Which telecommunications home connections are sensible?

I have cable connection (I know, not available with you) for Internet, phone, and IPTV (Waipu). We are now getting fiber optic (earthworks for 0 euros, smallest contract 20 euros per month for 24 months) – whether I will continue to use it I have to see, I just wanted the fiber in the house first. I don't see any point in having a twisted copper cable laid into the house by Telekom.

I deliberately removed the satellite system from the general contractor contract and treated myself to more network cables instead.

As a backup, I have a camping satellite system with a tripod ;)

Only fiber optics.

Sat: Back then, I put a satellite dish on the roof, but I don’t know if I would do that again today with all the hassle involved - shading on the roof, roof penetration, wind load, cables to the matrix, then cables to every potential TV location - that’s really a lot of stress, especially in times when most people watch TV over the internet anyway.

DSL: Copper as a house connection is so 80s, sorry. I only used it because in our street the fiber optic cable is available at the distribution box and I now also have the pre-installation for it, but there is a 10-meter gap in between and the distribution box is not yet activated. As soon as it’s possible in any way, I will switch to fiber optics.

Inside the house, for me a combination of cable and wireless is irreplaceable: Over the (admittedly large) house, I have 120 Ethernet cables all patched in the server room, some I simply installed hidden under plaster or covered with blank plates, so they caused neither significant work nor costs. About half are fully patched and surprisingly many are actively used, I have a lot of wired IoT devices and six of the eight mesh Wi-Fi APs are connected via PoE to the network. For the future, I also have a few dark fiber optic lines in the house. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but for me and my requirements, it is absolutely not too much.

Oh yes, since a phone was also asked about. I haven't had one for 15 years. Mobile phone, at home it works over WLAN, plus some VoIP phones due to work. For the private VoIP account I also have a W38 in operation, which is connected to the LAN via an adapter. I wouldn't want to miss it - nothing is as nice as throwing the Bakelite receiver onto the Bakelite cradle after a call. Still, I can be reached under several phone numbers - which always causes confusion among good friends when they hear the typical carbon capsule sound and ask whether I am currently in London, Hanover, Cologne, or Munich.

My DSL modem also somehow has something like a phone output - I think. I've never used it. The house connection box is only there to be converted directly into Ethernet.

We have fiber optic from DG (solala), as a fallback a 250 Mbps Telekom VDSL connection that is currently idle, as well as a 4G/5G modem as a fallback-fallback. I would always add copper to fiber optic again, just so that in the case of maximum annoyance you still have an alternative.

As mentioned, DSL is currently idle, but the mobile router already kicks in from time to time.

The main question is whether you watch TV. We hardly watch TV anymore, so we didn't have cable TV installed. Fiber optic is enough, and you can also subscribe to Magenta TV, Giga Red, or whatever they are all called through that. It costs the same as the HD package at Vodafone, and nowadays you don't have to start without HD either. We don't have children yet, but I simply doubt that in 15 years, when they are old enough, they will want to watch regular TV. Our generation hardly does that anymore. In addition, our construction specification included antenna sockets in every bedroom + living room. We were able to have those converted to LAN connections at no extra cost. I think a LAN connection in the children's room is much more important nowadays than a TV connection.

I can still vividly remember the first time I had to explain to my son that you can't just pause or rewind when watching TV. His puzzled "why would anyone do this to themselves?" look is still etched in my memory.

For me, Sat is, if at all, just a pure add-on, in case you already have network everywhere. My ratio is 1:10 because I have 12 Sat cables and 120 Ethernet cables. If a Sat cable were included in the fixed price that I could (even for an extra charge) exchange for an Ethernet cable, I would only ask: Where do I sign? Because in terms of installation effort, material costs, and labor, Ethernet is clearly more complex than Sat.

In my fitness room, I have a TV that naturally has both connections – in fact, I have never operated it via Sat but always only through the network. So I believe the Sat cables in the house are the ones that will become useless first. No idea if one might need them for anything someday, I suspect not.