What's in contention?

Posted by Karen on Oct 25, 2009 12:00:00 AM

In the UK, contention ratios have increasingly become a topic of conversation and interest for many in the IT industry. The term contention ratio refers to the maximum number of other users you could share your bandwidth at any one time. This is important especially for businesses as the more users you share your line with the more unstable and unreliable your line will be. Contention is normally found on the backhaul pipes from the local exchanges into a network. This is one of the most expensive parts to invest and maintain. The majority of network providers invest in Gb/s pipes here, but when supporting many consumers even that can be not enough. That is why Fluidata takes a keen interest in how network carriers contend their network and ensuring that business customers are prioritised and hence contention guaranteed. The good news is that after working with Telefonica O2 for the past three years we can finally offer even lower contention ratio guarantees on our ADSL2+ services: VOX 2.0 now has a 1:1 contention guarantee BURST now has a 5:1 contention guarantee If you would like any further information on this please talk to your account manager.

Topics: News