Speed Vs Contention

prospect · 03-08-2005 10:35AM #1

Which is more important, download speed, or contention rate?

E.g.
2Mbps symetrical at 24:1
Vs
1Mbps symetrical at 12:1

JNive · 03-08-2005 10:41AM

In theory, depending on provider you could end up getting the exact same average speed on both packages. And personally i think it would be cause in the case above, those technicalities would be highly stupid since usually it is designed to go the other way.

2Mb at 8:1
1Mb at 24:1 for example.

prospect · 03-08-2005 10:49AM

This isn't a factual example, but just a simplified one to illustrate the question.

bk · 03-08-2005 12:15PM

Contention Rations are much more complicated then that.

As long as the contention is managed correctly, a 2mb 24:1 should have download speeds that are twice as fast as a 1mb 12:1 product.

For instance, most people can get almost the full 2m download speed from the Eircom/BT DSL services, despite them being 24:1.

Similarly I get almost 3m all the time from NTL despite it having a 17:1 contention.

JNive · 03-08-2005 12:36PM

which is exactly why i said, depending on your provider. any decent crowd will give you the faster speed, but IBB apparently really do just merge 48 customers onto 1 open 1MBit pipe onto the 'backbone' lol.

Speed Vs Contention

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