Although the former East Germany lags behind the former West in many things, the need to upgrade infrastructure after the fall of Communism left eastern Berlin with the best fibre-optic network in Germany. For several years, even West Berliners looked enviously across the previous border at their new countrymen’s high-speed DSL connections. When selling phone and DSL connections, most phone companies will try to get you to take an ISDN line that comes with three phone numbers and a crate of extra gear. But this isn’t necessary for DSL and can require special ISDN phones or additional adapters for traditional analogue phones. If you just have a single analogue line, you can still get broadband up to 1MB download.

If you don’t use much internet, your provider will bill you a little over 1 cent a minute for use on top of a €10 or €15 monthly connection fee, though most packages now include unlimited surfing for just the monthly connection fee. You will also get several email accounts and space for a webpage. Since getting DSL equipment up and running can be difficult, you’ll be sent someone to set up your gear for about €75.

Most internet providers will want to deduct the amount of your bill automatically from your account each month. If you resist, they’ll charge €1 to allow you to transfer the money. This may seem odd but it’s completely normal in Germany. Getting a paper invoice each month will also cost €1.

If you don’t want to surf at home, Berlin has plenty of internet cafes that charge about five cents a minute for access on one of their machines. Many cafes now also have free wireless internet but it’s not as widespread as in other parts of Europe.