Broadband Comes to Town

Even though I knew the village we were shifting to was small I thought that broadband internet access was available everywhere in Germany. Unfortunately that wasn't true and even the largest company (Deutsche Telekom or T-Online, T-Mobile etc) had few options[1]. All I wanted was something that meant the phone could be used at the same time and had no time limit. All phone calls are timed in Germany and so there is no such thing (that I have come across) as a dial-up internet 'plan'[2].

Anyway I was all set to sign up for a UMTS internet account (UMTS is basically internet via 3G mobile telephony) when a flyer arrived in the mailbox announcing a small company who were offering a phone and DSL package to our village. Yaaay! I called them a few days later and, after a couple of questions, signed up. So we are now humming along with relatively fast access at home.

This all means that I think the world can now expect a bit more of a digital presence from Gaynor and the children (especially Elijah!) and possibly even some more frequent blog posts.

[1] Among them, ISDN (only a little faster than a dial-up modem) and Satellite 'DSL'( which receives via satellite and uploads via modem or ISDN).
[2] You just dial up a company, use a publicly available login & password and you pay from there with the requested payment coming with your T-Com bill.