Imagine launch Midband Ripwave Replacement - WiMAX

thebman

Maldini2706 wrote: »

What is jitter? Are these issues related to the Wimax technology or is it just a case of Imagine putting restrictions on their service? I'm getting really pissed off with it, I struggle to stream video at all, pages have to be refreshed 2 or 3 times to load properly, it's almost unusable.

Use opendns instead of their DNS to resolve the page loading issue. Their DNS servers are crap/overloaded.

Instructions are on Open DNS website.

The packet loss and jitter must be stopping their phone service from working.

Cryos

Maldini2706 wrote: »

What is jitter? Are these issues related to the Wimax technology or is it just a case of Imagine putting restrictions on their service? I'm getting really pissed off with it, I struggle to stream video at all, pages have to be refreshed 2 or 3 times to load properly, it's almost unusable.

Jitter is normally avarage difference in ping times across a set of ping responces

i.e if you pinged boards and got a responce of 32ms but the second responce was 36ms your jitter is 4ms.

Larger Jitter(s/i?) normally can result in higher ping times when gaming online or broken / poor sound quality (depending on technology) or video streaming. Its not that noticeable on web pages if the jitter is under 100ms generally.

Any imagine lurkers want to comment ? Be interesting to see an Official / UnOfficial answer to issues experienced by customers.

(outside question)

Any idea on what way a WiMax topology works ? Base Stations would relay signal from a "Primary" or would each base-station have a form of hard connected backhaul ?

thebman

I never really experience packet loss pinging boards or playing online. I do see some jitter sometimes playing online with TF2.

In TF2 there is an option to have your ping constantly displayed on screen and even graph it while playing and I usually put this on if I think I'm having issues. I can see pings are fine for long periods but every now and then spike from about 90-100ms to 150-200ms.

I have seen them go to 700ms though but only once or twice.

AIR-AUSSIE

Wimax has just arrived in Drogheda and I'm wondering if it would be worth changing over?

I am Eircom at the moment - 3mb - paying 29.99 a month for broadband. In total paying around on average 47 euro (talktime bundle + broadband).

My speeds at the moment are:





I understand Eircom will be 'upgrading' us to NGB sometime this summer, which I think means we upgrade to 8mb but with a download limit.

From what I've read here it seems WIMAX is all hype. Eircom isn't super either but I have not had too many problems.

thebman

AIR-AUSSIE wrote: »

Wimax has just arrived in Drogheda and I'm wondering if it would be worth changing over?

I am Eircom at the moment - 3mb - paying 29.99 a month for broadband. In total paying around on average 47 euro (talktime bundle + broadband).

My speeds at the moment are:





I understand Eircom will be 'upgrading' us to NGB sometime this summer, which I think means we upgrade to 8mb but with a download limit.

From what I've read here it seems WIMAX is all hype. Eircom isn't super either but I have not had too many problems.

lose/lose scenario TBH.

Eircom's nextgen is hype, this is hype. If you use a lot of downloads this may do but P2P is blocked and other features you may use and you might need to ask them to allow them.

If you use a home phone/want one, Imagine's service will lock you to their phone VOIP service which I have no knowledge of but you should be able to use eircom with VOIP ok.

Overall Imagine is not the worst ISP out there but there are problems sometimes where you would not hit them with other ISP's like I had with steam earlier in the thread.

Again it hasn't happened since I last posted about it so it just seems they had a problem on their network or it was really heavily congested that day or something.

AIR-AUSSIE

thebman wrote: »

lose/lose scenario TBH.

Eircom's nextgen is hype, this is hype. If you use a lot of downloads this may do but P2P is blocked and other features you may use and you might need to ask them to allow them.

If you use a home phone/want one, Imagine's service will lock you to their phone VOIP service which I have no knowledge of but you should be able to use eircom with VOIP ok.

Overall Imagine is not the worst ISP out there but there are problems sometimes where you would not hit them with other ISP's like I had with steam earlier in the thread.

Again it hasn't happened since I last posted about it so it just seems they had a problem on their network or it was really heavily congested that day or something.

So might as well stay with Eircom so I guess. Why is broadband so restricted in Ireland 50mb is available in England for not much more you'd spend here for 7mb.

Just checked on speedtest - Romania & Moldova have speeds almost 3 times as faster than us. I'm sure its not the whole story... but still.

Darksaga87

Ireland has yet to see a decent phone and internet provider.

Im in drogheda too, had wimax, went back to eircom.

thebman

randomly cut Steam connection twice in game in weird way tonight.

I was playing fine then it froze for me but I could see everyone else moving and here the chats going on but couldn't play myself.

This is like in past hour and I thought there is heavy contention at almost 1AM.

thewintermute

Anybody got any experience of getting Imagine out of their lives?

I'm heading in to my bank now to ask them to cancel the direct debit, I have asked Imagine to cancel via email on several occasions now, but as usual nobody gets back to me.

I'm sorry I ever heard of this service.

Things are bad when I'm willing to stay with Eircom and pay for a telephone line I never use.

MrVestek

Ask to talk to someone who used to work for Irish Broadband... they usually understand the wireless technology a bit more than the lads who are just used to dealing with DSL issues.

Darksaga87

well i say goodbye then - sorry you didnt hear what you wanted. Bye.

He's got a point.

MrVestek

They do traffic shape though. I know that for a fact.

Hell they even lie to their own support staff about it so that nobody lets it slip to a customer.

zonad

Darksaga87 wrote: »

Ireland has yet to see a decent phone and internet provider.

Im in drogheda too, had wimax, went back to eircom.

Really?

smelly sock

thewintermute wrote: »

Anybody got any experience of getting Imagine out of their lives?

I'm heading in to my bank now to ask them to cancel the direct debit, I have asked Imagine to cancel via email on several occasions now, but as usual nobody gets back to me.

I'm sorry I ever heard of this service.

Things are bad when I'm willing to stay with Eircom and pay for a telephone line I never use.

They have a shocking customer service and I warned people in this thread about the service. I can only download in the wee small hours of the morning. They will look for the 100 euro cancellation fee .

AIR-AUSSIE

zonad wrote: »

Really?

I'm jealous. I imagine you're very much in the minority. Where are situated? Magnet aren't exactly nationwide...

Magnet: Rory

AIR-AUSSIE wrote: »

I'm jealous. I imagine you're very much in the minority. Where are situated? Magnet aren't exactly nationwide...

We have services in all the major cities. Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway and Portlaoise are covered for up to 24Mb.

The op is on our fibre which is only available in selected ares in Dublin, Meath and Portlaoise.

thewintermute

smelly sock wrote: »

They have a shocking customer service and I warned people in this thread about the service. I can only download in the wee small hours of the morning. They will look for the 100 euro cancellation fee .

They'll be looking for their routers back too I imagine.
I'll be taking that eyesore off the side of my house this afternoon. (I have advised them by email of this)
I reckon they'll only get them back if they forget their cancellation fee.
The service never worked like they advertised, they never answered my emails, so the breach of contract is all on their side.
The bank have agreed to reverse any Direct Debits once I notify them of it hitting my account. I got the impression I wasn't the first.

AIR-AUSSIE

AIR-AUSSIE wrote: »

I'm jealous. I imagine you're very much in the minority. Where are situated? Magnet aren't exactly nationwide...

Magnet (Rory) wrote: »

We have services in all the major cities. Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway and Portlaoise are covered for up to 24Mb.

The op is on our fibre which is only available in selected ares in Dublin, Meath and Portlaoise.

Yes that may be true but I think Darksaga's comment still holds -

Ireland has yet to see a decent phone and internet provider

Magnet do not offer high speed nationwide. For example, I'm in Drogheda which has a population twice that of Portlaoise but can only get Magnet's 'swift' package. Which as mentioned here - Congratulations, you are eligible to get our Magnet Swift package. - previously doesn't really seem the best option.

Does Magnet have any plans to extend access to their 24mb or 'fibre' package anytime soon?

Magnet: Rory

AIR-AUSSIE wrote: »

Yes that is may be true but I'd argue that Magnet's high speed broadband is not nationwide.

I'm in Drogheda which has a population twice that of Portlaoise but can only get your 'swift' package. Which as mentioned here - Congratulations, you are eligible to get our Magnet Swift package. - previously doesn't really seem the best option.

Does Magnet have any plans to extend their 24mb or 'fibre' package anytime soon?

Our ADSL2+ is not nationwide but it covers the cities mentioned. I dont know of any immediate plans for any specific areas, but rest assured we will shout it from the rooftops if and when we extend.

On the Portlaoise issue, yes there are towns and cities in Ireland bigger than Portlaoise but they may not be the beneficiaries of already existing IP transit routes (Portlaoise is a midway point in a cross country fibre backbone).

The swift service doesn't suit everyone but it is an unlimited service (with 12:1 contention) so for some it is the right choice (we have never invoked our FUP).

AIR-AUSSIE

Magnet (Rory) wrote: »

Our ADSL2+ is not nationwide but it covers the cities mentioned. I dont know of any immediate plans for any specific areas, but rest assured we will shout it from the rooftops if and when we extend.

On the Portlaoise issue, yes there are towns and cities in Ireland bigger than Portlaoise but they may not be the beneficiaries of already existing IP transit routes (Portlaoise is a midway point in a cross country fibre backbone).

The swift service doesn't suit everyone but it is an unlimited service (with 12:1 contention) so for some it is the right choice (we have never invoked our FUP).

Fair enough thought something like that would be the case with Portlaoise.

I will wait for the Eircom NGB upgrade so. Don't have any other option at the moment really.

It's nice to see an official rep from a broadband company posting here, would like to see Imagine rep on here...

thewintermute

sacramento wrote: »

It's nice to see an official rep from a broadband company posting here, would like to see Imagine rep on here...

Imagine Wimax have a facebook page, I posted my complaints there. Eventually after a few days somebody rang me.
This is in addition to emailing their customer care people every day for a week without any response.
At that stage I had unbolted their aerial from my house and put all their equipment in a bag.
They've promised not to charge me for the debacle and to send a courier to collect their gear. The representative who called stated that they were having some signal issues in the Drogheda area. He couldn't offer any explanation for the pathetic customer service or why it has taken two weeks for someone to call me back.
I'm glad I didn't disconnect from Eircom in the meantime. At least it works.
At no stage did I experience anything I would refer to as broadband, it was like dial-up most of the time.
Whatever the Tech issues might be, the customer service is ridiculously bad.

Darksaga87

Whats the stoey with them collecting thier "equitment"? its taking up space around my bin.

MrVestek

sacramento wrote: »

It's nice to see an official rep from a broadband company posting here, would like to see Imagine rep on here...

Imagine refuse to interact with boards.ie. As far as they're concerned it's caused them enough trouble already.

Hello Vincent by the way... thanks for the lovely private message you left on my facebook page... was very professional.

PogMoThoin

Achilles wrote: »

Imagine refuse to interact with boards.ie. As far as they're concerned it's caused them enough trouble already.

They shilled like mad when the product was released though, now they're nowhere to be seen when it doesn't live up to the hype they created

thebman

Well its crap again tonight. random ping times all over the place and my housemate who is using their DNS has to try to make serveral attempts to load pages.

I just use OpenDNS to get around it. Shocking service.

CCOLGAN

A friend of mine got it installed in Maynooth on Friday and the highest he seen it all weekend is about 1.3 mbit (he is paying for 7 mbits) and the average over the three days so far is 150 kbits which is nearer to dialup than broadband. He is fairly angry as the door sales person said he was really close to the transmitter and could easily get 7 mbits.. In fairness I did show him this thread, but he wanted to try it anyway. I think he'll cancel..

My question is two fold really;

1] Is the technology at fault here or have Imagine not got a clue how to set it up and run it? You imagine (no pun intended) that with Intel on board that the ISP would try their damnest to get the service up to scratch?

2] Is not time for the government to come in and regulate this?? I mean how can a company advertise speeds at 7 mbit when in my friend's case they are no where near providing this... Should there be fines imposed on companies who do this - or shouldn't the customer not be able to say "I'll pay you up to 35 euro a month depending on what service you provide me?

MrVestek

CCOLGAN wrote: »

1] Is the technology at fault here or have Imagine not got a clue how to set it up and run it? You imagine (no pun intended) that with Intel on board that the ISP would try their damnest to get the service up to scratch?

That wouldn't be far from the truth. I was recently sent this by an ex-employee with the caption 'and thus the imagine wimax network was born.'

shindig-jp

If the Don was available I'd have him shoot the WiMax box

I've now hurt my back picking up my e-mail

Darksaga87

shindig-jp wrote: »

If the Don was available I'd have him shoot the WiMax box

I've now hurt my back picking up my e-mail

How you managed to even log on here and post that!! :eek:
Kudos.

A Hamster in a wheel will get better speeds than that.