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Telecommunications in Germany have for a long time been in the hands of a state-controlled monopoly company. The end this monopoly situation which lasted for almost four decades before the privatization of 'Deutsche Telekom' and the abolishment of its monopoly status enabled other companies to compete for customers from within the 80 Million German citizen base. For lack of other branches the run for clients was at first focused on the telephone market. Within a timeframe of five years, it became clear, that in spite of the deregulation of the telecommunications market, competitors would have a very hard time snagging significant market shares from the still-dominating former monopolist. The customer base was used to only having one offer to rely on and was not ready to switch to an alternative just because it offered lower tariffs. Then, something fortunate for the telco vendors happened: the arrival of broadband-technology made it necessary to differentiate telecommunication products into telephony and data based services. The other providers made good use of the opportunity to get a hold in an emerging market and a more real competition in the telecommunications sector was about to begin. Another five years later, when the competitors had managed to put themselves into a healthy position from a business point of view, the market became very dynamic all of a sudden with the advent of mobile technologies. The former monopolist managed to react to the changes that were about to meet the sector by re-structuring into a [among others] mobile and a fixed line branch. The other companies, particularly the smaller ones, were not able to follow suit and for the most part missed the transition of their range of products to include mobile services as well. As a consequence it was above all globally operating specialist mobile enterprises that filled the vacancy and are now the ones successfully offering cell phones and corresponding communication contracts to Germans. The fixed line and mobile markets stayed separated for another five years or so, documenting the lack of synergies that operators saw in joining the two. Convergence of these business units is being pushed seriously only now and it is going both ways: the fixed line operators try to juice up their services by including benefits for mobile users and cell phone companies have stepped up their activities in the fixed line market by buying shares in the German fixed line infrastructure, effectively allowing them to offer provider services without having to rent the lines first. With this convergence on the way, another development hit a market whose pace seemed to slow down during the past years because of market saturation and lack of innovative and sophisticated products. Although the introduction of the concepts of 'mobile internet' had taken place more than a decade ago and early adopters as well as a select few moneyed business individuals had been able to experience a couple of slow bits and bytes being transferred by radio communication, it could not hit the mass market due to lack of usability and high cost. It was not until the necessary technology was firmly rooted in a freshly upgraded communication infrastructure that providers started thinking seriously about pricing and mobile internet customer benefits. It took more than six years after the multibillion dollar auction for the German UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) frequencies had taken place for the successful bidders to bring services to the mass market that were based on this mobile broadband technology. However, from this point on, it quickly became clear that the mobile internet is not only a savvy yield bringer but will presumably be linked to most of human (tele-) communication in the future. As a side effect it will be competing seriously with fixed line broadband internet products, long-time customer favourite in Germany, within a rather short timeframe. Last but not least, the impact of the debut of Apples iPhone is not to be underestimated. The adoption of mobile internet technology into everyday life of mainstream users will be greatly accelerated by this gadget. This is true in spite of disappointing sales being reported for its introduction stage in Germany.
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