Contention Ratios

AdMMM

Could someone please explain contention ratios to me.

I know that it means how many people share the bandwidth, but what is the bandwidth? 512k?

If the ratio is 48:1 does that mean that 48 people share the 512k which works out to be only 60kilobytes a second and then divided means only 1.25kbytes a second if everyone is surfing at the one time?

Surely that cant be right!

Iago

There are two contention ratios available on the residential offerings in the Irish market at the moment

48:1 and 24:1

what it basically means is the number of potential users per 512/128 connection to the service. So in effect if there are 47 other users on the same connection as you, and they are all using the internet to download at the same time you are then you will only be able to download at a speed of 512/48 or 10.66Kb/sec

Or on the 24:1 service you would have 512/24 or 21.33Kb/sec, but again this is only if all 24 users are online and downloading. If they are just looking at a webpage then they won't be affecting the potential download speed for other users.

It is unlikely that this will occur though, at the moment there aren't enough broadband users to really affect contention and by the time there is, I would hope that ISP's will be offering lower contention ratios....

Moriarty

Originally posted by Iago
It is unlikely that this will occur though, at the moment there aren't enough broadband users to really affect contention

Yes there is. Afaik contention occours at, among other places, the dslam in the exchange. Further, this contention is spread across all eircom bitstream radsl lines at this point in the network so somone connected to your local exchange - even on a different isp - can still impact on your connection.

Originally posted by Iago
and by the time there is, I would hope that ISP's will be offering lower contention ratios....

Unlikely, as under the current system eircom do things the isps have no control over some of the contention that occours.