Imagine launch Midband Ripwave Replacement - WiMAX

Sponge Bob

Anybody use this product yet and how does it compare to Ripwave ??

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1014/imagine.html

the_syco

Watty has a good post about it in this thread: http://pie.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055630274

Sponge Bob

In summary , it should be less worse than 3g at its worst but it is still Midband

jor el

The press release sounds like a load of balls. I just heard on the radio that this is 15 times faster than current broadband speeds available in Ireland. With UPC giving 20Mbps, does this mean this new product is 300Mbps?

I listened to the piece on the radio about it, no mention of speeds or price, surely these are the first two things you talk about

jor el

Other than 15 times faster, there was no mention of what this will do.

The usual guff about Irish people choosing mobile broadband came up too. People here don't choose mobile midband, there is often no choice.

The award for most annoying website ever has to go to Imagine with their marketing gimp spouting nonsense, with absolutely no technical information available. Just check it out... or not (recommended).

Sponge Bob

Dreadful website that , very hard to see what is on offer where you live ...and Imagine resell DSL which is their single most widely available product .

By the time you navigate as far as the business end you could well have given up .

lucernarian

Can someone explain why a Wimax-based service is being treated as midband?? Less rhetoric, more facts please. And all that I know about the service is from what the RTE.ie article said, and that is that it's using WiMax technology.

I read watty's post in another thread (an accurate post from what I can see) but to say that it's a rollout of mobile WiMax is nothing more than a guess on the evidence I have, including what Watty said in that post.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61287677&postcount=3

jor el

Well, Imagine are calling it mobile Wimax, so it fits the description that Watty gave. As such, it should stay here for now. If anyone can find actual information on this, please post it. Imagine's site is devoid of anything remotely informative or technical, which is rarely positive.

bigpaddy2004

Its all Media hype if you ask me and just giving Imaine/Irish broadband free advertisement.
I bet Watty is sitting out there on the side just itching to give his 2 cents on the subject!

Sponge Bob

It is a mobile wimax ripwave replacement and in the limited 3.5ghz spectrum available to Imagine it simply must be midband because them oul laws of physics apply.

Were we to be certain that they had 100mhz of spectrum at 2.6ghz we could be entitled to assume it might be other than Midband .

The Fool

Sponge Bob wrote: »

It is a mobile wimax ripwave replacement and in the limited 3.5ghz spectrum available to Imagine it simply must be midband because them oul laws of physics apply.

Were we to be certain that they had 100mhz of spectrum at 2.6ghz we could be entitled to assume it might be other than Midband .

Breeze operates at 3.5G but this is considered Broadband

Mantel

Imagine have said they'll be rolling it out with a 8mb speed to start with (could go to 17mb but they're not going that fast) They've said they'll eventually have the capacity to go up to 20mb, 40mb and even 100mb with Wimax. Intel and motorola are backing them.

From a press conference today via http://twitter.com/adrianweckler

Here we go on Wimax launch with Imagine. First spin already - "4G".

"It's not all about speed." Uh oh.

Okay, 8mbs is the speed. 17mbs possible, but 8mbs on offer

"We've obtained enough spectrum to deliver future Wimax speeds of 40, 60, 100mbs."

Dublin, Athlone, Wexford, Sligo first to be covered by Wimax. Live now.

Jim O'Hara, Intel boss (who's here): "this Wimax is vital to Irish smart economy. And only on Intel laptops."

Now Motorola boss presenting. Cliché alert! "Exciting day... power of the internet... broadband is electricity of 21st century..."

daithicarr

and how much of that amazing 8 mb would you actually get since id imagine its up to 8 mb and not 8 mg guaranteed for each customer.

and what are they comparing with their 15 times faster.
with no technical information and just some prat spouting rubbish over and over , it looks like this is just a big old hype.

Our glorious leader was quoted on the radio saying this would make is the envy of Europe in the broad band field. i wonder what places in Europe's he was referring too.

MagicMarker

No one ''guarantees'' their broadband speed. It's always ''up tp''.

daithicarr

ah i know that, but 8 mbs would be fast if you got all 8mbs.
not sure whats supposed to be so amazing about getting 8 mbs though, plenty of people offer similar services

jor el

Exactly as I thought, their press release was nothing but hype and fud. 15 times faster, me arse. Let's see, what's one 15th of 8Mbps? Hmm.... oh yeah, Imagine's own Ripwave service.

daithicarr

cant believe i got hooked by the hype so easily, i wanted to believe it was true, after hearing it in the car i ran in home to check and was instantly disappointed after realising there was no real information provided on the website

thebman

meh give them a chance to arse it up before slamming them I say.

The Taoiseach is there I imagine because it involves Intel more than Imagine.

nohopengn

Yeah I'm a bit puzzled about what exactly is being offered.

Is it definitely using 3.5Ghz? How much is it for the basic package? Is there any caps on the basic package? What's the max down/upload speeds?

I logged onto the imagine website and signed up, but this reminds me of the great deal that SMART marketed back in 2005/06. I signed up back then but nothing was ever delivered before the company went bust.

The location maps are here:
http://www.imagine.ie/view-coverage-locations.html

daithicarr

in general i have found that anything that sounds great but on closer inspection tells you very little about itself is generally too good to be true.

But i am going to be hopelessly optimistic and hope I am wrong and it turns out great.

In the mean time ill just have to keep my self occupied with this new job i have seen where i can make thousands of dollars a day from my own home ............ cant wait

jor el

nohopengn wrote: »

How much is it for the basic package? Is there any caps on the basic package? What's the max down/upload speeds?

I can't see any information on any of that so far. Claims of it being faster and cheaper than "current broadband solutions" are very spurious at best, if not outright lies.

nohopengn wrote: »

I logged onto the imagine website and signed up, but this reminds me of the great deal that SMART marketed back in 2005/06. I signed up back then but nothing was ever delivered before the company went bust.

Smart never went bust.

thebman

nohopengn wrote: »

Yeah I'm a bit puzzled about what exactly is being offered.

Is it definitely using 3.5Ghz? How much is it for the basic package? Is there any caps on the basic package? What's the max down/upload speeds?

I logged onto the imagine website and signed up, but this reminds me of the great deal that SMART marketed back in 2005/06. I signed up back then but nothing was ever delivered before the company went bust.

The location maps are here:
http://www.imagine.ie/view-coverage-locations.html

That is a terrible coverage map, you can't move it and top location is cut off (at least in Opera).

jor el

thebman wrote: »

That is a terrible coverage map, you can't move it and top location is cut off (at least in Opera).

Same in Firefox. It may as well be an animated gif, for all the good it is.

godskitchen

I was listening to the radio in the car today and heard the "press release". I kept shouting "its not broadband!"

Intel.........they would sell their granny for a quick €.

nohopengn

jor el wrote: »

Smart never went bust.

Definition of bust from freedictionary.com - 4. To cause to become bankrupt or short of money

In October 2006 SMART couldn't pay Eircom a €4million bill. Later that month the company was bought by a company controlled by Murtagh.

Given that they are the facts, not sure how you can say SMART never went bust??

jor el

nohopengn wrote: »

Definition of bust from freedictionary.com - 4. To cause to become bankrupt or short of money

In October 2006 SMART couldn't pay Eircom a €4million bill. Later that month the company was bought by a company controlled by Murtagh.

Given that they are the facts, not sure how you can say SMART never went bust??

They were taken off the stock exchange, but they never went bankrupt, it never went into liquidation or receivership and no examiner was appointed. They never ceased trading, though they did stop their telephone only services. The company never went bust.

thebman

jor el wrote: »

Same in Firefox. It may as well be an animated gif, for all the good it is.

yeah and that looks very much like a screenshot from Google maps.

Could be terms of use violation. I'd assume it is as its unlikely that Imagine needed to have ferry lines on their map.

swoofer

Wasnt there a song called "IMAGINE" and I think it sums up this latest wheeze as well.

gb--

jor el

thebman wrote: »

yeah and that looks very much like a screenshot from Google maps.

Could be terms of use violation. I'd assume it is as its unlikely that Imagine needed to have ferry lines on their map.

Search for Dublin on Google maps, and you get that exact same image.

Blazer

Wimax might be grand for the cities but anyone living in the arse end of nowhere is fúcked.

"Deploying WiMAX in rural areas with limited or no internet backbone will be challenging as additional methods and hardware will be required to procure sufficient bandwidth from the nearest sources — the difficulty being in proportion to the distance between the end-user and the nearest sufficient internet backbone."

Goodshape

So everyone's writing this off as **** then? Is that a fact or just pessimistic speculation?

It's not "real" WiMAX or something?

I know press releases should generally be taken with a pinch of salt, but I'd say the very same for Irish begrudgery and pessimism at times.

Would be great if we could cut through the bull**** on both sides.

TheDeficit

is there contention/congestion ?

Scruff

just saw a highlight of the report on six-one news on rte and even at the launch today it only hit 3mbps....

Sponge Bob

Scruff wrote: »

just saw a highlight of the report on six-one news on rte and even at the launch today it only hit 3mbps....

Well in fairness they had 4 of them on the go at the same time

jellies

Scruff wrote: »

just saw a highlight of the report on six-one news on rte and even at the launch today it only hit 3mbps....

Anyone at the event would have seen live demos of mobile WiMAX dongle doing 17Mbps. Unfortunately there arent too many DSL lines in the country that can do that speed.

TheDeficit

Scruff wrote: »

just saw a highlight of the report on six-one news on rte and even at the launch today it only hit 3mbps....

i'm pretty sure that was the upload, the download was over 17mb. Eircom's been so bad lately I'd consider this if it's A. suitable for gaming B. doesn't slow in the evenings/weekend and C. has a truly unlimited download plan.

jor el

jellies wrote: »

Anyone at the event would have seen live demos of mobile WiMAX dongle doing 17Mbps. Unfortunately there arent too many DSL lines in the country that can do that speed.

There are a lot of lines that can do that speed.

TheDeficit wrote: »

I'd consider this if it's A. suitable for gaming B. doesn't slow in the evenings/weekend and C. has a truly unlimited download plan.

Probably suitable for gaming, as max ping is said to be 200ms. You can be guaranteed that the speeds will slow, by some amount, at peek times. You can be damn sure there won't be an unlimited cap.

juuge

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Dreadful website that , very hard to see what is on offer where you live ...and Imagine resell DSL which is their single most widely available product .

By the time you navigate as far as the business end you could well have given up .

Yep! Tried to make sense of their web site today and gave up! Dreadful!

Queston_man

The service they are claiming isn't 4G.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4g#Objectives

I thought this was 4G

A nominal data rate of 100 Mbit/s while the client physically moves at high speeds relative to the station, and 1 Gbit/s while client and station are in relatively fixed positions as defined by the ITU-R

copacetic

Their website is shocking, no mention of pricing and absolutely no mention of what speeds they are 'promising'. They were going on about keeping their promises on the news which isn't hard when you avoid promising anything!

thebman

If you click the speed test link on the bottom of the homepage you get the following:

You’re probably paying around €50 for slow broadband down your phone line. WiMax is super fast broadband that’s up to 50% cheaper.

So I'm guessing entry level service will be 25 euro.

Viral video channel on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/imaginewimax#p/a

Goodshape

copacetic wrote: »

Their website is shocking, no mention of pricing and absolutely no mention of what speeds they are 'promising'.

The 'WiMax Plans' section open on Monday. Didn't take much to see that, surely?

Maybe it's just that their old site sucked so bad.. I thought this one was a huge improvement tbh.

Rattlehead_ie

TheDeficit wrote: »

i'm pretty sure that was the upload, the download was over 17mb. Eircom's been so bad lately I'd consider this if it's A. suitable for gaming B. doesn't slow in the evenings/weekend and C. has a truly unlimited download plan.

Agreed with TD on this, that was the upload that was reaching 3Mbs and IF thats what you can realistically I am very impressed and looking forward to seeing more from these guys.

As for the website. To be fair it does says official product launch is the 19th, which is Monday. Today was obviously just the announcement.

Still, I'll wait to test it before I pass judgement.

laurence997

thebman wrote: »

yeah and that looks very much like a screenshot from Google maps.

Could be terms of use violation. I'd assume it is as its unlikely that Imagine needed to have ferry lines on their map.

Dont google back Imagine though? That might explain it.

jellies

jor el wrote: »

There are a lot of lines that can do that speed.

Yes - there are. But as a % of eircom's copper network its very low. Being generous, less than 10%. I know this from a project I worked on a while ago to provide broadband to >500 remote users. In fairness, they were well spread all over the country.

Mantel

From the tech side they're shooting themselves in the foot by not releaseing details about their service, contention, what frequency they use, etc. Ripwave was good for what it was at the start, then more people started to use it, then it became known as ****wave. We'll only know how good the product is when someone gets it and uses it and then comes back three months later to rereview it.

People who rent will be intrested because of the mobility of it and no fixed line rental, not to mention the price. Hopefully they get the finger out and release pricing information.

huggs2

This is an interesting news item on wimax.com
http://www.wimax.com/commentary/news/wimax_industry_news/october-2009/imagine-launches-global-4g-wimax-network-in-ireland-1014

thebman

laurence997 wrote: »

Dont google back Imagine though? That might explain it.

Don't know, they should still use a proper google map integration though, it just looks bad and everyone will try to move it to see their area before realising it is just a still image.

jellies

Some details from Motorola hitting the wires here...

Motorola will provide deployment, integration and support services to Imagine in addition to WiMAX equipment. This will include WiMAX Access Points, such as the WAP 450 for increased coverage and capacity in a compact design and the WAP 800 with beamforming antenna techniques for enhanced performance. For customer premises equipment Imagine will offer the USBw 100 dongle for high speed mobile connectivity; the CPEi 775which includes a built-in Wi-Fi(®) router and ports for VoIP; and the CPEo 450 which extends the coverage of critical broadband and VoIP services, while reducing infrastructure and support costs.

A portion of purchase price will be financed by Motorola

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Motorola-and-Imagine-Bring-prnews-2236763775.html?x=0&.v=1

jackdoes

What exactly is WiMax and 4G? How do you get it? Can you pick it up using regular devices like smart phones and usb broadband?