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International Connectivity
Steve Suppe writes "As an American who is going to be living overseas for a few years (Germany, to be more exact), I'm curious as to what advice/information Slashdot could provide people like me. How much can I expect to pay for dial-up/broadband, and from who? I'd be interested to hear how it differs around the world. Any good reference sites? Thanks!"
Same question - different country:
- Does anyone know about the connectivity in Jamaica?
I understand you can get ADSL - but is it available everywhere or just in a few areas. Any alternatives to ADSL (I hate using modems)..?
The Deutsche Telekom sells flat-rate "T-DSL" for about 55 euros a month. The service is extremely reliable as compared to what I was used to in the states. However, it is a bit of pain to get the parts (three separate boxes) and get it turned on. Get some help from a German-speaking friend or soldier. (as a side bonus, with the flat DSL, you can call the US for 4 cents a minute)
They also sell time-based access cards on post, and on the economy, if you don't want always-on access.
Good luck!
Hey I'm Canadian, and we're starting to get it here too. This is going to be labelled a troll, but one of our comedians wrote an apology letter for our recent behavior. Here's a copy:
A truly Canadian Apology to the USA...
Courtesy of Rick Mercer from This Hour Has 22 Minutes CBC Television
On behalf of Canadians everywhere I'd like to offer an apology to
the United States of America.
We haven't been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry.
I'm sorry we called George Bush a moron.
He is a moron but, it wasn't nice of us to point it out.
If it's any consolation, the fact that he's a moron shouldn't reflect poorly on the people of America.
After all it's not like you actually elected him.
I'm sorry about our softwood lumber.
Just because we have more trees than you doesn't give us the right to sell you lumber that's cheaper
and better than your own.
I'm sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey.
In our defense I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours.
I'm sorry we burnt down your white house during the war of 1812.
I notice you've rebuilt it! It's Very Nice.
I'm sorry about your beer.
I know we had nothing to do with your beer but, we Feel your Pain.
I'm sorry about our waffling on Iraq.
I mean, when you're going
up against a crazed dictator, you wanna have your friends by your side.
I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was different.
Everyone knew he had weapons.
And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I'm sorry that we're constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism.
I sincerely hope that you're not upset over this.
We've seen what you do to countries you get upset with.
Thank you.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
From traveling in Germany, my impression is that you are likely to be able to get DSL perhaps more easily than in the US. The computer stores also seemed to have comparable kinds of gadgets, at comparable prices, although technology still tends to be released in the US before Europe (but sometimes it's the other way around). In some technology areas, such as cell phones, Bluetooth, and wireless Internet access, it actually seems a bit better. Dial-up is also very easy, with a choice of no-subscription pay-as-you-go dial-ins and subscriber based services. Again, it seems like more choice than we get in the US.
Don't believe everything you read.
:-)
(I assume with Americans you mean US-Americans?)
People over here can (and for the most part do) differentiate between the American people and their government.
However, be prepared for a few heated political discussions...
ADSL Guide UK
The best deal for DSL seems to be from Deutsche Telekom. They have several different rate plans, so make sure you pick the flate rate one. It's like 25E/month. You'll probably get screwed anyway, b/c Telekom is basically the worst company on Earth. Instead of help and courtesy, you get insults and insolence. So be prepared. Also, if you want to get a mobile phone, make sure you get service from Vodafone, (aka D2/Arcor/Mannesman) not Telekom. Vodafone's cheaper, has better coverage, and is a multinational carrier, although you usually don't have any problems with that in Europe. Cheers!
As an American who is going to be living overseas for a few years (Germany, to be more exact), I'm curious as to what advice/information Slashdot could provide people like me.
My advice is this: don't go.
I have a close friend who got fed up with the constant state of (declining) flux here in the American technology job market. He'd had enough and figured to jump ship (no pun intended) and head over to Germany because everyone always said how nice Europe, especially Germany, was to work and live.
Unfortunately, he soon found out that meager pay (relative to the cost of living) was very common, and bad benefits were even more common. He was pulling in barely $32,000 USD per year and was living week to week trying to get by paying bills and taking care of his wife and baby girl.
I would advise you to please consider staying home. "The grass is always greener on the other side" as the popular saying goes. In this case, it firmly holds true.
31 people regularly point & click my G-spot
Actually, timothy, I'm an American living in Germany myself. Of course, it depends on where you are planning on living in Germany. I am signed up with freenet.de which has a couple of options. I am on the plan where it costs 89/100 of a euro cent (about 96 / 100 of a U.S. cent) per minute. There is no monthly fee, however, which means to hit the 20 US dollars per month you'd pay, I'd have to be on for about 37.5 hours. That seems to be the cheapest option for dial-up around here. http://www.einsundeins.com seems to have the best DSL rates. The DSL line will cost you about 20 euros per month (about 21.55 USD) and the service depends on what level you choose. Unlimitted is about 25- 30 euros, I've heard (26.94 USD - 32.32 USD), but I'd recommend looking into one of the time based of volume based plans. For me, it'd make more sense to get the 2GB per month plans for 9.90 euros (10.67 USD) as I can download files over the school's flat rate DSL for free, but I'll be leaving Germany in a few months (anyone know of any openings for an intro level tech job in the Moscow, Idaho area? :) ) and so I didn't want to pay an installation fee or anything like that.
Good luck.
I have no
I pay (I think) around 30 euros per month for 768/128 ADSL flatrate. I'm only not sure how much cause my girlfriend takes care of all of that stuff since I'm far too important (and it's all too complicated for me cause I'm also too dumb).
check out T-DSL, the service offered by the German Telekom, which is the phone company and also the biggest ISP. We got our cable modem thrown in for free when we signed up, don't know if they'll still give you that and they gave us a good price on a router/ISDN system/hub/ISDN modem/USB NIC wonderbox bursting with flashing lights too.
The german might be a problem when filling out the forms but most of the support people on the phone will be able to speak english
Build your own website - full service homepage system your m
This much I know. They have some built in ready to run config scripts for most German ISPs, including dial-up, cable and DSL. (From a somebody which runs SuSE on their server) Too bad they were useless to me, as I live in Canada.
My rights don't need management.
ADSL where available either direct from BT or several resellers (there are loads more). 512 down / 128 up costs about GBP 30.00 / month give or take.
There are two major cable operators in the uk, ntl: and Telewest. Both offer cable modem in almost all areas of their networks for about GBP 25.00 / month for 512 and 40.00 / month for 1M.
ntl couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.
If you live Italy, in one of the following cities:
:-)
Milan and province, Rome, Turin, Bologna, Naples and Genoa, thanks to FastWeb you can get 10Mbit optical fiber Internet access for about $70/mo (67 euros/mo).
Quite cheap and works like a charm
Over here in Germany, connectivity is actually no real problem:
w ww.telekom.de
;-)
Wired:
- Analoge and Digital (ISDN) lines, while ISDN is much more popular nowadays. Deutsche Telekom provides most of the normal telephone connections. Visit http://www.telekom.de . Prices for a regular ISDN line are about 25/$ a month for 2 phone lines with a total of 3 phone numbers. Setup is around 50/$.
- ADSL is a widely available option for either analoge or digital phonelines. Deutsche Telekom provides an ADSL-line for about 10 a month on top of your phonebill.
- Flatrates for ADSL are around 20-30 on top of the phonebill which already includes the charge for your ADSL-line.
Wireless:
-WLAN hotspots are coming up everywhere in big and small cities since some months. It's quite amazing how many nodes you can find within a day of WarDriving around Frankfurt, i.e.
-CellServices provide almost a complete coverage of the whole country. GPRS is widely available but still a little on the pricy side: 5cent for 10kb with my cell-provider "O2". Cell rates are usually 10-20 a month, calling-costs not included (average bill around 50 , if you don't hug the phone 24/7)
Hope this helps.
To get into much more detail visit:
http://www.billiger-surfen.de (cheaper-surfing)
http://www.onlinekosten.de (onlinecost)
http://www.mobileaccess.de
http://
http://www.heise.de
or go
http://www.google.de
and help yourself.
enjoy germany!
-benny
The scoop on Paris is that the local cableco monopolist is your best source for high speed. I pay about $44/month (about euros40). The company is called Noos -- www.noos.fr Crazy thing is that the transatlantic connection is fast enough for my Vonage voice-over-IP phone to work perfectly -- that is, the phone dials over IP back to the New Jersey servers, where it gives me a local US phone line. I'd look into that if you want to save on calling chums back in the states.
OK,
When you get a phone, get at from the Deutsche Telekom and not from any other local carrier.
Why? Their rates might suck, but only if you use Deutsche Telekom can you use ALL call by call carriers which are billed by the normal telephone bill. The majority you can use without registering at the other phone company, so basically you check out which operator is the cheapest for a call, pick up the phone, and dial.
Calls to the US start at 4 cents per minute using Call by Call.
To check the cheapest rate and which call by caller operator to use, checkout www.teltarif.de
ISDN phone lines are very popular over here, you can get a special rate that calls on Sunday are free within Germany. These can also be used to call up an internet provider with "normal" telephone number. www.teltarif.de also has a list of these which you can use together with usernames/password.
Local phone calls are NOT free.
Internet dialup you also usually use call by call ones. Check out www.billiger-surfen.de to find out which operator is cheapest. Cheap ones start like 1 cent per minute. That's about the best rate you can get.
Flatrates for internet dialups do not exist.
Broadband:
DSL is the way to go, you need to get the DSL line from the Deutsche Telekom. And in addition to that, you must subscribe to an Online service, either the Deutsche Telekom's own (T-Online) where a 768kbit down/128kbit up costs 29.99 Euros per month with no limit regarding time or bandwidth. Note that this flatrate is not available if you use the 1500up/192kdown service. 1und1 (www.1und1.de) has better deals if you have less traffic.
Basically, for an ISDN telephone with the calls free on Sunday plus DSL 768Kbit, you would pay 41.27 Euros a month. Add to that the online rate (29,99 for t-online dsl flat)
If you sign up at 1und1.de you get a free USB DSL Modem, for 9.95 you get an ISDN telephone switch to which you can connect analogue phones to, and they pass on your request to the Deutsche Telekom. You also have to pay a setup fee, which is charged by the Deutsche Telekom, but doing it with 1und1 currently offers the best deal.
Hope this helps.
I'm an Australian who lived in America for most of my life and there became a bandwidth junkie, but now I live in Germany.
The transition has been totally smooth. German Deutsche-Telekom sell flat-rate DSL, and it's pretty good in my region - at least as good as what I was used to in LA.
There is less after-market competition - i.e. small regional ISP's, but some parts of Germany have good regional nets. Not really here in the Ruhr, my understanding is that its mostly DT.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Yeah, they don't like having Americans like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Ashcroft around. Most other Americans are welcome, even the ones from the US.
Geez Louise,
This thread is really getting on me ninnies...
Anyways, I live as an expat in Germany. DSL is trivial to get, try Deutsche Telekom although I do not not know if they are exactly the cheapest.
There is a website that contains a list of all the
German DSL providers (there are loads) but it is in German. Google for it (try DSL Deutschland). 768/128 DSL is available almost anywhere, and some providers (yahoo) does 1500 as well.
As far a cellphones are concerned the service is very good, but do yourself a favour and get a contract from Viag Interkom (now O2). They are the best, especially with their Genion at Home thingie. That is quite cheap.
It is possible to dial fairly cheap. www.billigtelefonieren.de should give you all the details you want on that, again, in German. You usually dial with a prefix code to get the different providers.
If you do not want to go DSL, ISDN is very much more wide-spread and cheap than in the US and pay-per call may be mucho cheaper than a DSL, depending on how much you are online. Now that DSL is getting very popular you can get cheapo ISDN cards second hand. ISDN is pretty OK for most things anywa, and with it you can call for free on Sundays for a few Euros per month extra.
Telekom does take a few weeks to install DSL due to a serious demand-driven backlog (and the !"!"ers do NOT tell you that they have done it, you have to try to see if it works!) but ISDN install is fairly quick (2 days in my case)
Telekom has been banned as of last year to give away DSL modems for free (it was stifling competition) so now you have to pay, a small DSL box with a router with 4 ports that can do masquerading and set with a web box is available for about 70 Euros, and one with a wireless port as well for about 200 (At media markt). I picked up an old Pentium 100 for 25 euros and Linux it and put up a ethernet card and a hub to use as a DSL router behind Deutsche Telekom DSL, works fine but at that time the routers were still expensive so a crouter is probably the cheapets way to go.
You can also get a hosted server (a complete Linux box with full root control) for 39 Euros per month.
Computers are generally more expensive than in the states but not too much. You can pretty much find everything you need, try www.arlt.com to get a feel for prices. (I buy there, do not work for them).
If you wish to know more, drop my a line on my home page.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Maybe he doesnt speak German? That was the problem when I moved to Switzerland - I found tons of pages, but it would take me hours to decipher what they meant. I found that the easiest way to get some info was to ask on the LUG groups of zurich, using irc. /m
Forget broadband... rent a nice MB/BMW/Audi and hit the fastest roads in the world.
"Times may change, but standards must remain the same." - George Carlin.
Nice reply.
The parent is half right. The apology is funny on its own. The apology as delivered by Rick Mercer is downright hilarious.
Was that really worth calling someone an asswad for?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
http://www.broadbandchoice.com.au/
It is a subsite of http://www.whirlpool.net.au/
Whirlpool was originally a user bitch forum for Telstra Bigpond, but expanded to cover most of Australia's broadbnad ISP's. The forums at whirlpool are a good measure of customer satisfaction.
Stay away from Telstra - they prefer to use a sandpaper condom on their phallus.
Yay me!
Many are complaining that ping times are bad in the telekom DSL network, that is because they do not use fastpath.
But downloads are pretty speedy. Mostly you do get to download at 80K/second which I think is quite nice.
Ping time to a cable modem in PA in the US from my German DSL connection is about 140ms.
Keep your American status as low-key as possible. People will obviously be able to tell that you're from the US or Canada (or at least SOME english speaking country), but people are generally willing to accept you as a good (or bad) person regardless of your home, unless you make comments about how "America is saving the world."
Think this post is stupid? I've seen it happen too often. While wandering through the streets of Paris, I heard an American traveller comment to her husband about how "these people can't even get a Big Mac right!" Other countries have the same problem with their citizens abroad (England is a close second, Germany third in my opinion) but the US has a reputation for it and people will NOT give you a second chance if you make an arrogant comment.
Aside from that, have fun and soak up the culture.
I spent several years in Italy. The internet access there was 33.6 dialup when I arrived. The worst part about it was the fact that there is no "local call" there. Every call is charged by the minute.
Around '96, the ISP upgraded to 56k modems. In late '97 Telecom Italia offered ISDN. the line to the house was 2B+D (128kbps), but in traditional Italian fassion, they fucked it all up. You still had to pay connections per minute, and each channel was charged seperately. A 128k connection to my local ISP was about 2 or 3 cents per minute.
Telecom Italia upgraded, once agian, to ADSL in 2000. And, once agian, they fucked it up. They implemented ADSL using PPPoE. If you have not used PPPoE, your modem establishes a connection using a username/password. ISPs do this so they can monitor how much bandwidth you use. I paid $50 per month for the line, and another $50 per gigabyte of traffic.
I figured all my problems were over when I moved to Japan. Unfortunately, I live in an area (in Tokyo) that is not covered by DSL. I pay $30/month for 90 hours of 56k dialup. My only other real option is to use a cell phone to get wireless service at a cost of $100/month for 128k access. I have tried this, but the actual bandwidth is about 70kbps and the packet loss and delay is way too high to make it useful.
A new ISP is talking about wiring our neghborhood for 128kbps SDSL. They have mentioned a 1GB per month cap with no way to go over that ammount. They also want $50 per month with a $150 install cost. What really makes it hurt is that they guy down the street from me (150 feet away, but no LOS for a 2.4ghz link) pays $35/month for 100mbps fiber. Yep, he actually has fiber running into a modem sitting on his desk.
Sometimes, I wonder who I pissed off to get so screwed on internet access...
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I spend each summer in Slovenia doing fieldwork for my graduate degree. Luckily, I have hooked up with a faculty at Univerza v Ljubljani. So I just go to an office and use my laptop. But if you don't have it good like that, my advice is to be careful according to your locale. The American model for dial-up is different from much of the rest of the world. I was shocked to get a phone bill with several hundred minutes of dialup charges for using the phone line AS WELL AS the minutes for connection to the internet. I only know dial-up but my advice in Slovenija is: pazi!.
Also, a caveat to travelers in Slovenia. Internet cafes are kinda non-existant in Ljubljana. You can get online at the Mobitel office across from Mladinska Knjigarna and in the Mueller department store just down the street from the Posta bus stop. That's about it for regularly available spots. If anybody knows of any place that isn't closed or half-open or generally flaky, let me know.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
I'm in Germany, and was going to write about IDSN and DSL, but given that everybody and their dog has already done that, here's some other advice:
Beaurocracy!
Lots of it. You need the right piece of paper with the right stamp on it, or things don't happen. Probably the worst thing about Germany, this.
Learn German!
Yes, lots of them do speak English, but that's no reason for being lazy. As soon as you have to do anything important, you'll probably find yourself needing to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English. A little German will go a long way, especially in terms of the impression you make.
Get your lane discipline sorted.
Cruise on the right, overtake on the left, and then move back to the right. If there's a BMW behind you flashing his lights, don't worry too much - BMW drivers are like that. If it's some other make of car, you're going to slow - get out of that lane! They make nice cars in Stuttgart, by the way.
Watch out for speed cameras
They take your photo from the front, so there's no "it wasn't me" excuses. There are both stationary cameras on posts and mobile units (hidden in hedges or wherever). More than 30km/h over the limit can result in a 1 month driving ban.
Watch your speed on the Autobahn
Not all of the Autobahn has no speed limit. Where there is one, it's clearly marked. Where there isn't one, enjoy yourself! Be aware that having no speed limit doesn't often help, due to the volume of traffic (and the guy three cars ahead, going way too slow in the overtaking lane).
Most bottles have a deposit on them
So take them back to the supermarket. Germans like to buy drinks by the crate. Look for a "Getränkemarkt" if you're thirsty.
German beer is stronger than US beer
Purity laws and all that. The lack of nasty chemicals means you can get hammered and not have a major hangover next morning. Make sure you get to the world's biggest Fest - the Oktoberfest in München (not called Munich on Germany!), or the second biggest - the Volksfest in Stuttgart. If you want an English-speaking pub, look for an "Irish Pub". It's a chain (I think). There are quite a lot now; they stock Guiness too.
There are no Reeses Pieces
If you find somewhere that sells them, post it on Slashdot :-)
Not as many really fat people
This one will only hit you when you go back to the US...
In Germany, there are two kinds of areas where you will have problems to get a dsl-line (cable is not really an option here).
Number one are rural areas.
Number two are "too modern" areas, like freshly build suburbs with fiber, but no copper in the ground. In the 90's, they didn't know DSL only works on copper lines. AFAIK this is not too rare in eastern Germany, where they buried a lot of fiber after the german unification.
Besides that, coverage is pretty good, especially wireless. Cell phones really work here, I mean almost everywhere, and pretty reliably.
Germany just isn't as vast as the US.
.... don't tell anyone you're an American.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
When I first moved to Germany in 1994, there was little information available for expatriots. It was all pretty much learning by doing. I recently spent about a year and a half in LA and returned to Germany at the end of last year with my girlfriend, who does not speak German. While looking for orientation materials for her (actually an experienced expat), I discovered that the amount of information has expanded greatly.
One really useful site is How To Germany, which includes a brief overview and a nice link to an online comparison chart. The best computer magazin in the world had an entire section devoted to the best and cheapest DSL/cable internet service at the end of last year. Unfortunately, you will have to learn German to read the article (The issue's TOC is here, if you want it---and this is reason enough to want to learn German.)
Allolex
You have 3 broadband choices in Canberra, depending on your suburb:
1. TransACT - A local high speed broadband fibre network. You have to pay TransACT for the connection, then an ISP for internet (the cable from TransACT also provides TV and Phone).
Unfortunately they bandwidth is currently capped at 512kb, and all the ISPs are braindead when it comes to Broadband, and think that a 500meg limit will work.
2. Satelite via telstra. Not sure how much it costs....but it's Satelite, and so you probably don't want it anyway.
3. ADSL
There's two main providers - Telstra and Netspace.
Telstra offer 512kb for about $100 a month with a 3GB limit before they start charging extra (I'm currently on this plan, since they were the only option at the time).
Netspace will give you 512kb for around $100 a month with 4Gig peak, and 7 gig offpeak, and they throw in a dialup account too. They also offer 1.5Mb for $150.
If you're looking for broadband in Canberra, and cant get or don't want TransACT, then Netspace ADSL is definitely the way to go.
Advanced users are users too!
Canada: land of great beer, free health care, separatist movements, and trolls (both garden variety internet and elected official)
From Slate:
On Wednesday, at the end of a "media scrum" about Iraq, Canadian Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish was captured by TV cameras saying, "Damn Americans. I hate those bastards." When Daniel Leblanc, a reporter from Toronto's Globe and Mail asked her to explain the remark, she threatened to restrict journalists' parliamentary access if it was reported, telling him, "If you guys want to keep the privilege of working in that area without being held back, I would be very careful with this one." The press ignored her attempted intimidation and publicized the remarks.
live w/o the net in a new place for several years?
so give up one of the easiest ways to get cheap airfares, learn about holiday destinations, get bus/rail/s-bahn/u-bahn schedules? since this person is planning on returning to the usa, they should give up their online access to their financial info and instead use more expensive and less convenient phone/fax/mail? more importantly they have friends and family back in the usa. they should give up on an inexpensive way to keep in touch with their friends and family? give up email, pictures of newborn relatives, holiday snaps, etc?
get real.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
We have lots of different providers offering different access technologies. Some are good, some are very good and a few are exceptional. :-)
* Dial-up
Dial-up is mostly dead. You never see any ads for it anymore. Usually charged at the same per-minute rate as phone-calls (2c/min). No distinction is made between local calls and long-distance anymore, they cost the same (most of the cost is in the local loop anyway).
* Cable
There are a number of different cable operators. They all have different prices and plans, but it's very common to pay between $20 and $30 for the basic connection (which usually is between 512/128 and 1024/512, all depending on local operator). Available in most cities.
* DSL
One major operator (Telia) has had what can only be described as a monopoly on DSL service. It is getting better, and local DSLAMs from other operators are being set up in the markets with the biggest customer base (large cities). Telia offers a 512/512 plan for about $35 with no UL/DL restrictions. Other operators are now offering DSL up to 2.5M/512, but at a premium and usually only in large cities. Availability is pretty good, and service has been very reliable for all of my friends.
* Ethernet
Several municipalities have set up local fiber or Ethernet networks in the cities. I happen to live in Gavle, the city with perhaps the best local network of them all. Unfortunately I don't live in a house connected to the network. We also have a few other operators that install Ethernet, the biggest being BBB (Bredbandsbolaget). Prices range from $20 to $50. Personally I have a 2M/2M connection that costs $22 (100Mbit Ethernet in my apartment, router in basement that does bandwidth limiting, 155Mbit fiber to local POP for the backbone, VERY nice RTT to most places around the globe).
* Wireless
Don't really know how the market looks like for wireless access points. Haven't seen much about it.
Free your mind!
After living in Germany for I while I know what you mean about billing not stopping when you want it to. It's not restricted to Deutsche Telekom.
My experience is that German companies don't understand customer service in the same sense we expect it here in North America.
If you need to terminate an account, or contract or insurance or anything else doing it by phone despite them having customer phone service, generally doesn't work.
The billing departments generally aren't up to speed and it can take a few months (if ever) for things to trickle from phone services to them.
>>>> Cancel all contracts etc... in writing with a letter by mail (keep a copy).
All that being said, I've had some nightmare companies here in Canada too... in particular
ISPs. A friend of mine fought for months to cancel a particular ISP account...
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
It is also a legal issue. In general, German law doesn't allow for oral contracts. If you stay in Germany for a while you will notice that almost every significant transaction is covered by written contract including all leases and matters of employment.
As a result, entering into or cancelling contracts over the phone are discouraged and you will find that most companies will ask you to either fax or mail a contract or cancellation request. Make sure you sign it too or you just wasted at lesat $.50 in postage or whatever you just paid for faxing it.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
of the voltage and standard changes...
makr sure your appliances, especially you computer is dual voltage, and check the settings before you plug in your equipment. Otherwise, boom ! Fried power supplies.
If you take your DSL router from the US, as in my case, I had to buy a special transformer for the linksys box i had (220v ac to 24v ac).
As we are speaking dsl routers, make sure that your dsl router supports the terribly long usernames of t-online/deutsche telekom...
Good luck and have fun with relocationg...
For very verbose Linux configuration guidelines check out ADSL4Linux.de.
Oh, and don't forget to learn german, it will help a lot in everyday life (though you'll manage to survive without).
There are a lot of posts about T-DSL from the Telekom. While T-DSL is available almost everywhere in germany, there are quite a few local carriers in bigger citys. For example i am a customer of Hansenet, a local carrier in Hamburg.
Hansenet gives you a 2048/192 DSL flatrate for about 55EUR/month including ISDN and free local calls to all Hansenet customers. ( Most of my friends are )
In Germany, dynamic vs. static IP addresses are used to separate business and private Internet connectivity (and dynamic addresses are reassigned every 24 hours). For some applications, this doesn't matter, of course. Actually, business Internet access isn't too expensive either, but you usually pay per volume, so you can't afford all this P2P stuff...
So, you are traveling to the old Europe, and the most important thing you need to know is the availability of broadband access?
Funny life must be yours, really.