Guide to Sharing Broadband Capacity

New and existing broadband users alike are often unsure why or how the broadband service they receive is shared (sometimes described as contended). Find out what this means and how it affects your broadband service.

Why is my broadband shared?

When you connect to the Internet using broadband technology you are in effect sharing the connection infrastructure with other users.

This industry-wide method is proven to provide reliable, high-speed service at an affordable price. To help we also prioritise time-sensitive activities such as browsing, gaming and emails.

Sharing and connection speed

It may be easier to think of broadband usage as a series of bursts. Each time you open a web page or receive an email, there is a short burst of usage followed by a period of idleness.

Broadband technology cleverly handles usage on this basis; allowing simultaneous high speed usage for many users.

Yet problems arise when these 'bursts' become consistently lengthy; caused by large files that take a long time to download.

Great demand is placed on the available bandwidth and usage speeds consequently drop.