Web sites went dark Sunday across Germany, as thousands of Net users participated in a 24-hour boycott of the Internet to protest their nation's high telecom access fees.
Thomas von Treichel, organizer of the Internetstreik, said that the issue was telephone costs, not Internet access fees. But, since Deutsche Telekom AG has a monopoly, he said German netizens must use the company's T-Online service, whether they want to or not.
Meanwhile, a Deutsche Telekom representative, contacted Monday, said the strike had no effect.
"We have noticed no effect at all," said Deutsche Telekom spokesman Joerg Lammers in an email. "Our customers surfed the Net on strike Sunday as they usually do."
Lammers said that Deutsche Telekom will "definitely not" be lowering prices as a result of the strike.
"The prices are fine as they are."
However, Deutsche Telekom recently announced plans to lower its access rates anyway. But von Treichel was wary.
"[They] said this last year, too, but nothing happened," von Treichel said. "The strike will go on until they clearly state their prices."
"Telephone costs are very high," said strike participant Thorsten Weigl, a Web designer who lives in Munich.
Weigl said that users in Germany pay an average of US$200 for monthly Internet access -- $3 per hour -- and most of that is telephone charges.
What they want is a saner rate of one Deutschemark (60 cents) per hour, with a monthly maximum of DM100.
"This situation has led to an enormous delay of the development and growth of Internet-related businesses in Germany," said Soeren Frey, who also participated in the strike.
"A modern economy and society should not prevent the people from using such a modern and innovative communication media," Frey said.
A study from last year compared Internet access costs for 25 countries. Germany ranked 20th in terms of cost, with 75 percent of their Internet costs being telephone charges (in the United States, telephone charges are less than 50 percent of the cost).
"Germany is going to be a banana republic of the Internet if the situation doesn't change," Weigl said. "This was the reason why we support the strike."
Weigl hopes Sunday's losses for Deutsche Telekom will wake them up. But if not, he says they are prepared to strike every Sunday until they do.
"The strike will be repeated," he said. "Every Sunday until they drop the prices!"
More than 6,500 German users sent their URLs and thousands more emailed support of the protest to von Treichel's support page. Many businesses also supported the protest, including Opportunity GmbH and Berlin's largest independent ISP, Sireco Internet Services.
Not everyone in Germany participated in the strike. For some -- including German media outlets that reported on the strike, such as Der Spiegel -- Sunday was just business as usual.
