This object reports and controls how the HMTS will respond to requests to devices during a contention period. immediate - means the HMTS will forward the request to the device even during an ongoing contention period. In this mode it is possible for the devices response to have a collision with an asynchronous response from another device. queued - means that the HMTS will queue this message. When the contention period has completed the HMTS will forward the queued requests. interrupt - means that the HMTS will abort the contention period and forward the request, and the resume of normal operations. The HMTS must support at least one of these modes of operation. When an attempt is made to set an unsupported value the HMTS shall return a bad value error. DEFAULT: vendor specific. This object is non-volatile.