Shortly after our exchange became enabled several
people noticed a decrease in speeds. At first we thought it
may have been a temporary glitch, but things got worse and
worse.
Up until this time contention at the local exchange was a relatively
unheard factor, and we didn't know quite what to do, and there were
in excess of 30 users from the Broadband4Blackpool
site forums now complaining.
Any how to cut a very long story short, eventually we got someone
at BTw to listen.
. Over a period of weeks I was in
daily contact with BT Special Faults Dept (SFI). I collated a lot
of data and information and also ran tests from here which helped
SFI to identify the problem.
During this time I had to learn about contention fast.. I did a fair
bit of research and asked a lot of questions from BTw... some of the
answers I got were not previously known to the general public. I
have also visited our local exchange.
I believe our exchange was the first exchange on which BT publicly
admitted there were contention issues.
Thankfully now our problems have been resolved and since then I have
made many posts on ADSL guide about contention and how it works.
I am far from an expert on contention... and a lot of facts about
ADSL and contention and how it works are still unknown to the general
public. There isn't a lot of information out there... and
much of it is based on logical assumptions. However, I have no reason
to doubt that the information I have received is incorrect. Although
this information stood true in May 2003, it should be bourne in mind
that exchanges and equipment are updated and things may not be the
same today.