BERLIN — The debate over “network neutrality,” the principle that all bits of digital information are created equal, has come home in a real way for millions of Germans.

Deutsche Telekom, the former monopoly that controls 60 percent of broadband Internet connections in the country, said April 22 that it would impose hard-and-fast download limits on all customers of its home Internet service, starting in 2016.

Deutsche Telekom said that soaring data traffic, which is expected to quadruple by 2016, would force it to impose limits that had been applied only to mobile users.

Under a new pricing plan, Deutsche Telekom would slow landline Internet customers to a rate of 384 kilobits a second, once the download limit is reached, which for many consumers would be at 75 gigabytes of downloads per month — enough to send more than 15,000 e-mails or download and watch 100 movies. The operator said it planned to sell upgrades that would let consumers increase their limits.