YorkshireLAd

I had no idea what on earth Fastpath was. Just googled. Shocking.
So, I pay for a high speed net connection, and then have to pay an extra fee for something to make it "better" for gaming?

They really do take the piss. Extra charges for bloody everything, even pop3email.
Jokers.

But still better than the f**ked up idea of service from the idiots at Tiscali, regardless of their attractive looking prices (I will NEVER let it lie...)

ive been with tiscali for two months now and they have good service, have been able to talk to english members of staff also so they provide a good service in my opinion.

he he, I feel the same way about T-Online and Deutsche Telekom. Bastards.

Isn't Fastpath just a latency reduction? You can still download at full speed so long as you can set your TCP/IP window size big enough. Latency only matters for online games.

Precisely - and it costs an extra €2.95/month from Telekom (I think)

Horses for course, but you do get the odd bad apple. Tiscali have the cheapest flatrate prices, the fastest contract completion to surfing time (usually under 30 minutes), the simplest get-out and (on average) the better-than-average surfing speeds across European pipes

Their consumer telephone services, however, and the customer service that goes with them are s**t..

YL6

I just got upgraded to the TDSL 2000 package today. Had to go to work so I didnt have a chance to evaluate it in any detail. I ran a quick speed test from a couple of locations using the dslreport.com web site. This was in the late afternoon when traditionally my DSL line runs at its slowest for some reason. I have never gotten a 768 from my old DSL connection (usually ran in the 600 range). The two quick tests I ran after the upgrade were both around a 1000 and 156 (hardly a mind blowing increase in speed but never the less an increase) I'll look at it more when I get home and see if I can tweak it a bit and how it runs in the early morning when I usually have better speed.

I got DSL2000 on monday. I get around 250kb/s downloads, I have also got fastpath switched on, so I am getting pings of around 21 to an Austrian DOD Server.

Booooooooooya!

It's not just the raw line-speed. Both your choice of provider and where you are surfing to/from will have a major effect on any bottlenecking that might occur...

YL6

Lots of good info, and rants

Does anyone know if you need any new equipment when you upgrade?

Im currently running an SMC Barricade DSL Router, connected to a Telekom DSL modem, then splitter, then NTA.

Current setups been running for a couple of years and I feel the need for speed, just want to check whether the Telekom Modem needs replacing.

Any thoughts, rants etc accepted.

Cheers

All Telekom DSL/LAN modems are good for at least 8Mbs/1Mbs (up/down) speeds. The Barricade router should be good for 10Mbs (or even 100Mbs). The splitter has nothing to do with the digital side of the service so has nothing to do with data rates. By "NTA" I presume you really mean "NTBA" if it's an ISDN line. This too has nothing to do with the DSL side as it's isolated from it by the splitter

In short, you should be OK - you just need to upgrade your line, and your service provider. Think carefully if you really need it. The prices don't really justify it...

YL6

Cool thanks for the quick response.
Yeah I know about the money but, hell I feel the need...

Cheers

The DSL modem we bought from telecom back in 2001 was not UR-2 capable. I know they didnt work for the 1500kbps or faster DSLs, cant say if they work for 1000 or not, I dont think so. They look like this:

And underneath is written "NTBBA 40 183 340-100". They did switch to a UR2 capable model in 2002 I believe in the same case but underneath is written "40 183 342-100"

Heres a discussion thread about it on another forum

Check which model you have, if you have the same as my old one you will need to upgrade.

Anyone wanna buy a classic non UR-2 DSL modem?

EDIT: And heres a list of some other old modems that arent UR-2 capable.

If you are upgrading a line with a legacy (none U-R2) protocol, then Telekom don't usually change the protocol. The old protocols also run at the new speeds, so the old modem should still work... If they DO change the protocol, they (usually) supply a free replacement modem, although you may need to whine a little... When the rest of the folk using the old 768/128 ("fallback") lines are forcibly upgraded at the end of the year, Telekom will supply new modems if they are ported to new (U-R2) concentrator equipment as some will be, for convenience. The Telecom regulator has required this...

YL6

Well I dont have one that looks like your old brick, mines a bit more stylish
I'll post a pic if you like?

I've clicked the buttons on the kundenservice pages and received an e-mail saying thanks for the cash, but no increase in line speed so far...

I wonder how long it takes for them to implement?

Anyone got experience?

Ta

What is the coverage like in Germany for DSL

Here in the UK BT have been very slow in enabling all the exchanges (doing it on an "as required" basis.)
I've heard that Germany is better for coverage...what it the truth?

I'm moving to somewhere between Munich & the Alps (ish)...is that vague enough!!

You should be OK. Germany is far ahead in DSL. Go to Sweden if you want the high powered stuff, but only in the big cities.
My little dorf of 800 people had DSL about two years ago. South of Munich is full of VIP's so they probably got theirs three years ago.

Don't know about the other providers, but T-DSL have a service where you can check if DSL is available in your road. I couldn't find the page that I used before, but came across this one.

If you click the "Ist T-DSL für mich verfügbar?" link at the bottom of the menu on the left-hand side, you get a form where you can check if DSL is available for a given area code and number.

Perhaps not much use if you haven't arrived yet and don't have a phone number...

You'll get a written confirmation in about 7 days confirming the upgrade and the day they will implement it.

Don't forget you will also need to upgrade the package from your Internet Provider. Having your line speed upgraded is ony half the problem - you need to upgrade your access (T-online, GMX, Freesurf, Tiscali) too. This is where it hurts the wallet...

YL6

No so... much of the north half of Grünwald (Nördliche Münchner Str.) where the filmstars and politicians live cannot get DSL - they use satellite for their high-speed internet access

YL6