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In sports there is formulation start-finish victory. To describe the state's permanent digital failure in Germany, I propose the opposite, as it were, the opposite: the start-to-finish debacle. You start charmingly weak, then give in terrific and switch down, before finally burying any ambition by cursing excuses. Then the legislature is over and the next GroKo does it in a completely different way as well.
Currently, the auction of the 5G frequencies, the new mobile standard. And, of course, politics inimitably prepares a prime example of the start-to-finish debacle, another radio fiasco. German federal governments seem to have a subscription to start-finish debacles or the patent on it, otherwise it can not be explained any more.
Because 5G is reasonably new, I want to explain the background of this technology. Among other things, it is important in terms of industrial policy; several automobile companies are planning their own 5G networks at production sites, because extremely high data transfer rates can be transferred extremely quickly, as can Siemens, BASF, Bosch, the who's who of the German flagship companies. For example, the efficiency of what is known as manufacturing depends largely on when, where, and how quickly data can be transferred and processed.
Germany as a machine-building country is the Eldorado of automation in production according to DIN 8580. It is no coincidence that Tesla, for example, bought a German company just for this. Its engineering edge - on which the export world championship and thus the prosperity is based - but Germany can lubricate the fax machine, if the next technological leap fails as much as he is currently being prepared politically.
Bernd of Jutrczenka / DPA
Anja Karliczek: "5G is not necessary on every milk can"
Appearance Anja Karliczek, Research Minister. At the end of 2018, she says, "5G is not necessary on every milk can." This is not just a joke. That's a dangerous impudence. Unlike many other countries, Germany's economic strength is based on strong regionalism. While in Berlin, a total of zero DAX companies have their own seat and about 50 percent of the population of state payments (Hartz IV, unemployment benefits, pension, pension, student loans, etc.) are dependent, falls somewhere in the Sauerland or in the Black Forest for a long time and meanwhile passing three world market leaders.
Translated the imposition of Karliczek means: We ignore the areas where 5G is used economically, the non-urban regions. Especially in Germany, 5G is literally needed on every milk can. Agriculture is one of the most digital industries, while society is still debating self-driving cars, self-propelled tractors have long been normal. Likewise, drones that sense the sensory nature and condition of fields. A special feature of 5G is that data transfer not only works very fast, but also very energy efficient. A 5G mobile sensor can therefore transmit data for up to 10 years with one battery charge. Such sensors are not intended for smartphones in Berlin-Mitte, but for the immediate proximity to milk churns.
Annoying digital stuff
And now the auction of the 5G frequencies. Politics repeats one of the most powerful, German tradition mistakes of all time. More specifically, the German government Merkel IV is replaying a start-to-finish debacle in 2000. At that time, the 3G frequencies were auctioned for fabulous 100 billion DM. It was one of the most important, if not the most important, reason why German digital infrastructure is so grotesquely bad today.
Because around 50 billion euros only for a permit stamp on a document must indeed be earned again. As a result, the companies had less money for infrastructure expansion available, the dead spots exist to this day. And 3G was sold as expensive as possible over the years. In addition, improvements and successor technologies have been delayed, no wonder if you've spent so much money a few years ago.
What felt great for the Federal Government in 2000, pushes itself to today's times like a huge a bow wave of the burden before us. So in front of us, the digital consumers. In November 2017, one gigabyte of mobile 4G data transmission in Finland cost 30 cents. And in Germany five euros. Over sixteen times more. Thanks, Schröder.
The auction of the 5G frequency is not over, but already Germany is more expensive than most other countries. The frequency measurement used for the international comparison is cent per megahertz and population . In Switzerland, the value was 4.7 cents, in Ireland and Finland five cents, in Austria six cents. It was already 12 cents in Germany before Easter, and it goes even further, which is due in particular to the political framework conditions of the auction. It is also true that South Korea was around 15 cents. But the country is not even a third as large and has more than twice the population density of Germany. Apart from the fact that in South Korea, the first public 5G network has long since started.
The Federal Government would have had to choose new ways, instead of running the 3G-Holzweg again. Paths that do not end in billions of billions of mobile operators for paper frequencies. But in a serious promotion and demand of the 5G expansion. And yes, that includes money from the federal budget, so tax money.
The next debacle: artificial intelligence
On my in-game tongue, the auction tastes like a fresh start-finish debacle at 5G. And like all infrastructure debacles before that, it should have decades of impact. We are now letting this federal government lay the deficient foundations in the limp sand on which the economy of the future can not then be built. Subsequently, the Chancellor calls for a European Google. In a certain way consistent: If one undertakes too little anyway against the climate change, then someday also the annoying digital stuff does not matter.
And it would be just the infrastructure! The elders still remember the Artificial Intelligence Offensive of the Federal Government in autumn 2018. Long ago. At that time, it was announced, with great fanfare, to invest three billion euros by 2025. Well, the Tianjin metropolitan area in China is currently building a fund worth around 14 billion euros, and all Chinese funding combined should amount to hundreds of billions. But at least three billion, right?
Haha, no, of course not. It is only one billion of fresh money, the rest is redeployed and then missing elsewhere. If at all, shifts are often problematic. And the deeper you look, the worse it gets.
By the end of March, budgeting for the current year with the Ministry of Finance would have been clarified. The deadline passed "wordlessly", quote "Handelsblatt". And that, although it is for 2019 only a comparatively measly 50 million euros. Artificial intelligence is likely to turn the famous start-finish debacle of the government Merkel IV.
The SPIEGEL has just interviewed the President of Estonia. She speaks of twenty years ahead of the digitization of administration and says to Germany: "We did not expect large economies to allow themselves to fall so far behind in digitization." I'm not a clairvoyant, but honestly, I expected it. Because if there is a tradition in Germany, then the start-to-finish debacle as a digital government concept.
The podcast question this week:
WTF?