I have the impression that corruption and being overly friendly towards big corporations seems to be quite the issue, compared to other places I know well the infrastructure is pretty bad (though other large European countries aren't much better - UK, France).

The auction could have easily been fixed, by imposing and enforcing strict rules on maximum prices, minimum coverage and mandating in-country roaming. After all the frequencies should benefit the whole public. With such rules the outcome would have been a much better network, allowing for growth in other regions.

The article you've shared is very interesting, would be helpful if more Germans were informed about this.