Contention Question

Hi, my exchange is about to go live with FTTC and as I'm a VM national customer I need to change isp. Price isn't a big issue and I'm happy to bundle line rental/calls/TV/internet if needs be. I'm tempted to go for Sky as I have a TV subscription but someone told me that their contention ratio is of the order of 50:1 and that eg Plusnet are 20:1, so they (plusnet) won't slow down as much.
Is this true? I've tried contacting both isps and their call centre prople seems unwilling or unable to give me a straight answer.
Am I concerned about something which amounts to only a minor issue or not?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

contention of 50:1 and 20:1 relates to ADSL products from years ago when sold by BT Wholesale based ISPs using legacy BT wholesale products.....

Sky don't have any traffic shaping and offer an unlimited product. As a result any slow down is a result of natural contention normally seen between you and other users located close to you (same exchange or closely located exchanges)

Plusnet have a complex traffic management system that limits your speed based on the activity being used based on published information on their website. So P2P and other high bandwidth things can be limited with web browsing remaining unlimited. Plusnet offer a slightly less restricted service for an additional £5.

For me Plusnet's system would be slower than my current ADSL2 product (18Mbps connection) so I would only consider Sky or BT.

Thanks Kr1s, that may explain why the isps were unable to give me an answer about the contention ratio.
I'll probably go with Sky, can't wait until my exchange (Washington, Tyne and Wear) is enabled.My cab is already installed!

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

Plusnet offer a slightly less restricted service for an additional £5.

There are no rate limits at all if you choose Plusnet Pro.

Rgds,

Thanks for the info, I couldn't find it anywhere.
Btw, samknows says the RFS date for FTTC at my exchange NEWAS is today. Do you know if this is correct, as the BTW checker doesn't confirm that.

In reply to a post by bpullen:

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

Plusnet offer a slightly less restricted service for an additional £5.

There are no rate limits at all if you choose Plusnet Pro.

Rgds,

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

For me Plusnet's system would be slower than my current ADSL2 product (18Mbps connection) so I would only consider Sky or BT.

Bob, does this mean that the above quote would not ring true on the Plusnet service and the customer would receive the best ADSL speed available?

Edited by RapsterUK (Fri 01-Jun-12 23:52:02)

In reply to a post by bpullen:

There are no rate limits at all if you choose Plusnet Pro.

That's not what your traffic management page says.
It clearly states, even with Plusnet Pro, the following services are "managed": -
Browsing
E-mail
Streaming
Downloads
P2P
Usenet
(and it states "Managed - Traffic which will usually run at line speed, but may be limited in the busiest periods").

Not only that, by the time you add £5 for "pro" onto the £24.99/month Fibre Extra package, your customers might as well go for the 80Mbps BT offering (which is actually unlimited, rather than limited to 120GB a month, plus they'd get 20Mbps upload instead of 2Mbps).
You still don't lose out (as the money will go directly to BT, rather than to BT via Plusnet).


N

Yes. With the pro add-on everything is at line speed, but subject to Plusnet's network management:

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/do...