Internet connectivity is surprisingly poor on German trains. In 1st class, between Basel and Hanover, most of the time my phone (with Swisscom SIM) got better connectivity than the onboard wifi. Considering that this route connects Zurich and Frankfurt, you'd think there would be a smidgen more investment in bandwidth.
If there's one thing Germany is uniquely terrible at, it's internet connectivity. Absolutely mindblowingly bad, speaking as someone who grew up with Telkom monopoly in South Africa in the 90s.
100% agree. I was in Frankfurt last week for the first time in many years (I live in Asia now). Roamed in Germany's largest and most expensive cell phone network, Deutsche Telekom T-Mobile.
In the city centre near Goetheplatz I had... drumm roll. EDGE. 2.5G
In July 2023.
This is the home of DE-CIX, the European continents largest internet exchange.
The wifi on the trains comes from the cellular network, too. If you experienced cell phone working better than the on board wifi, that was almost certainly some other issue, the performances are very correlated. The problem is not so much with the trains, it's just that cellphone coverage is just terrible in Germany generally, especially compared to Switzerland.
