COMPARE: What's the 'best' mobile phone network in Germany?

"Can you say that again? The reception's really bad here."

Fortunately, statements like this are becoming increasing rare as mobile phone coverage has dramatically improved across Germany, but there's still quite a difference between the operators.

Before we get into which one is best, let's break them down. Germany has four mobile phone providers: Deutsche Telekom (D1), Vodafone (D2), Telefónica (O2) and newbie since the end of 2023, 1&1.

Which network has the best coverage?

There's quite a big difference between the operators.

Telekom still has the best coverage, but Vodafone is not far behind, with Telefónica (O2) in third place, according to several major tech magazines based on research carried out in 2023.

There's not so much information on 1&1 yet. As well as its own (still somewhat limited) antenna locations, it currently uses Telefónica and Vodafone infrastructure via mobile roaming.  

Which is the most expensive?

As you might expect given the coverage, Telekom is the most expensive, Vodafone is more reasonable, while O2 and 1&1 tariffs are generally much cheaper. 

A lot of it comes down to where you live. If you live in one of Germany's major cities, you may well not notice much difference in quality between the providers.

But if your home is in a more rural spot, you might find that O2 and 1&1's coverage is not as good.

How can I check what the coverage is like in my area?

A few years ago, the Federal Network Agency put together a map and an app to look at just that.

You can use this to discover any network dead spots, find out how fast download speeds are where you live and compare your area to the rest of the country.

What's the 5G coverage like?

According to the Bundesnetzagentur, or federal network agency, as of January 2024, 91 percent of Germany has 5G coverage from at least one provider. This is a huge increase from October 2021, when the figure stood at around 53 percent.

You can see the latest coverage on the grid agency's map below (last updated in July), which shows that it's pretty extensive overall.

But if you look at the maps for each provider individually, there are clear differences – coverage is far denser on the Telekom and Vodafone maps than the Telefónica one, which still has far less 5G across the country, even in some parts of bigger cities like Frankfurt and Hamburg.

What about speed?

Telekom is still the speediest network overall, but you'll need to make sure you have a phone contract that allows 5G internet access at maximum speed to take advantage of it.

How about reception in rural areas?

Things are much better now. Testing by tech magazine Chip found that all networks cover over 95 percent of Germany with 4G: Telekom around 98.7 percent, Vodafone 97.6 percent and Telefónica 96.8 percent.

The Bundesnetzagentur reached a similar conclusion, finding that 96 percent of the country is supplied with 4G by at least one network operator. 

However, if you live in the countryside and regularly drive around, you're better off choosing Telekom – in the magazines' testing, it performed significantly better than the others, with similar coverage levels to those seen in cities.

What about reception on trains?

Reception on trains has traditionally been really bad, but it's (slowly) improving.

On Thursday, Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Bahn announced that Telekom's antennae now cover 99 percent of the main ICE and IC train routes – a 12 percentage-point increase on 2021 – with a data rate of at least 200 megabits per second, news agency DPA reported.

Vodafone has coverage of at least 225 megabits per second on 83 percent of the main routes. Telefónica, however, doesn't provide any information on the coverage categories of 200 or more megabits, but it says it's making progress in expanding this area.

All of the companies are trying to improve coverage and reduce dead spots, but Telekom is ahead of the game here.

Deutsche Bahn is even using so-called mobile phone-permeable windows to help improve phone connections, which are typically blocked by standard train windows on high-speed trains.

So which network is best overall?

Several German tech magazines, including Connect and Chip, carry out extensive mobile phone network testing on an annual basis and their results all put Telekom in first place with Vodafone a close second. Telefónica came in third, but has improved in recent years, the magazines found. 

The magazines haven't yet researched 1&1, so it will be interesting to see how it performs in the next analysis.