Contention Ratios are the ‘skeleton in the closet’ for most ISP’s. Trying to find this information on their websites is almost impossible, if it’s there at all.
What is a contention ratio? Here’s a simple explanation; The industry as a whole has done a good job of convincing people that the contention on their lines is a BT issue over which the ISP has no control – but the opposite is actually true. The contention on your connection (the number of users who share your connection) is actually set by your ISP. The more users they can fit on a single connection the cheaper the connection becomes.
Contention Ratios are the ‘skeleton in the closet’ for most ISP’s.
Industry standard contention is around 30:1 for business broadband, and the ISP’s who offer 'free' broadband are contending their connections as high as 300:1. In other words, at peak connection times, there could be as many as 300 other users uploading and downloading all on the same connection – which means an 8mb broadband connection would actually be functioning at about 27kb – slower than dial up speeds.
Cherry’s broadband service is focused on reliability, consistency and performance. Our approach to broadband is that you get what you pay for. If something sounds too good to be true it probably is – even if your Broadband is free you are probably losing what could add up to hours every week waiting for emails to send or to download from the internet.
Wow - the speed of our new broadband is amazing! Design firm Morris & Winrow of Brighton described their new Cherry Broadband connection as "awesome"