Broadband in London

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I was in London for the last few days to claim my Kickstarter reward from Zach Braff’s “Wish I Was Here”. The film turned out well, and I can put “film producer” on my business card. Well done, Mr. Braff.

I also came across some broadband offers that caught my attention. This isn’t a comprehensive survey, and I have no first-hand experience with any of them except Three. Still, I think they’re worth comparing with the situation in Germany. If you know more, feel free to get in touch on Twitter.

Basic ADSL offers

For example, TalkTalk splits the advertised price into £16 line rental paid to the owner of the copper—presumably British Telecom (?)—and the ISP service fee, currently £1.75 with a discount or £3.50 at the regular price. Germany has a similar arrangement when, for example, Alice/O2 rents the last mile from Telekom. Showing the split in the marketing also makes clear that the ISP itself keeps little of the revenue, just as in Germany.

Fibre

I don’t know how far the rollout has progressed, but it must be ahead of Germany’s usual 0%. I guessed a postcode, and Virgin would rent a line on a 12-month contract for £40, offering a relatively laughable 150/12 Mbit/s. But the fibre is there, and there may also be providers offering symmetrical service, though at three-figure monthly prices.

Mobile: Three

A Three UK SIM costs £1. Service with unlimited data, 4G (a real 16/16 Mbit/s outdoors), and a bit of voice and SMS fluff costs £15 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can buy it anonymously in a shop in five minutes; the sales assistant activated the service for me through the voice menu. Tethering is apparently excluded in the terms, but works anyway.

Basti Wölfle had a bad experience with Three UK; the network was apparently rather slow. Some listeners said Drei.at started out stronger and then got worse. Tre.it also has more of the usual mobile-network nonsense, like a captive portal that bothers you once a day. But you can apparently use a UK SIM on the other Three/Drei/Tre networks for free. The other way around, with an Austrian SIM, may no longer work.

@timohetzel We’re working on it, we promise! :-)

— ThreeUK, September 11, 2014

Maybe this will improve in Germany too, but I wouldn’t expect miracles if they adapt too much to the German market or existing mobile operators keep them out.

Fixed mobile broadband

There’s a local provider running a 4G network more or less in the London Underground area: Relish.net. Residential customers get unlimited data for £20 on a 4G/Wi-Fi router (£50 upfront); business customers pay £25. It’s cancellable monthly, there’s a two-week trial, and the hardware arrives the next business day.

Relish’s marketing says:

86 new businesses are born in London every hour. … You don’t want to sit around for an installation guy. Worse, wait six weeks to have a dedicated line installed. Or have a meeting in that café, simply for their free WiFi.

Once again, that describes Germany’s problem perfectly. Listeners have written to me from commercial districts in eastern Germany and central Berlin; I know the same story here in Munich, and we heard it from the carpenter on the evening news too: in Germany you can’t just start a company and rent an office without first checking the map of 1950s copper wiring.

And if you dare, you may wait half a year for a technician to plug in the cable. That happened to C3S, the GEMA alternative.

In London, companies spring up every second, and the UPS driver brings internet access the next day. Maybe even on Saturdays.