Germany is a rich, highly developed country with mobile coverage that visitors regularly describe as worse than they expected. That is not a myth, and it is worth knowing before you blame your eSIM.
The two complaints that are genuine
Rural dead spots. Germany has enough of them that Funkloch — "radio hole" — is an ordinary German word. The three national networks (Telekom, Vodafone and O2) cover cities and Autobahnen well, but there are gaps in the Eifel, the Harz, parts of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg, the Bavarian Forest and the Alpine valleys. Coverage can differ sharply between the three networks in the same village, which is why a friend's phone works and yours does not.
Trains. On ICE and regional services, signal drops repeatedly. The reasons are physical: the carriages are metal with coated windows that block radio, long tunnels on the newer high-speed lines, and the speed of handover between cells. A Frankfurt–Berlin or Munich–Hamburg run will not give you a usable connection the whole way.
Neither of these is something a travel plan can fix, and no provider that tells you otherwise is being straight with you.
What to do about it
- Download your DB ticket before you board, and screenshot it. A ticket that lives only inside an app needing a live connection is a ticket you may not be able to show.
- Download offline maps for the regions you are driving through, not just the cities.
- On a long train, assume you cannot work continuously. Download the files before you leave.
- If you lose data for a few minutes after a tunnel, that is normal. If it has not come back after ten, toggle airplane mode once.
Germany alone, or a Europe plan
Germany sits in the middle of Europe, so this choice comes up more often here than almost anywhere.
- Germany only: the single-country plan wins. Two weeks in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg does not need a regional plan.
- Germany plus Austria or the Czech Republic on a short hop: close enough that you should do the arithmetic rather than assume.
- An overland rail loop through three or more countries: the regional plan wins, and it also means no gap in data at the moment you cross a border.
If your route touches Switzerland — easy to do from Lake Constance or Freiburg — read the Europe plan's coverage list. Switzerland is outside the EU and often excluded.
How much data
- City sightseeing, maps, messaging: 2 GB a day.
- Several cities with heavy timetable and route checking: 3 GB a day.
- Working remotely or tethering a laptop: 5 GB a day or more.
Where a plan slows after its high-speed allowance, you are not disconnected — maps and chat still function, video gets painful. Pick a figure that keeps you clear of it.
No German number
A travel eSIM gives you data, not a German phone number. Where that actually matters here:
- Carsharing, e-scooters and some parking apps want a mobile number for registration. Some accept a foreign number, some only accept a German one. Sign up before you travel if you intend to use them.
- DHL and Packstation notifications go to a German number.
- Calls to 112 work on any phone with any network, with or without a plan.
Keep your home line switched on for SMS codes from your bank, and leave its data turned off so it cannot roam quietly.