Telephoning in Germany
If you've been in Germany for a while or are returning after being assigned elsewhere you no doubt are, or will be, very pleasantly surprised by the changes in the German telephone system. The monopoly of Deutsche Telekom was eliminated in 1998, and today there are more services available than ever before

To have a telephone installed or have a line transferred it is still necessary to go first through Deutsche Telekom. You'll have to fill out a form at one of the TKSShops concessions on a nearby installation or at one of the off base Telecom outlets, called "T-Punkts," which Telekom has established in most communities, and in many neighborhoods of the larger cities. The installation charge is €47.45 for a new connection and €25.78 if you are taking over a connection from another party. You can choose to rent or buy an instrument from Telekom. Phones are also available at other retail outlets.

The standard service offers a wide variety of whistles and bells. You can have call waiting, call forwarding, conference call capability and other features. You can also have your phone set so it can only be used with a PIN number and even have voice mail service through the central office without buying an answering machine yourself.

You need a touch tone telephone to avail yourself of many of these services. So if you are buying a new or used phone, or renting, make sure it has touch tone dialing.

While a standard connection now offers a wide range of features there is a great deal more to be had if you opt for an ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) connection. With ISDN you can have at least three different numbers on a single incoming line. You can have a separate number for each member of the family, or for your fax machine, and you can telephone while on line with your computer. Caller ID is available, as is a feature that automatically continues to dial a number if you get a busy signal on the first try. There are several different ISDN plans and one of them is surely designed to suit your needs.

Far and away the biggest advantage of ISDN, though, is the ability to transmit data at tremendously high speeds. This is a great feature if you spend a lot of time online through a modem. It costs from about €60 to €75 to have an ISDN connection installed (depending on the labor involved) and the basic charge is €23.60 per month.

For some 90 percent of German telephone subscribers it is now possible to have a high speed DSL internet connection through their phone service. Anyone who spends any amount of time on-line knows how important this service can be. Contact the Telekom for more information.

Telephone booths have also been streamlined. You can now even make international calls from them, but if you think you may use a booth it is important to have a telephone card. Few booths take coins nowadays.
The cards come in denominations of €5 and €10 and are available at post offices, TKSShops, Telefonladens and many newsstands and stationery stores. Another advantage of the card: it charges only what the call costs. Coin-operated phones, which take 10-cent, 20-cent, 50-cent, € 1 and €2 coins, don't make change.