Contention essentially implies you are sharing bandwidth with another consumer, the contention ratio being the maximum number of consumers you could share that bandwidth with.
With current demands for applications such as hosted VoIP and with the transferring of other mission critical data, a 1:1 contention ratio is essential.
As if no readily available information on the contention ratio of a product doesn't make things hard enough, you may be surprised to know that sometimes 1:1 does not guarantee zero contention at every stage of delivery.
Contention can occur in any one of the three stages of delivery; the exchange, on the backhaul from the exchange to the ISP's network and from there on to the internet.
If an ISP claims to have an uncontended network and that they 'handle the contention' on their network, they are only guaranteeing a 1:1 contention ratio at stage 1 of delivery.
As a result, there’s a good chance there is contention in backhaul and so the promise of 1:1 contention becomes meaningless.
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