Contention Issues

AntiRip

I know everyone bar eircom's no congestion package suffers from contention but what would normal contention be, as in it wouldn't really bother you too much? 10%, 20% ?

I have a 2MB package and I'm getting 1.97Mb/s down which is the most I can get in my area from a wireless company. I can't get eircom even though the houses across from me can. But from 5/6pm to 12/1am I only get 0.2-0.6Mb/s down which is beyond words :mad: Tbh it's only good for surfing on my smartphone only. I'm on 24:1 contention afaik. It's truely awful in this day and age to have this quality of broadband and I'm 2 miles from an eircom bb enabled exchange and it's not available. I have rung them a couple of times and they have fogged me off

jor el

AntiRip wrote: »

I know everyone bar eircom's no congestion package suffers from contention

eircom's congestion free NGB does suffer contention/congestion too. They just claim that it doesn't.

Read this, as it explains the difference in congestion and contention, and why contention is not the enemy, but congestion is.
http://abc.catchwater.net/1n/newsletter200406/analogy

The issue you are having is almost certainly congestion, and not the contention ratio.

AntiRip

jor el wrote: »

The issue you are having is almost certainly congestion, and not the contention ratio.

Thanks jor el. So I could get onto the ISP and they 'may' resolve the congestion?

AntiRip

BTW, that 'analogy' explains it perfectly brilliant, thanks

jor el

AntiRip wrote: »

Thanks jor el. So I could get onto the ISP and they 'may' resolve the congestion?

They may not be able to, or may not want to. If the congestion is because of an oversold network, then they can either get rid of customers, or install more backhaul. Both of these cost money, and some ISPs may not be willing to take on that cost.

eircom's NGB, and UPC's Fibre Power, are both an attempt to cut the congestion problem, by offering greater backhaul capability (more toilet bowels for the people to share!), but I've still seen a lot of complaints from people on both of these networks about peak time slow downs (which is almost guaranteed to be congestion).

lucernarian

AntiRip wrote: »

I know everyone bar eircom's no congestion package suffers from contention but what would normal contention be, as in it wouldn't really bother you too much? 10%, 20% ?

I have a 2MB package and I'm getting 1.97Mb/s down which is the most I can get in my area from a wireless company. I can't get eircom even though the houses across from me can. But from 5/6pm to 12/1am I only get 0.2-0.6Mb/s down which is beyond words :mad: Tbh it's only good for surfing on my smartphone only. I'm on 24:1 contention afaik. It's truely awful in this day and age to have this quality of broadband and I'm 2 miles from an eircom bb enabled exchange and it's not available. I have rung them a couple of times and they have fogged me off

You might have to shout a little louder at eircom:) If you are only 2 miles from your local exchange (via road) then a pairgain is the most likely cause. They're more amenable to the removal of pairgains than before. If you happened to find an eircom linesman in your area, you could get him to check it out and even offer him a few quid if he'd get your line to pass. Where there's a will there's a way! And eircom have a forum on boards where you can ask them about why your line fails but your neighbours can use DSL: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1293

You should also mention it to the ISP as you and jor el discussed.

Also, jor el, what instances have you heard of people on "NGB" eircom connections suffering from congestion?? And on what exchanges in particular?

jor el

Don't know of particular exchanges, but I've seen it mentioned here, along with people on UPC Fibre Power, which is also supposed to be congestion free.

Niallt3

When my internet slows at peak time (well if you call from 16:00 to 02:00 peak time) I also get 20-25% packet loss. Would that be related to congestion because it's fine at other times or is there another issue that I should take a look into.

jor el

More than likely congestion.