Why is it that you make it so hard for me to connect to the internet from the country?

Ireland and the Chzeck republic have wifi on (many of) their buses, for free. Spain sometimes is supposed to have it as well, even if it never works. Romania had free wifi on the train stations. Finding open wifis en Vietnam was never a problem. Belgium offers free wifi on their main squares (at least in Gent and Kortrijk they do). Worldwide, on all my years backpacking, I've only had to pay for wifi on a hostel twice: once in London (it was something like 1 pound for as long as you stayed) and a place in Glasgow that charged a ridiculous 2 pounds per hour (so I stayed at the nearby pub, and spent the money in beer and connected to the wifi over there).

Enter Germany. The most expensive train prices, premium of 10€ if you want wifi. 30+€ for a HI hostel (more expensive than Paris or Japan), plus 5€ for the internet per day. And it only works in the lobby, not in the rooms! Bonus points for claiming the internet is free on the website despite it all. And if you try an A&O hostel, they have free wifi... well, what appears to be a normal household connection for 500 people; so it works when it feels like working. And then you get desperate, hit a restaurant that has a wifi sticker on the door and think to connect there. BUT! They have security, so you enter your email address and then send the password to your email. All great, except for the tiny little detail that you need internet to check your email for the wifi password, and you need the wifi to connect to the internet in the first place. Starving philosophers, anyone?

Germany, you suck. I've been here 2 days and I'm seriously thinking of fleeing the country. I simply can't work from here.

"The country of Germany apologizes".

Frankly, our telecommunications systems are totally backwards. That is because only one company, the Telekom, had the monopoly for a few decades. And saw no need to invest in technology as long as the old one was bought... and it was bought because there was no alternative.

Then finally the monopoly was supposedly broken. Only problem, the entire network still belonged to the Telekom. Other tel companies had to use the infrastructure built by the Telekom (partly with state money). Eventually, the German state put out 2 billion to improve their backwards nets...

...they gave that money to the Telekom.

I would assume that they keep that monopoly ticking still because the cooperation between the NSA , BND and the Telekom works out too damn great.

Anyway, while Telekom officials now openly speculate how they can abuse net neutrality in a way that has some very clear structural resemblance to the mafia, you get very shitty internet.

I'm sorry, sir.

I agree 100%.

We suck in so many ways, telecommunications is but one of them.

How come both of you can post? You are not suppose to have the internet. :D

I'm on the northern border so I get my net from a hijacked Danish wi-fi provider.

Sad, but true. :/

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/822157-neon-genesis-evangelion http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/822157-neon-genesis-evangelion

If i told you i'd have to kill you. :D

Apology accepted. It's ok, nobody's perfect.

I'm thinking if it may have something to do with the whole piracy control matter. Friends of mine who live/have lived in Germany always tell me to be careful to download pirated stuff such as movies, and even in hostels I've occasionally been told that if I downloaded something they would give the police my data. So, could it be that nobody wants to easily offer internet in case the person puts the line owner in trouble? Just wondering.

Also, I wonder why smaller hostels don't seem to be a thing in Germany. It's like the smaller one I've been in was for 50+ people, and I was once in a room for 40 people (in Frankfurt, IIRC)

Not much to add to that.

Nonsense. Yes, this is the technical history of the German telecommunication market but this is not the reason for the lack of (free) free WIFI - nearly all european countries had a monopoly in the past or even socialism, like in Romania - and these countries are able to offer free WIFI.

yes, if you provide a free wlan hotspot, you are accountable for any unlawful activity committed by that internet address.
which is why truly anonymous, free wifi hardly exists.

THIS!
We have a legal thing in Germany, it is called "Störerhaftung". If you offer free wifi YOU are financially responsible for every mischief. If you use my wifi and download a song or movie with a filesharing tool, I can get an "Abmahnung" (please check the link) from a lawyer which can cost several hundreds or till more than 1000€ - per song. This was/and is a huge problem in Germany - even CD Project RED used Abmahnungen after the release of Witcher 2 to get money for pirated games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abmahnung

So nearly nobody is offering free wifi in Germany or only with a registration. Our government is not able or willing to improve the situation, there were several attempts to exclude wifi providers from this legal stuff but nothing happened.

Because #Neuland. ;-)