Most home broadband services are shared between numerous households, so although the headline speed may seem quite high, the actual availability will be much less at times. This sharing is known as the contention ratio – On domestic broadband it can be as high as 90:1 at times, meaning that 90 other households might be all competing for the available bandwidth at any one time. As we keep our contention ratios to much lower levels, then in real terms the internet connection is quite fast by comparison to home broadband.