ADSL contention ratios
 

How exactly do the 50:1 contention ratios work?

I live in a fairly sleepy village, and our telephone exchange has only recently been upgraded for ADSL. Im looking for a cheaply priced deal atm, but was curious how the contention ratios work.

Will the 50:1 be split up this side of our exchange? i.e. 50 people share in the village or will the 50 be split up at the nearest big area-code-determining exchange.

Also, are these ratios ISP dependant, so 50 people on BT share and 50 people on Wanadoo share for eg, or will everybody be intermingled - also by this logic will the 50:1 seperate different speed users, so 50 1mb users share and 50 2mb users share?

Basically what im asking is how do they work :confused:

As said, I'm looking atm and wondering if, because im in a small village, contention ratios wont be much of an issue, or, if they are handled on a broader scale and I'll need to have a better look at what I'm buying.

And incase anyone suggests, we can't get any form of cable here. It's ADSL or this godforsaken modem for eternity.

Cheers for your help



:banana:

Re: ADSL contention ratios
 

50:1 ratio means a max 50 users will be sharing a connection, not sure what the term is, I think pipe but whatever.

its ISP independent.

a single pipe can vary in bandwidth i think, but it isn't usually the same size as the total number of users/available bandwidth i.e. 50:1 ratio for 2Mbps users might be a 50Mbps line, if all 50 users are on it, your max bandwidth would suffer...

having said that, I'm on a 50:1 ratio with a 2Mbps service from Onetel, i've never had bandwidth problems no matter what time I use the connection...