ADSL Contentions: How do they count?

[Zak33]

Lo dudes.

How do ADSL home Contention issues get worked out? By the number of houses in a street on ADSL? Or by how many houses in a street are on the same ISP?

Example: I'm at Sair's parents, and the Wanadoo connection waaaay slower than when they singed up 2 years ago. It's a 1mb connection, and not Max. It's on the same USB modem as ever. Orange now own Wanadoo.

Could it be that their are more people in the street on ADSL now? ANd if so, does it matter which ISP they're with, or is it irrelevent?

If everyone in one street signs up to a different ISP, but it's all on ADSL, do they all suffer slowdown?

Or do they all need to be on the same ISP for it to suffer?

I've never understood contentions: 50:1 is meaningless to me unless I know it's 50:1 in that street? Or 50:1 in thatr street on that ISP? Or to that exchange?

Anyone know?

By the way, it's IE7, and Phisihing is off, but I tried Firefox as I know it much better, and it's as slow.

Using various internet speed tests, it fluctuates from about 225kb/s to a max of 600 kb/s

Last question: DO I go next door and shoot them for downloading all day long?

[Funkstar]

I believe it is the number of users on that exchange connecting to that ISP

this page seems to support this:
http://www.anet.co.uk/adslguide.htm#...ontentionratio

[slugs]

http://www.plus.net/support/broadban...on_guide.shtml

Same information as stated above.

But in the real world the ISP's don't work as fairly as this. They normally have a fixed about of bandwidth to an Exchange on Contend on that. And then again on the total transit they have on the BT Central.

The other issues you have is with the numbers of ADSL users around you. The signals from other users cause noise in your cable. And the faster the speeds the worse it gets.

Therefore at a peak time in your area the ISP your on will be sharing out the bandwidth. And other users around you will cause you to go slower even if they use a different ISP.

And after all that they then apply some form of traffic shaping

[Jay]

its the max number of users at any one time on your chanel in the exchange. I have 1:1 2MB/2MB in work and its fast... really fast.

[merdat]

At the end of the day ,it is also a case of 'how wide is the pipe' . The ISP's will be constantly upgrading to keep up with demands 'for their latest offer' . You will have been through the same thing with the old dial -up service. i.e. more customer's demands more modems or bandwidth upgrades by the ISP's.

[Jay]

just think how big Telewests is, they will be offering a 50meg service soon.

also speeds are only rated within the ISPs network, go uotside and it no longer matters to them about your speed.

[merdat]

They must be using 'blown fibre ' for that speed