About Connect

Connect

connect is a German special-interest magazine for telecommunications, mobile communications and connectivity. Covering smartphones, mobile networks, tariffs, smart-home technology and the digital infrastructure of everyday life, it serves readers who want to understand — and choose wisely in — the telecommunications market. The magazine was published for many years by Motor Presse Stuttgart before the publisher sold its Consumer Electronics & Telecommunications division to the Weka Group in August 2008; since then connect has been published by WEKA MEDIA PUBLISHING GmbH of Haar near Munich. The standalone website could not be verified at research time, so no website is listed here.

Overview

connect addresses the telecommunications consumer and the technology-interested reader: which smartphone to buy, which network performs best, which tariff fits which usage profile, how the smart home connects, and what the network expansion — from 3G to 5G — means in practice. The magazine's signature is the network test: the systematic measurement of mobile-network quality across Germany, conducted with drive tests and crowdsourced data, whose results are awaited by the industry and consumers alike.

The title's perspective is that of the informed consumer advocate: the telecommunications market's complexity — the tariff jungle, the device diversity, the network-quality differences — demands independent testing and clear recommendations, and connect provides them with the thoroughness of a specialist title.

History

connect was developed as the telecommunications title of Motor Presse Stuttgart, the Stuttgart-based special-interest publisher, serving the mobile-communications boom from the 1990s onward — the era when the mobile phone went from business tool to mass product and the magazine's network tests became a market institution. Within Motor Presse, connect belonged to the Consumer Electronics & Telecommunications division alongside the audio, video and photography titles.

In August 2008, Motor Presse Stuttgart sold the entire Consumer Electronics & Telecommunications division to the Weka Group — the transaction covering the titles connect, Audio, video, stereoplay, autohifi and Color Foto. The sale reflected Motor Presse's strategic refocusing on its automotive and leisure core, and placed connect with a publishing group specialising in specialist and professional information.

The Weka Group, headquartered in the Munich area, is a publishing house built on professional and special-interest information — technical journals, professional handbooks, business media and the specialist consumer titles acquired from Motor Presse. For connect, the move meant a publishing home whose core business was expertise rather than general entertainment: a natural fit for a magazine whose authority rests on measurement methodology and technical depth. Under WEKA MEDIA PUBLISHING GmbH of Haar near Munich, connect continued as the telecommunications specialist, developing its network tests, tariff advice and device coverage for the smartphone era — through the iPhone revolution, the Android ascendancy, the 4G rollout and the arrival of 5G.

Under WEKA MEDIA PUBLISHING GmbH of Haar near Munich, connect continued as the telecommunications specialist, developing its network tests, tariff advice and device coverage for the smartphone era — through the iPhone revolution, the Android ascendancy, the 4G rollout and the arrival of 5G.

Content

The network test is the magazine's flagship: the systematic measurement of Germany's mobile networks — coverage, speed, reliability, voice quality — conducted across the country with professional measurement equipment, producing the rankings that operators, regulators and consumers follow closely. The test's methodology and independence give its verdicts authority in one of the consumer market's most contested areas.

Smartphone and device tests cover the mobile hardware: smartphones across the price spectrum tested for display, camera, battery, performance and value, alongside tablets, wearables, smart-home devices and accessories. Tariff advice navigates the German mobile market's complexity — contract versus prepaid, data volumes, the MVNO landscape — with recommendations for every usage profile.

Smart-home and connectivity features cover the connected home, the broadband market, WLAN technology and the digital infrastructure topics — fibre rollout, 5G campus networks, the connected car — that extend the magazine's brief beyond the handset. The annual awards and special editions structure the calendar.

The tariff jungle deserves its own mention, for it is the specifically German complexity that makes connect indispensable. The German mobile market's structure — the three network operators with their own brands, the dozens of virtual operators and discounters reselling capacity, the distinction between contract, prepaid and data-only tariffs, the eternal fine print on throttling, EU roaming and contract terms — defeats casual comparison. connect's tariff advisors cut through it with usage-profile recommendations: the heavy-data user, the occasional caller, the senior, the teenager, the business traveller. In a market where the wrong contract costs hundreds of euros a year, the magazine's independence — it sells no tariffs itself — is the foundation of its readers' trust.

Coverage & Audience

connect is sold throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland at newsstands and by subscription. Its readership is the telecommunications-interested consumer and the technology-engaged reader: smartphone buyers researching their purchase, users optimising their tariffs, and the early adopters of smart-home and connectivity technology.

The network test gives the magazine an influence beyond its circulation: its results are reported across German media, cited by consumer advocates and watched by the operators themselves. For the German telecommunications market, connect's measurements are an independent benchmark in a sector where marketing claims are loud and verification is scarce.

That benchmark function has only grown in importance with each network generation. The magazine's testers measured the 3G expansion, the LTE rollout with its urban-rural divides, and now the 5G build-out — each generation raising the stakes for the methodology, as consumers came to depend on mobile data for work, navigation, entertainment and the smart home. The drive tests — measurement vehicles covering thousands of kilometres across cities, towns, autobahns and rail lines — combined with crowdsourced data from users' devices, produce the most complete independent picture of German mobile quality available. When the test crowns a winner or demotes a laggard, the operators respond — with press releases, with network investments, and sometimes with public disputes over methodology that only confirm the test's relevance.

Ownership

connect is published by WEKA MEDIA PUBLISHING GmbH, based in Haar near Munich. The Weka Group is a specialist publishing house for professional and special-interest information, with a portfolio spanning technology, business and professional media; the acquisition of Motor Presse Stuttgart's Consumer Electronics & Telecommunications division in August 2008 brought connect, Audio, video, stereoplay, autohifi and Color Foto into the group.

The magazine operates within WEKA's media division with its own editorial team dedicated to telecommunications, maintaining the test expertise — above all the network-test methodology — on which the brand's authority rests.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital presence serves the telecommunications consumer's daily needs: network-test results, tariff comparisons, device news and buying advice, with the tariff and network content particularly suited to interactive digital formats. The network test's data visualisations — coverage maps, speed rankings, operator comparisons — are made for the screen.

The print magazine remains the format for the definitive network test with its full methodology and results, and for the comprehensive device test; the digital platforms provide the tariff currency, the breaking device news and the interactive comparisons. For the German mobile customer, connect remains the independent guide through the tariff jungle.

The WEKA publishing home — the Haar-based specialist group, the August 2008 acquisition of the Consumer Electronics & Telecommunications division — gives the title the expertise-publisher backing: the measurement methodology, the technical depth, the professional information culture. The network test is the flagship: the drive tests across cities, towns, autobahns and rail lines, the crowdsourced data, the annual verdict — the independent benchmark the operators watch and the media reports. The tariff advice serves the German market's complexity: the network operators and the discounters, the contracts and the prepaid, the fine print — decoded into the usage-profile recommendations. The device tests cover the ecosystem: the smartphones, the wearables, the smart home, the broadband — the connected life assessed with the lab's rigour. The connect.de portal extends the authority online: the daily news, the test database, the tariff calculators. In the German telecommunications press, connect is the benchmark: the magazine whose measurements the industry cannot ignore, serving the readers who want to know — not to guess — which network, which tariff, which device.