
Telecommunication in Germany
Compared to the United States, Germany is at the forefront of the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +49, there were a total of 145.00 million connections in 2021. Among them were 106.40 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.3 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 20.04 million webhosts, Germany is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 8.11 million of these, or about 40 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Germany
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 77.34 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Germany ranks 49th in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 26.52 Mbit/second was significantly lower (66th place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, Germany comes 37th with a download speed of 57.27 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 11 Mbit was only enough for 65th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in October 2022 from 180 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in Germany from 1990 - 2021
Broadband internet in Germany 2000 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
Distribution in 2021 | Germany Total | Germany percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 36.88 m | 44.33 % | 127.03 m | 38.27 % |
Landlines | 38.60 m | 46.40 % | 97.11 m | 29.26 % |
Mobile cellulars | 106.40 m | 127.89 % | 361.62 m | 108.96 % |