Online Encyclopedia
Communications in Germany
Instrumental in founding the Universal Postal Union, Germany early on set standards for international communications and the development of an integrated internal system, which has developed with technological advances from land mail (Turn und Taxis), to telegraph, to modern-day telephone and satellite communications.
Telephones - main lines in use: NA; 46.5 million main lines are installed (July 1999)
Telephones - mobile cellular: 15.318 million (April 1999)
Telephone system: Germany has one of the world's most technologically advanced telecommunications systems. As a result of intensive capital expenditures since reunification, the formerly backward system of the eastern part of the country has been modernized (to the world's modernst) and integrated with that of the western part.
Germany is served by an extensive domestic system of automatic telephone exchanges connected by modern networks of fiber-optic cable, coaxial cable, microwave radio relay, and a domestic satellite system. Cellular telephone service is widely available and includes roaming service to many foreign countries. international: satellite earth stations - 14 Intelsat (12 Atlantic Ocean and 2 Indian Ocean), 1 Eutelsat, 1 Inmarsat (Atlantic Ocean region), 2 Intersputnik (1 Atlantic Ocean region and 1 Indian Ocean region); 7 submarine cable connections; 2 HF radiotelephone communication centers; tropospheric scatter links
Radio broadcast stations: AM 51, FM 767, shortwave 4 (1998)
Radios: 77.8 million (1997)
Television broadcast stations: 9,513 (including repeaters) (1998)
Televisions: 51.4 million (1998)
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 625 (1999)
Country code: DE