If you are a customer of Deutsche Telekom and some websites just won't load, then we might have the solution to your problem!
Read the original article
Comments
By chorizoking 2026-01-2517:176 reply Commenting from my alt to avoid doxxing myself. Have spent over a decade in various 'large' streaming video companies, the ones you absolutely know about today.
DTAG is bar none the worst ISP to work with. Everything they do is politics, they may decide to 'forget' to increase the bandwidth on a PNI until you take a meeting with german regulators. Almost every other ISP views PNI as the best way to uphold customer satisfaction without breaking the bank over a more expensive IX and will happily add ports when needed, DTAG on the other hand often requires concessions and selective agreements with a lot of strings attached.
I don't think Germans realize just how much DTAG is holding the experience back for end users (given it's partially state-owned)
>I don't think Germans realize just how much DTAG is holding the experience back for end users
The ones not on HN probably just notice that their internet is getting slow after 5 p.m
Trust me, I know how much they suck and I still had to enter a 2-year contract just to get fiber optics in my house.
I thought I was crazy for thinking that Reddit LinkedIn and half of the internet becomes unusable past 6pm.. now I know why
By everfrustrated 2026-01-2618:341 reply Cloudflare has a speed test. Try comparing it to other speed tests around the same time. Should reveal if Dtag is congested/throttling your traffic to Cloudflare sites vs others.
By blazarquasar 2026-01-2623:37 Could also check the official Breitbandmessung by the BNetzA They also have some interesting statistic by provider, etc. on there. https://www.breitbandmessung.de
By pimeys 2026-01-2520:17 They tried to install it to our home too, but our landlord just didn't do anything to help them to open doors and now we've been soon waiting two years for the connection.
The more I read about DTAG the happier I feel like using our cable connection which, upstream excluded, works quite well.
We're about to buy our apartment in Berlin and that changes things. I hope we have soonpre choice on the fiber operator.
By lc5G 2026-01-2610:34 How can I learn about which ISPs have better peering and net neutrality etc? Are there websites that keep track of this and compare it?
Unfortunately, it's not just DTAG but all Internet providers are overpriced crap here.
By LargoLasskhyfv 2026-01-301:19 There are some good regional ones, operated by public utilities mostly.
Insane pings, excellent peering, giving a totally different internet experience from the mainstream ones.
By notTooFarGone 2026-01-2610:34 As a german I hate DTAG with a passion for many many failures in throttling and just for the most expensive prices in europe. I just hate Vodafone more which is a hard thing to achieve but there are no other options in most cities.
ISPs are the worst.
Currently I use Telekom's 5G for my home internet connection in Hungary as Telekom is the only company who has a cable in my street, but they refused to sell me wired internet due to the hole they use to take their underground cable up to the houses being already over capacity (it turns out this "hole" serves like the entire street with cables being run across everyone's attic...).
I previously used yettel/telenor's 4G (basically as fast as Telekom's 5G because their 5G is a scam, although Yettel's 5G is even more scammy, it is slower than their 4G) but they broke their routers, I had comical packet loss and they refused to fix it (technically, when you pay for a cellular connection, the required uptime in the contract is zero). They also started CGNAT-ing in order to supposedly "improve security" (wtf..) just before I switched (this now means that their "internet-focused" plans have just CGNAT-ed IPv4, while their "non-internet focused" cellular plans have CGNAT-ed IPv4 AND IPv6 (makes sense).
In any case, I now use Telekom's 5G with CGNAT-ed IPv4, just a single /64 IPv6 and forced separation (it is illegal to have a stable internet connection, they disconnect you just before reaching 24h of uptime).
> ISPs are the worst.
DTAG is not just a run-of-the-mill consumer ISP. They are a global Tier-1 carrier.
Which of course makes their behavior all that much worse.
By direwolf20 2026-01-2511:532 reply You don't want a tier 1 carrier as your ISP because they are severely limited in connectivity — they only connect to paying customers and other tier 1s. They are to be used as a last resort by the tier 2 ISPs, who provide good packet routing by selecting the best routes from among several backbones.
Never thought I'd see this play out in practice, especially with a consumer ISP. Normally this comes up with server hosting, not consumer ISPs.
By embedding-shape 2026-01-2512:231 reply > You don't want a tier 1 carrier as your ISP
The best part about ISPs, is that usually who have very few choices, sometimes only one! Where I grew up, we had the choice of "broadband" (via antennas between an island and mainland) with one ISP, or modem with any telephone company. Eventually, proper cables where put, and we had a choice between 6 different operators.
Where I live now, I only have 3 options for ISPs with fiber, even though I live right outside a huge metropolitan area.
ISP “choice” is mostly a meme, yeah.
But depending on local rules, you can sometimes route around the monopoly: trench your own last-mile (at least on private land), do a neighborhood co-op, connect buildings, etc. It’s sometimes expensive and you’ll hit permits/right-of-way bureaucracy, but it’s totally doable if you’ve got a few (rich) friends or a business willing to back it.
“the conduit is full” is often just BS and a super convenient excuse for incumbents to block competition indefinitely.
Romania is a good example of what happens when lots of small operators aggressively wire dense apartment blocks: brutal competition, low barrier to entry, and suddenly everyone has insane internet.
If digging is blocked, wireless works too. Point-to-point links, WISP stuff, even satellite. The main thing is: you don’t necessarily need your local ISP as your upstream, you just need a path out.
By skissane 2026-01-2523:49 > ISP “choice” is mostly a meme, yeah.
I think Australia's model works really well – the last mile is (with occasional exceptions) owned by a government-owned ISP, NBNCo. But NBNCo is purely a wholesaler, and they only provide service from the premises to the local telephone exchange. There are dozens of competing retail ISPs, and they own the connection from the local exchange onwards. So if one of them is screwing you over, you can switch to another. And if you have a fibre connection, you can even split your fibre connection over multiple retail ISPs–you can sign up for new one as a trial without cancelling the old one, and then reverting back is literally just swapping an Ethernet cable to a different port.
I'm surprised more countries haven't copied it.
By direwolf20 2026-01-2513:411 reply I think Germany has something equivalent to local loop unbundling, but obviously, DT still provides shitty loops because they are shitty at all aspects of their business.
By ahartmetz 2026-01-2515:49 Local loop unbundling is only mandatory for large ISPs. There are many regional or otherwise smaller carriers that have a local monopoly. Fortunately, they tend to be OK (with some exceptions like Deutsche Glasfaser, they are basically bankrupt and behaving quite erratically).
By fL0per 2026-01-2523:34 > Romania is a good example of what happens when lots of small operators aggressively wire dense apartment blocks: brutal competition, low barrier to entry, and suddenly everyone has insane internet.
And it propagated to Spain thanks to the Romanian DIGI playing their strong bets for a while. I've had the access to the cheapest while also best-uptime-service option because of them on the two places I've lived in the city. They're still deploying as much as they can and meanwhile they offer VULA access where they don't have (In Spain thanks to the NEBA regulation, biggest ISPs are obligated to ease local access for any other operator) own infrastucture.
So it's available also at my parents' as well since a few months ago (Internet access still contracted with another company which honoured the low price offered back then which was subject to some conditions, and even having risen prices as much as three or four times, they've respected them for staying clients). I didn't see the need for the switch, but wouldn't had given much thought to it.
By Melatonic 2026-01-268:01 Starry is great here in California - they connect to ISP backbones and then put point to point WiFi on rooftops of apartment buildings. I get 300 down and 200 up (real world) with no throttling or BS. 50$ a month no contract. Very rare goes down and that's in extreme weather (and briefly). Probably better uptime than cable
By Fnoord 2026-01-2521:54 The day when T-Mobile NL (nowadays known as 'Odido') started routing all traffic via DTAG to 'save costs', and latency increased because in NL you were routed via Frankfurt. And after complaints they actually insisted on this. Then the company got bought by investors, who immediately changed this back, and also changed the name of the company.
By holowoodman 2026-01-2516:28 They are a tier-1-wannabe. Tier 1 in prices, tier 3 in connectivity. No international peering to speak of, negligible international cables and presence compared to real tier 1.
By xinayder 2026-01-2521:47 I think this is also relevant, after finding out Telekom, in Hungary, has the worst routes possible for some game servers:
By virtuallynathan 2026-01-2513:54 Try Starlink?
By oceze 2026-01-2613:39 Bojler elado!
By wildylion 2026-01-2513:53 Maybe get some Star link if you can... (Cringe worthy because of some musky husky guy, but at least it works for now).
Not sure it’s the same issue but in Hungary they (DT) refuse to use/pay Cloudflare so in peak hours every single site outside the country loads incredibly slow because of the constant re-routing. Everything has to go through Frankfurt even though CF would have alternate direct routes
https://kozosseg.telekom.hu/topic/40322-cloudflare-magyar-te...
https://old.reddit.com/r/programmingHungary/comments/1ngv2pt...
https://telex.hu/techtud/2024/06/21/deutsche-telekom-cloudfl...
At least they are cheap. 25€ a month for 2gbps/1gbps so I can’t complain about that
They also offer 4gbps/2gbps for 40€ but at this point I’m not even sure what to use that for (besides torrent seeding)
It's similar.
The DT is not doing cost neutral peeing with Cloudflare. Also the DT has no (or only one 10G NIC) at the DE-CIX.
I pay 80 EUR for 1Gbps/300mbps and it's behind GPON or if you can get more XGS-PON. Not even real ethernet. It's a shame.
By LargoLasskhyfv 2026-01-302:30 > Also the DT has no (or only one 10G NIC) at the DE-CIX.
Why would they? There is this thing called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagger_Complex
not that far away from the former https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernmeldetechnisches_Zentralam... , something like HQ of the former Gov-telco. While those have been torn down, or brought to other uses meanwhile, the Deutsche Telekom has still a massive presence in Karlsruhe. Still not that far away from the Dagger Complex.
Get what I mean?
