Contention
The number of people who share the same connection circuit at the BT exchange. This means that the higher the contention rate, the slower the DSL network will become at peak periods. 1:1 (uncontended) means *all* the allocated bandwidth is available to you. 50:1 contention means that *upto* 50 people will be sharing that bandwidth, so you are only guaranteed 1/50th of the allocated speed.
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