In short and in plain language
Is your internet not working? Then look for the cause first. Is it the device, the router or the line?
The router is the box that links your home to the internet. If only one device fails, calling your provider often does not help.
If it is the line, report the fault to your provider. Write down the date of your report.
The article also explains which rights you have when there is a fault.
We look for the cause at your home. We also note down what you need for the report.
The film freezes, the video consultation drops out, and the question in the room is: is it the television, the router, or the line outside the house? Anyone who fails to separate those three levels typically spends half an hour on hold, only to be told that everything looks fine from the outside. The right order is short, and it pays off twice over: it leads to the cause faster, and it produces exactly the notes that matter later. Because since the German Telecommunications Act was reformed, it does not only say that a fault must be remedied without delay and free of charge (gesetze-im-internet.de). It also says when a claim to compensation arises: from the third day after receipt of the fault report, staggered by duration (gesetze-im-internet.de). This guide walks through isolating the fault inside the home, through the report with a date on it, and through the two routes the law opens up afterwards: compensation for a complete outage, and a price reduction for a line that is permanently too slow.
Key takeaways
- Separate device, home network and line first. If only a single device is affected, calling the provider typically achieves nothing and the time on hold is lost.
- The provider must remedy a fault without delay and free of charge and document receipt of your report (gesetze-im-internet.de). That is why the date of the report counts, not the date on which the picture first stuttered.
- From the third day after receipt of the report the law names 5 euros or 10 percent of the monthly fee per day, and from the fifth day 10 euros or 20 percent (gesetze-im-internet.de) - whichever amount is higher.
- For compensation the wording requires the complete failure of the service. If only a single element fails, the route left is the price reduction (Braunschweig Higher Regional Court).
- A permanently slow line is evidenced by 30 measurements on three calendar days, spread over no more than 14 calendar days (Bundesnetzagentur).
Separate first: device, home network or line
An internet fault is rarely a single condition. In practice three completely different situations hide behind the same sentence, "the internet is not working". First: a single device can no longer reach the network while television and telephone carry on. Second: no device in the house has a connection, but the router still reports an established line. Third: the router itself reports that the connection to the outside is missing. Only the third case belongs with the provider straight away; the first two sit inside the home. That distinction is not a formality. It decides whether a fault report makes sense at all and whether the periods the law sets out begin to run.
Isolating the fault needs neither expertise nor tools, only a fixed order. It starts with the smallest circle and widens step by step. Anyone who starts with the router instead and pulls the plug may erase precisely the indicator that would have named the fault. And anyone who calls the provider immediately has to answer the same questions there anyway - only more slowly. The search for dead spots and weak areas is covered in more depth in the article on slow wifi and dead spots at home; this one is about the outage, not the slowdown.
- Check a second device: if the tablet reaches the network while the laptop hangs, the laptop is the problem, not the line.
- Cable instead of radio: connect one device to the router with a network cable. If it works that way, the wifi is the cause, not the connection.
- Read the router indicators and write them down before restarting anything. Which light is off, which is flashing, which is red?
- Mobile data as a cross-check: open the provider's status page over the phone's mobile connection. Is an area fault listed there?
- Ask the neighbours. If several households are affected, it is almost certainly the line or the distribution point rather than your device.
- Only then disconnect the router and the network termination from the power for two minutes and switch them back on in that order.
Outage or slowdown - two different legal questions
The test that classifies most cases immediately
The report: what belongs in it and why the date counts
Once it is clear that the line and not the device is affected, the formal part begins. The law states the claim briefly and without conditions as to the form of the report. What matters is the timing: every further period hangs on the receipt of the fault report, not on the start of the outage. Anyone who waits three days in the hope that it will resolve itself gives those three days away entirely. The report is therefore the first step, not the last.
The consumer may demand of a provider of publicly available telecommunications services that it remedy a fault without undue delay and free of charge, unless the consumer is responsible for the fault.
The provider must document receipt of a fault report as well as the arrangement of service and installation appointments without delay (gesetze-im-internet.de). If the fault cannot be cleared within one calendar day, the provider must inform the consumer by the following day at the latest which measures have been taken and when the fault is expected to be resolved (gesetze-im-internet.de). Both are provider obligations - but both can only be evidenced later if there is a written trail on your side. An email confirmation or the case number from the customer area is usually enough for that.
- Date and time of the report, together with the case or ticket number.
- Exactly what failed: the internet alone, the telephone as well, the television signal over the same connection as well.
- Since when the condition has existed and whether it was interrupted in between.
- Which steps you checked yourself - cable test, restart, second device.
- The router indicators word for word, ideally as a photo with a timestamp.
- Every agreed service or installation appointment with its date and time window.
- Every response from the provider, with the date and in the form in which it arrived.
Cooperation is part of the claim
Compensation from the third day: the statutory scale
If the fault is not cleared within two calendar days of receipt of the report, the consumer may claim compensation from the following day for every day of complete failure of the service (gesetze-im-internet.de). The amounts are set out in the statute: 5 euros or 10 percent on the third and fourth day, 10 euros or 20 percent from the fifth day - in each case related to the contractually agreed monthly fees for contracts with a constant monthly charge, and in each case the higher of the two amounts (gesetze-im-internet.de). For a connection with a monthly fee of 40 euros that means 5 euros each on days three and four and 10 euros each from day five; on a 60-euro contract it is 12 euros from day five, because 20 percent produces the higher figure there.
| Day after receipt of the report | What the provider owes | What can follow from it |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Document receipt of the report without delay | Secure the confirmation with date and case number |
| Day 2 | Information on which measures are running and when the fault is expected to be resolved | Keep this information in text form |
| Days 3 and 4 | Clearing the fault | 5 euros or 10 percent of the monthly fee per day, the higher amount applies |
| From day 5 | Clearing the fault | 10 euros or 20 percent of the monthly fee per day, the higher amount applies |
| Missed appointment | Keep the agreed service or installation appointment | 10 euros or 20 percent of the monthly fee per missed appointment |
The scale does not apply in every case. The law expressly excludes situations where the consumer is responsible for the fault or its continuation, where the interruption rests on measures laid down by statute or on orders by security authorities, or where there is force majeure (gesetze-im-internet.de). A digger that cuts through a cable is not a case of force majeure but an ordinary loss - force majeure means events that could not have been averted even with the utmost care. If the provider misses an agreed service or installation appointment, the law provides for a further 10 euros or 20 percent of the monthly fee per missed appointment (gesetze-im-internet.de).
"Complete failure" is read narrowly
In practice that means: if telephone and television run over the same connection and only the internet is down, the claim to compensation is not a foregone conclusion. Conversely, on a pure internet connection over which nothing works any more, the complete failure is easier to establish. For everyday purposes one plain consequence follows: record which services under the contract were affected in each case, not merely that "the internet was gone". Anyone switching the connection to fibre anyway will find the process and handover points described in the article on switching from copper to fibre.
Too slow rather than dead: reduction with a measurement record
The second route applies to connections that do work but stay permanently below what the contract says. The law then allows the agreed fee to be reduced or the contract to be terminated for cause, and it describes the yardstick: the fee is to be reduced in the proportion in which the actual performance deviates from the contractually agreed performance (gesetze-im-internet.de). The precondition, however, is that the deviation was established by a monitoring mechanism provided by the Bundesnetzagentur or certified by it or by a third party it has commissioned (gesetze-im-internet.de). A measurement on any arbitrary website is not sufficient for this.
Maximum speed
90 percent of the contractually agreed maximum speed is not reached at least once on at least two of three measurement days (Bundesnetzagentur).
Normally available rate
The normally available speed is not reached in 90 percent of the measurements (Bundesnetzagentur).
Minimum speed
On at least two of three measurement days the minimum speed is undercut at least once (Bundesnetzagentur).
These three cases are set out in the general ruling of the Bundesnetzagentur that defines the open-ended terms of the statute for fixed-line internet access (Bundesnetzagentur, Ruling No. 99/2021). They stand side by side: one of them is enough. What is decisive is that the measurements follow a fixed pattern, otherwise they do not count. That is exactly where most complaints written without preparation fail - not on the result, but on the procedure.
- A total of 30 measurements on three different calendar days (Bundesnetzagentur).
- Spread across ten measurements per calendar day, within a period of no more than 14 calendar days (Bundesnetzagentur).
- At least one calendar day lies between the individual measurement days (Bundesnetzagentur).
- At least three hours lie between the fifth and the sixth measurement of a measurement day (Bundesnetzagentur).
- At least five minutes lie between all other measurements of a measurement day (Bundesnetzagentur).
How wide the gap between contract and reality is on average is shown by the annual broadband measurement report. On fixed lines 85.9 percent of measuring users received at least half of the contractually agreed maximum download rate, compared with 86.5 percent in the previous year (Bundesnetzagentur). That rate was fully reached or exceeded by 45.9 percent of users, after 45.2 percent in the previous year (Bundesnetzagentur). Put differently: for more than half of the measuring users the line stays below the maximum figure from the contract - which in itself is not yet a defect, because a contract typically names a maximum, a normally available and a minimum rate.
These figures describe those measuring, not connections
When nothing happens: conciliation instead of the hold queue
If the fault persists and the provider refuses, there is a third route between complaint and litigation. Under the German Telecommunications Act an end user may initiate conciliation proceedings before the telecommunications conciliation body of the Bundesnetzagentur where the dispute is connected with the consumer-protection provisions of the Act (gesetze-im-internet.de). Those expressly include the rules on clearing faults and on reducing the fee. The authority describes the procedure as follows: the conciliation procedure is free of charge for the parties (Bundesnetzagentur). Each side bears only its own expenses, such as postage.
Free of charge does not mean fast. From receipt of the application to the conclusion of the procedure, proceedings took on average around fourteen weeks in 2025, and the authority additionally points to long waiting times before the review begins (Bundesnetzagentur). The volume is considerable: 5,524 applications to open conciliation proceedings were received in 2025, after 2,534 applications the year before (Bundesnetzagentur). 19 percent of the applications concerned faults, 12 percent a reduced data transmission rate (Bundesnetzagentur). Participation is voluntary for both sides, and the conciliation body's proposal binds no one.
- Before applying you should have tried to reach agreement with the provider - that is a precondition for opening the procedure.
- Enclose the documentation: date of report, case number, correspondence, appointments, measurement record.
- Expect several months and plan in parallel how you will stay online in the meantime.
- A reduction under the speed rule is offset against compensation for the outage (gesetze-im-internet.de).
- The route to the courts remains open if one side rejects the conciliation proposal.
What we take on at your home
The hardest part of a fault is rarely the technology; it is the order: the right sequence when isolating it, the complete note, and a calm exchange with the provider. That is precisely where we start. We come to your home, check device, home network and connection separately from one another, set up the measurement according to the prescribed pattern and write down what the report will need. After that your connection is either working again, or you hold a record you can carry on working with. An overview of how we work and what it costs is on the services and pricing pages.
Isolate the cause
Cable test, radio measurement and connection check in the order that does not blur the result - with notes that remain usable afterwards.
Run the measurement campaign
Setting up the measurements according to the prescribed pattern with 30 measurements on three calendar days, so that the record is formally usable.
Rebuild the connection
Place the router correctly, separate the radio networks cleanly, sort out guest and children's devices - see wifi optimisation and fibre optic switch.
If someone in the household depends on a reliable connection because video consultations, emergency call solutions or the home office hang on it, it is worth looking at a second route to the network before the first one fails. For older relatives we describe the approach on the tech help for seniors page, and how video calls stay stable even on a changing connection is covered in the article on video calls with the family. Two further articles this week belong to the same run of household preparedness: measuring room climate before the heating season and interlinking smoke alarms. If you would like to secure the router at the same time, the steps are in the article on the secure home network. A message through the contact form is enough to arrange an appointment.
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