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sago
join:2001-12-19
4 edits | unfortunate
If a contention ratio of 1:1 means that you can use your connection 24 hours a day, then a contention ration of 50:1 means that your service plan is designed to allow you to use the full speed of your connection 28.8 minutes a day.
If they police starting at 5:1, that means that you will have problems with them if you use your connection 4.8 hours per day.
On a two megabit line, that's the same as being able to download approximately 125 gigabytes per month without having problems with them.
It's kind of low, although not unlike limits other services around the world might place. Perhaps the contention ratio is a way of forcing people to stop creeping up to the "cap", trying to get as close to it without going over - in other words, if you are a troublemaker, you will be asked to "stick to your contention ratio", which means "don't download anything", as opposed to saying "stay under the cap", which means "download less than 125 gigabytes per month".
If the ISP has a crappy infrastructure, it may need to exert some kind of control, but if the ISP designs its system around the concept that no one is going to download anything, I think that they miss the whole point of internet. Who is an ISP to say that it is "wrong" for a customer to use their internet connection for something other than browsing, email, and the occasional software or Linux ISO download? If it's a financial issue, why not just charge the users who want to use a higher ratio of bandwith a higher monthly fee? Why not? Because if they did that, then they would have to charge those who don't use their internet connections for anything but surfing and e-mail so much less that they would probably go out of business. It's the flat rates that make it possible; if they charged "per-byte", 99% of their customers would be paying less than the montly fee that they pay now.
The current price for their offering is 24.99 pounds, which translates into 47.86 USD today. A contention ratio of 50:1 on that 2 Mbit connection is approximately 12.66 gigabytes per month. That means the system is "designed for" $3.78 US per gigabyte. That's kind of high. On the other hand, at a contention ration of 5:1, you are looking at 38 cents per gigabyte, which might a little on the low side for retail prices. If the truth is somewhere inbetween, they ought to be offering that internet connection for 9.99 pounds or 14.99 pounds, not 24.99 pounds, right? My hunch is that ISPs love that flat rate just as much as a small percentage of heavy users do - if they actually started billing everyone according to the amount of data transfered, they would probably lose a significant amount of their revenue. You sell the "speed", and the customer either uses it or doesn't. What could be easier?
The up side of the contention ratio is that a 4 megabyte pipe would have you top out at 250 gigs a month, and a 8 megabyte pipe would have you top out at half a terabyte by the time you reach a contention ratio of 5:1. The part that hurts is the "designed-for" contention ratio - it's a way, essentially, to get people to stop trying to download as much as they can yet stay under the cap, it seems. Although, I think most people could live with half a terabyte per month.
P.S. - it also brings in the question of granularity - at what frequency are the contention ratios checked? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day? Once an hour? Once a minute? | |
verolom
join:2002-03-23
Eagleville, PA
 ·Comcast
3 edits | I think you just exceeded your contention ratio by uploading your comment. This automatically bumps you into the "small business" category and increases your bill in the order of two magnitudes, have a nice browsing day 
As it appears to me quite often these days, the ISPs are not in business to provide a good service, they are in business to make money. As long as they can do the second without the first we, the customers are screwed, or left fighting their lobbyists for a municipal alternative. | |
frankie9999
join:2005-04-22
Jeffersonton, VA
| said by verolom  :As it appears to me quite often these days, the ISPs are not in business to provide a good service, they are in business to make money. As long as they can do the second without the first we, the customers are screwed, or left fighting their lobbyists for a municipal alternative. ALL businesses are in it to make money. Anything else is called a charity, or non-profit. Owner enthusiasm, commitment and pride can ultimately take second chair to the bottom line, because any business that ignores the bottom line is OUT of business. The small minority that insist upon those values to the exclusion of all else either find a small niche in which they can survive or they perish.
Most smaller businesses strike a balance by giving as much service and pricing as they can while maintaining a going concern.
When you have shareholders, however, the table turns. Shareholders truly run the show by unloading executives that don't boost shareholder value (by increasing stock and dividend results) and rewarding executives that provide maximal return for minimal expense. That's where huge layoffs, off-shoring and skimping on upgrades come from, and that's where many of the big ISPs are. Their performance won't improve because the shareholders largely don't require it to. | |
verolom
join:2002-03-23
Eagleville, PA | It is sad that immediate gratification drives the publicly owned companies and the expertise of the people who actually work for them and make the money is so often ignored. What happened to risk taking and innovation? | |
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