Are there competing options, or are they a monopoly?

Depends on the region. Often there are smaller regional companies providing fiber internet. Prices for these fiber connections a still somewhat higher than the cheapest vodafone tier, but you also get better service for your money.

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growt 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Afaik almost a monopoly: there is Deutsche Telekom which does the same thing and Vodafone. I think apart from some local providers almost everybody else is just a reseller of one of the two.

	▲	fweimer 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		There are resellers that do not just rebrand a whitebox product, but have their own IP addresses, network and peering polices. Their customers are not necessarily impacted by the IP peering policies of the company that owns the access network.

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hilbert42 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a bit messy but if there are completing options at a given location install multiple ISPs and run them concurrently and log the details—download speeds, etc.

There's nothing as good as hard verifiable data—even if regulators play hardball and favor ISPs then you've the evidence to whip up political action (claim biased decisions, etc.).

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lifestyleguru 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In Germany in specific building there is only one provider available in your telephone socket, and one in your cable socket in your apartment. Frequently there is no cable socket.

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amaccuish 2 days ago | parent [-]

That's not relevant. Over a Deutsche Telekom phone line you can choose an ISP. The ISP sometimes has a layer two connection to you and therefore has their own infrastructure or they have a layer 3 connection in which case you suffer from the Telekom policies.

Layer 2 = their infrastructure connects you to the internet

Layer 3 = theyre literally just a reseller, DTAG is providing your internet connection, the ISP just billing etc.

	▲	lifestyleguru 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's too many words for simply saying "The fastest available DSL is 16Mbit/s and the customer service will be rude and useless".

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aidenn0 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sounds like their largest competitor (DT) is already doing this.

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rurban 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's no monopoly, it is a cartel. Most big businesses in Germany operate in cartels to fuck the customer.

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fuzzy2 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No monopoly. Only for cable internet, which may be a possible argument. For landline internet (DSL), there's plenty of alternatives.

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lxgr 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Unfortunately, having a landline capable of DSL is no longer the default in Germany.

Some apartment buildings exlusively offer DOCSIS via a single provider (as there's never been any unbundling of the DOCSIS "local loop"; presumably under the assumption that a landline will always be available anyway?).

If that one provider is oversubscribed, you're pretty much out of luck.

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Retric 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

High speed internet is a market not just internet access. Email might not care that your on a DSL connection but a streamer can’t generally use DSL as a substitute.

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namibj 2 days ago | parent [-]

They mean VDSL; that's 100~200 Mbit down and 10~24~50 Mbit up.

	▲	Retric 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		VDSL2 can hit those speeds in optimal conditions, but at the end of last year ~14% of Germans have internet under 10Mbps and ~17% where 10-30Mbps.

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okanat 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes and no. There are other providers in Germany. However, with the EU's neoliberal privatization policy the governments privatized many existing infrastructure. Vodafone bought the previous government company that owned all of the the cable TV infrastructure of Germany. So they are a monopoly of a particular type of internet connection. Depending on the place the alternatives could be too slow since Germany also has an aging population that do not {care about, demand} higher internet speeds and didn't upgrade its copper infrastructure due to corruption.

	▲	lxgr 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Some new apartments also simply lack phone lines. No idea how that's legal (since there is no competition at all on DOCSIS, unlike on DSL, in Germany), but it's a thing these days.