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Subscribing to all required utilities Prior to your moving in, all gas, electricity, (water) and telephone will have been turned off and you will need to contact the appropriate bodies to have these services reinstated. As far as bills are concerned, you can arrange with your bank for direct debits or standing orders. Water supply If you live in an apartment building, you may never have to deal with a water company and you will be charged for a fraction of all the water consumed in the building. However if a meter has been installed or if you live in a house, you will receive a yearly bill for the amount of water used. Electricity and gas supply Every area in Germany has a number of different suppliers. Munich for example is supplied mainly by the "Stadtwerke". You will need to contact a local office to arrange your contract and to choose the type of service you require. Homes in Germany are wired for 230 volts current. You may need to use adapters or transformers for certain equipment. Subscribers are usually billed every two months (the meter is read once a year) Recycling Care of the environment is becoming a larger and larger concern in Germany. Large recycling containers are located throughout German cities, suburbs and even in villages.
The german telephon system Telecommunications are mostly handled by the Telekom AG company. All operations concerning your telephone (obtaining a phone line, laying the cables, billing options and payment, special services, etc) can be carried out through the local Telekom office or by dialling the Telekom Service. Telekom shops are primarily devoted to renting or selling more sophisticated telephones, answering and fax machines. Telephone subscribers are billed every month. Telekom has nowdays a number of competitors with very good performances:
The main companies on the market are:
Words with ü,ö and ä are often spelled as having an „e" after the vowels; for instance Müller can be spelled as Mueller, Höfer as Hoefer etc. To find any city installations, such as hospitals, schools, libraries look under „Stadtverwaltung". The first two pages list important and special phone numbers. The front of the Yellow pages (Gelbe Seiten) has a section called „Bürger-Service" which lists government offices, hospitals, museums, etc.
You will find two types of public phone booths in Germany, coins and card. The coin phones take 10 Pfennig, 1, 2, and 5 DM coins. Cards cost either DM 12 or DM 50 and are sold at the post office and stationary shops.
In Germany you can find plenty of Internet Service Providers. ISDN connections are easily available through German Telekom. However, you must bear in mind that telephone costs can be very high and, when choosing an ISP you should check the availability of a node within your local telephone billing area. Here are some ISP : For individuals :
For companies:
In Germany, if your home is not cabled you can receive 10 national channels: In addition, and if you pay a special subscription of about 30 DM per month, you can obtain cable TV, Kabelfernsehen. You will usually have to go to a TV dealer near you to fill out the paperwork and pick up your decoder box. Cable TV offers several foreign channels such as BBC, CNN, TV5 and many other channels. In some buildings a satellite dish has been installed, which means you can receive a large choice of channels, depending on the operator you subscribe to. If you move into a building with no satellite dish, you must be aware that the procedure to have one installed is time consuming as it means obtaining authorizations from the owner, the co-owners and the Townhall. Every household has to pay (at banks and postoffices) a monthly fee
of 28,25 DM for TV and Radio. The fee includes all radios and TVs in
the household.
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