Poor reception on the ICE is not a coincidence, but a system. For over ten years, Germany has failed not because of technology, but because of something else.
I’m sitting on the ICE on the way to Berlin. The high-speed train rumbles through western Germany at 140 km/h, it is warm and the laptop is charging at the socket. Everything is there – only the internet is missing again. And if two 5G bars appear, they’ll be gone faster than you can say digital infrastructure. Emails break off, research comes to nothing, video calls can be forgotten. Welcome to the digital developing country on rails.
This is not an outlier. Not an unfortunate section of the route. This is the normal situation. And therein lies the problem. The holey network in the ICE is not a technical detail, but rather a symbolic image of the state of digitalization in Germany.
The absurd thing is that this problem has been known for more than ten years. There has been debate about why mobile internet doesn’t work on trains for over a decade. There were pilot projects, cooperation announcements, funding programs, press releases. And yet I’m sitting on a train in 2026, staring at a loading gauge that refuses to simulate progress. Behind the anger the question is formulated:
“Why does everything take so incredibly long in this country?”
The answer is uncomfortable but known: responsibilities are distributed until they evaporate. Federalism becomes an excuse, procurement law a brake on innovation, data protection a killing argument. Everyone explains why it’s complicated – no one decides how to solve it pragmatically. Progress is not enabled but managed.
In Germany, digitalization is treated like a building application: formally correct, politically secure, legally watertight – and guaranteed to be late. While other countries simply try, test, fail and improve things, we spend years discussing risks, standards and responsibilities. In the end you are very proud that you were “thorough”. Unfortunately, the world has long since moved on.
The railway is not a special case, but rather an example. Deutsche Bahn represents a system that is structurally overwhelmed: politically controlled, organizationally complex, with surprisingly few consequences for years of failure to achieve clearly formulated goals. The problem is not a lack of individual effort, but a system that distributes responsibility so finely that no one has it anymore.
It’s about more than just the internet
It has long been about more than convenience or Netflix on the train. Digital infrastructure is strategic infrastructure. Anyone who does not have a stable network is dependent – on US platforms, on Chinese hardware, on foreign cloud providers. Germany likes to talk about digital sovereignty, independence and technological resilience. But sovereignty does not start with AI strategies or glossy papers, but with functioning networks.
A country that fails to provide reliable internet on its major rail routes should be very careful when talking about digital independence. Anyone who doesn’t even get the basics right will inevitably become an onlooker when it comes to complex questions.
Maybe the biggest problem isn’t the dead zone on the ICE train. But the remarkable calm with which we have accepted it for over a decade. You got used to it. And habituation is the natural enemy of progress.
