What's your contention Ratio ?

stcatherine

I am having fierce problems with My ISP atm and one of the things I mentioned was the ridiculously high contention ratio of 50:1.

I accept the fact that this is as advertised but I do not accept the fact that when I told them I knew people that were on 32:1 they treated me like a little woman by saying " well now I think your friends are very lucky love, thats extremely rare "

So I thought I would ask you lot and just see how 'rare' the lower ratios actually are !

would really apprecaite your input !

cheers !

Spear

stcatherine wrote: »

I am having fierce problems with My ISP atm and one of the things I mentioned was the ridiculously high contention ratio of 50:1.

I accept the fact that this is as advertised but I do not accept the fact that when I told them I knew people that were on 32:1 they treated me like a little woman by saying " well now I think your friends are very lucky love, thats extremely rare "

So I thought I would ask you lot and just see how 'rare' the lower ratios actually are !

would really apprecaite your input !

cheers !

Smart and Magnet customers are on 1:1, local backhaul not withstanding.

jor el

On Smart, uncontended, and never seen my speeds drop.

Was with BT, at 24:1, and the contention was a problem in the evenings. Sometimes speed would drop from 3M to less than 500k (0.5M), still that's only about 6:1, but poor enough.

50:1 is very bad, and I'd even say 32:1 wasn't good.

I would say that 24:1 is about typical, for all except the cheapest of packages.

Magnet: Rory

stcatherine wrote: »

I am having fierce problems with My ISP atm and one of the things I mentioned was the ridiculously high contention ratio of 50:1.

I accept the fact that this is as advertised but I do not accept the fact that when I told them I knew people that were on 32:1 they treated me like a little woman by saying " well now I think your friends are very lucky love, thats extremely rare "

So I thought I would ask you lot and just see how 'rare' the lower ratios actually are !

would really apprecaite your input !

cheers !

Remember, the problem may not always be contention. How do you know that contention is the issue.

(by the way that "very lucky" line is pure BS, lots of people are on contention which is lower than 50:1)

watty

You can't tell what the subscriber contention is and AFAIK comreg does not independently asses this.

The majority of people on DSL, Cable or Wireless are on about 48:1. But it's not exact and most people don't understand it. Maybe less than 20% are Officially on less than 48:1. But even people sold connection on basis of a 50:1 limit may be part of a 10:1 subscriber base and never see more contention than 1.2:1

If you have a 3Mbps package and you connect off peak at 3Mbps, but on peak at 1Mbps, then you are experiencing 3:1 contention. But the subscriber contention might be 60:1 in both cases.

If everyone has 3Mbps and shares a resource like backhaul (there is no contention, i.e. 1:1 on the copper pair to your house for DSL), and there is 100Mbps backhaul/Exchange capacity then 100/3 = 33 people SIMULTANEOUSLY is 1:1.
So if you sell at 50:1 contention, then you can have ANY number of customers on the exchange from 1 up to 33 x 50 = 1650 people.

Most of these people don't run P2P. A minority are on line at once. Even if online, you may be reading an email or webpage rather than clicking and downloading.

As more people use iPlayer/SkyAnyWhere/C4 P2P clients (such as Kontiki) and Youtube other live streaming or other P2P, then the assumptions of the subscriber traffic (traditionally in Erlangs NOT Erlangs per second) are wrong.

If everyone used Internet for TV instead of broadcast everyone's connection would have to be 1:1, not 10:1, 20:1 or 48:1 etc. VOD is even worse for the operator. Broadband would have to cost x10 to x40 more and Cap would have to be 300GByte to 1Terabyte instead of 10G to 30G.

Cap is used to limit the real time contention as it means P2P then inherently can't be much more than 100kbps (0.1M) rather than 3Mbps. The Cap means that those that don't use up cap experience generally no worse than 1.5:1 contention or 2:1 at worst peaks even though the selling contention (max subscribers allowed really) is 36:1 or 50:1

Even if you are on 50:1 you might be on 10:1 or 5:1 because not many people have signed up on your exchange/wireless mast/Cable segment.

Even real time actual contention of 10:1 would make a 3Mbps connection be 0.3Mbps. Unless there is no Cap AND lots of P2P/TV watching, 50:1 is fine.

Despite the perception that everyone infringes copyrights, it's a vocal 10% to 20% minority that are the heavy P2P users. These people if unchecked will use up 80% of the traffic as if the selling contention to ordinary users was 300:1!

Washout

got magnet 50mbps up/down 1:1

paddyb125

Quoted as 48:1 with UTV

watty

You know Magnet and Smart might not really be 1:1. They probably just have enough backhaul for the proportion of users that go online and simultaneously download. Well, my experience suggests that at about 10:1 users would THINK they have 1:1


Quoted contention is meaningless in Ireland as it's unlikely anyone enforces it and outside the ISP Customer Accounts it can't be known. You don't need traffic logs as the contention is SELLING contention of Subscribers above the simultaneous capacity rather than traffic used.

So if every one on eircom is on 48:1 and they double the speeds of your package without doubling capacity, the real subscriber contention just became 96:1 (not the same as real time user contention, which might still be 1:1 off peak).

This is why I'm sceptical about EVERYONES contention claims. If your peak speed to off peak ratio is higher than before a speed increase, then they effectively increased contention by not doubling the system capacity.

Magnet: Rory

watty wrote: »

You know Magnet and Smart might not really be 1:1. They probably just have enough backhaul for the proportion of users that go online and simultaneously download. Well, my experience suggests that at about 10:1 users would THINK they have 1:1


Quoted contention is meaningless in Ireland as it's unlikely anyone enforces it and outside the ISP Customer Accounts it can't be known. You don't need traffic logs as the contention is SELLING contention of Subscribers above the simultaneous capacity rather than traffic used.

So if every one on eircom is on 48:1 and they double the speeds of your package without doubling capacity, the real subscriber contention just became 96:1 (not the same as real time user contention, which might still be 1:1 off peak).

This is why I'm sceptical about EVERYONES contention claims. If your peak speed to off peak ratio is higher than before a speed increase, then they effectively increased contention by not doubling the system capacity.

Fair enough, but it needs to be stated here that there are companies who are providing services which do, in reality offer lower sharing rates.

Its important that the waters are not so muddied so that the usual punter can safely understand that all ISP's are not the same when it comes to contention.

watty

But we have to "trust" the companies. There is no audit.

Also an unpopular exchange or cable or mast could be much better than the quoted contention.

A service quoted with 10:1 and full of uncapped 24x7 P2P "students" or apartments sharing one connection to 10 flats could be horrible slowing to 1/4 speed at peak times.

Magnet and Smart are good. But only available to a tiny proportion of population.

People are getting rid of DSL and phone line to get 100:1 or worse contention 3G/HSDPA due to high line rental. Before privatisation 18% no line. Now maybe approaching 35%!

And yet there is no proactive regulation. No way for people to be sure what contention they have and Mobile companies subsiding their product with voice+SMS calls that have 500x revenue at least for same operating cost.

Magnet: Rory

watty wrote: »

Before privatisation 18% no line. Now maybe approaching 35%!

Interesting stats indeed. What do you mean by the above though, I've lost your trail of thought.

stcatherine

I have no idea what most of the above means, all I can tell you I signed up for 3MB deal, however we could only get 1.7 at most so we switched down to 2MB package.

I mainly use my connection for gaming on My PS£, I have my roter hardwired to the ps3 but have terrible problems with lag.

If you play FPS's you'll know its no fun to pump a full clip into someone and then have them turn around and kill you with one shot !

anyway, i told them this is what I would be using my DSL for and was assired the package I was getting would be suitable.

However on regular occasions my connection drops to as little as 200kbps down and 70kbps upload !

mostly at weekend so yes its probably contention ratio related.

I also have very poor ping and packet loss averaging 4.5 % !

Oh and I am phoning them today to see if they will at least lower the inter leaving to see if this will help.

watty

Sounds more like bad line. Those get worse when neighbouring lines are busy.

Copy and paste your DSL Modem/Router stats here

The speed increase they did on DSL made everyones latency worse.

Magnet: Rory

stcatherine wrote: »

If you play FPS's you'll know its no fun to pump a full clip into someone and then have them turn around and kill you with one shot !

In all honesty it sounds like the large ping is the biggest problem.

koHd

Thought I'd revive this thread.

I'm having serious issues with Eircom at peak times. Making it no fun to play any games online with PS3. And making it impossible to enjoy my favourite shows at revision3.com in HD.

I became accustomed to enjoying these things while being a smart telecom customer for 5 years with zero contention. I have moved and I'm now stuck with Eircom.

The reason I'm reviving this thread is to see if anybody out there knows any rules for broadband minimum guarantee of service. Like the way they quote the "up to" speed of your conection. Is there a rule for "down to" speeds?

Surely there has to be one put in place if there isn't.

Especially since broadband is contract based and quite pricey for the better packages. So it is only expected from me that a rule should be in place to be assured of a minimum standard of service that we're paying quite a lot of money for.

This minimum or "down to" speed of broadband is much more important than the "up to" they quote.

I know there is a group of people on here that are doing good things in challenging bad broadband practicies here in Ireland (irelandoffline?). Will anybody from them give me any more information on this?

I think it should be the next thing we push for from comreg. All broadband companies to quote their "down to" or minimum expected service for any given package they are selling. And then be held to this guarantee or risk losing their contract rights.

Because I'm rightly miffed at paying for 7Mb when at peak times I'm barely getting 2Mb. And also terrible pings.

These companies need to move with the technology their industry is involved in. With HD video streaming and online gaming now becoming even more popular the issue of contention and minimum speed guarantee should key for us to hound them to improve on.

chopperbyrne

stcatherine wrote: »

However on regular occasions my connection drops to as little as 200kbps down and 70kbps upload !

What exactly do you expect on a 2mb line?

Some_Person

Used to be 32:1, supposed to be 16:1 now but still the same rubbish pings in the evenings.

PogMoThoin

Contention ratio in reality is a marketing spiel, its measurable by nobody except the ISP themselves who aren't even accountable to anyone

TheDeficit

7mb
great in the mornings and after midnight
absolute nightmare in the evenings, slows to half a meg or less, ridiculous pings.
xbox live laughable.