Contention on BT Infinity

I've had Infinity on Business Broadband for a few months and was told that there would be a contention rate of 20 (50 on residential).

Before several others were connected to the exchange I got nearly 40Mb (I'm on a 40Mb, 100Gb usage plan). Since others have joined it's been creeping down to 20-25Mb.

Does anyone know if the Business sector is kept to Business users, i.e. 20 Business users on one connection, or are the 20 'members' a mix of Business or Residential?

I would have thought that 20 Business users after business hours would give a better speed having less actual users?

If residential I could be mixed with a batch of gamers, film downloaders or iPlayer users.

Anyone know? Not that I can do anything about it!

Mike.

Contention - I doubt it.

If your speeds have crept down it is more likely to be noise levels causing the drop in sync speed.

BT Buisness has a "minimum speed" clause and you are guaranteed that.

Thanks for your reply MHC.

It's a pity with the new system on Business Broadband with a modem and a Hub3 that you can no longer see the noise figures, but I am only 150 metres from the cabinet so would be surprised if that was the cause.

Previously we had been just over 1 mile from the exchange and there was some grotty cable from the exchange to the cabinet; but that's been overcome now.

I can't really see how the cable from the cabinet has slowly degraded over such a short period?

Mike.

Contention ratios such as 20 and 50 went out donkey's years ago, when ADSL Max was introduced.

There is NO contention. I use BT Business and started with a 40Mbps service with a potential of just under 60Mbps. When I moved to 80/20 I stated getting around 59 which has dropped slightly to just over 58. A speed test gives me 58.xx any time day or night.

If you have fropped from 40 to 25 and get that day or night then it is unlikely to be congestion.

Which modem do you have? A Huawei or ECI? With the former you can unlock it and pull of the stats.

In reply to a post by RepairExpert:

I've had Infinity on Business Broadband for a few months and was told that there would be a contention rate of 20 (50 on residential).

Before several others were connected to the exchange I got nearly 40Mb (I'm on a 40Mb, 100Gb usage plan). Since others have joined it's been creeping down to 20-25Mb.

Does anyone know if the Business sector is kept to Business users, i.e. 20 Business users on one connection, or are the 20 'members' a mix of Business or Residential?

I would have thought that 20 Business users after business hours would give a better speed having less actual users?

If residential I could be mixed with a batch of gamers, film downloaders or iPlayer users.

Anyone know? Not that I can do anything about it!

Mike.

As others have said, Contention Ratios (The method it used) went ages ago!

Depending on what kind of cabinet you are on, you'll likely be sharing a 1Gbps connection (Or more if it's a larger one) with everyone on it.

The best thing I'd recommend you do is run the BT Wholesale Speedtest and if that goes below the acceptable limit, phoning up the support channel for BT Business and quoting that checker.

Edited by chris6273 (Thu 17-Jul-14 19:26:14)

Thanks for all your comments; I need to do a few more tests at odd times to check, and I do use the BT Wholesale site which logs it there end, as well as the TBB one and the Beta version.

I'll keep you updated in a few days; will have to get up early and try it then.

Mike.

you mean no congestion.

obviously there is contention, its not a leased line product.

In reply to a post by RepairExpert:

It's a pity with the new system on Business Broadband with a modem and a Hub3 that you can no longer see the noise figures, but I am only 150 metres from the cabinet so would be surprised if that was the cause.

Probably crosstalk. As take up increases your line will be picking up more and more interference from other lines in the same cable bundle. BT are trialling something called Vectoring which is hoped will address this issue but for now there's nothing you can do.

Edited by Andrue (Fri 18-Jul-14 09:10:20)

In this context, the thread is referring to contention in the way the OP was told and how services were originally marketed.


Yes, ultimately there is contention but not the same 20:1 or 50:1 that was specified years ago. On a main exchange it will be something like 10,000:500