Imagine launch Midband Ripwave Replacement - WiMAX

copacetic

Not seeing much difference in the website? Still mostly confused and vague, benefits section doesn't list any benefits etc. Coverage map doesn't match up with areas they say are covered in phase 1 etc.

Marlow

Sponge Bob wrote: »

For a nomadic technology with no fixed aerials it is rather a brave map , shall we say

Or a bit too optimisitic.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Where the **** has the most widely available Imagine product gone , that's ADSL ???

And where is the breeze product family , or indeed ripwave down the schticks ???

That's one of the other problems, I've heard from quite a lot of people. Nobody knows anymore, if Imagine is selling the other products or what the story is or if they are discontinuing those products, since they are taken of the website. The only place you can get pricing for those is on IBB's website. Bit of a bummer. I'd say the direct competition loves it

/M

daffy_duc

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The website is nicer than it was when we all discussed how confused and crap it was . There is a slight drawback though , clickety click below .

http://www.imagine.ie/

Where the **** has the most widely available Imagine product gone , that's ADSL ???

And where is the breeze product family , or indeed ripwave down the schticks ???

Heh.. look, the site seems to have been updated.
There's a link waaay down in the bottom right for the "Group Website".
Thats new...

Sponge Bob

ImagineThat! wrote: »

Sponge Bob wrote: »

No but their statement on launch date said that they will have "90% coverage" by 2012 . That is quite simply a TOTAL LIE , well beyond the oleaginous tripe one reasonably expects of marketing departments

I can state with certainty that Imagine will not supply a 3.5ghz/3.6ghz wimax product in more than 25% of the state by 2012)

So you think it`s a total lie ! and can state with certainy!! can you please explain to those of us who don`t have a crystal ball how you can back up your wild claims?

Good question Imagine That , you know the answers but I will tell everyone else who is interested.

One achives c.80% population coverage by covering only 25% of the state , after that the old dimishing marginal returns kick in hard and the accountants freeze the rollout .

On top of that the 3.5 and 3.6ghz bands are dreadful for building penetration , 3g at 2.1ghz is better and 2g (generally at 0.9mhz) is much better again . Your technology is being sold as a zero install mobile/nomadic product but to be frank it would be best to use outdoor aerials in the 3.5 and 3.6ghz bands .

Trying to make a phonecall on it as I zip along the M4 or on the train into Heuston will be most interesting, it should work ( ish) but I do not want to get into really complicated stuff in this particular thread as to why that is unlikely . Imagine have not claimed handover functionality although the wimax 802.16e standard claims to supports it .

I won't hold ye to it ...even if ye do claim it works which ye shouldn't do in my opinion

Had you a block of spectrum below 1.5ghz I could change my mind on your rollout 'intentions' , but you don't and I won't until you do .

Ye have very little chance of getting 2.5ghz before end 2012 and only slightly more of getting some 2.6ghz .

eircom still has the 2.3ghz band , they shouldn't but they do . If you want it ( and I strongly suspect you do) why not survey the band in Dublin Kerry Donegal and Galway properly yourselves ...something Comreg should have done earlier this year.... and present your findings to Comreg who may have been somewhat misled ..shall we say

Marlow

Sponge Bob wrote: »

eircom still has the 2.3ghz band , they shouldn't but they do . If you want it ( and I strongly suspect you do) why not survey the band in Dublin Kerry Donegal and Galway properly yourselves ...something Comreg should have done earlier this year.... and present your findings to Comreg who may have been somewhat misled ..shall we say

HAM radio amateurs are secondary on the 2.3 GHz band and they are certainly not going to give up on that right without a fight. There's even international pressure on Comreg to maintain that. So I don't see that becoming available for commercial use any time soon.

/M

Blackdragon

Website is funny i must say,

In the bottom right of the main page, there is a section called "how fast is super fast"

I click in and it does a speed test for me - thats great and all but where do i find out how fast superfast is

pistolpetes11

Marlow wrote: »

That's hear say at best. And have you confirmation that anybody yet has the unit ?

Just because people said, they've been contacted about getting the unit replaced doesn't mean it has happened yet.

So explain, why there still are no speeds and prices on the website ? Cat in the sack for people that have the product ?

/M

I was driving through Stillorgan last week and drove by a Landrover Jeep that had "imagine WiMax deployment vehicle " on the side of it , so I presume they are out and about there doing something !

_Kooli_

pistolpetes11 wrote: »

I was driving through Stillorgan last week and drove by a Landrover Jeep that had "imagine WiMax deployment vehicle " on the side of it , so I presume they are out and about there doing something !

You sure it didnt say "Imaginary Wimax"

MagicMarker

*edit* Wrong thread:D

Cabaal

Sponge Bob wrote: »

http://www.imagine.ie/

Where the **** has the most widely available Imagine product gone , that's ADSL ???

Looks like some marketing boys decided ADESL is not the way they want Imagine to go, I actually can't see anything on the front page to suggest they offer ANYTHING over then WiMax...which isn't even live yet.

The how fast is superfast is nothing but a poor (and I might add very poor) marketing gimmick....yet another gimmick is the twitter wall which is collecting ANY mention of Wimax....so even if you send "I'm going out on the piss...wimax" it'll show up :rolleyes:

As for coverage map..jesus don't get me started, if a mobile company launched today and only offered mobile coverage in Dublin they'd be laughed at so why is it ok for Imagine to do this?

They should be covering Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Galway at launch at the VERY LEAST, instead they are aiming to alienate customers by advertising in all sorts of places up and down the country so when it goes live the vast majority of people will not be able to get it.

Infact in some places they are advertising people will likely never get the service due to geographic location

bigpaddy2004

They even have a "wimax google it" advert up on a bill board in Mountrath, Co. Laois! Talk about the back of no where.

Sponge Bob

Cabaal wrote: »

....if a mobile company launched today and only offered mobile coverage in Dublin they'd be laughed at so why is it ok for Imagine to do this?

One did only this year . Meteor Mobile was only available in Dublin for a long time ( well perhaps in Cork City too) and only went live in the other main cities in September . Mind you eircom launched the product AND the dongles and pricing on the same day and had it in the shops where you could stroke the modems and listen to them purr and stuff.

The thing that I find funny about Imagine ( apart from the hype) is that their 'wimax' website was late ( and DSL is now a non product) and that in the 4 years since Imagine last notably infested boards.ie with their shills they have learnt nothing as a company ....except that they were changing their website almost by the minute on that occasion and seem not to be able to any more

After the last fiasco they should have learnt something about launching a technology product in a technology mileau . Pandering to the dregs of the attention deficit generation with inane serial twittering is a regression not a progression . Bad as eircom are they manage these things a whole lot better .

Here we all are nearly 4 weeks later and not a single boards user has tested this thing yet , crazy

Mountrath

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

They even have a "wimax google it" advert up on a bill board in Mountrath, Co. Laois! Talk about the back of no where.

ha ha its becuase I registered by interest about three weeks ago...I must be the only interested person in Mountrath....:D

Cabaal

Sponge Bob wrote: »

One did only this year . Meteor Mobile was only available in Dublin for a long time

I meant more along the lines of actual mobile operater for voice calls
Even when Meteor first started off they had iffy coverage in most of the country

Here we all are nearly 4 weeks later and not a single boards user has tested this thing yet , crazy

I#'m sure the employee's have

Cabaal

Mountrath wrote: »

ha ha its becuase I registered by interest about three weeks ago...I must be the only interested person in Mountrath....:D

I'm sure they'll get right on providing services in your area...after all they advertised in it.

Hammer of Thor

daffy_duc wrote: »

Imagine/Irish Broadband offer Breeze. I have no complaints. Its the perfect solution for me, because its a symmetrical service. No-one else offers a 6mbit down/6mbit up service, with no usage limit for €100 a month. Sure its expensive for your average joe, but any other ISP that offers that product will charge a whole lot more. (Before you whine about €100 being expensive, I would be paying that for a 1mbit DSL service with a 5GB cap in South Africa)
Ask anyone else on this forum with Breeze, how their service has been for the last few years, and they'll tell you that their customer support has been incredible.

So either you just don't like being compared to a kid in a car, or you've got something personal against Imagine.
I still think you should just sit back and wait, before jumping to conclusions.

Yeah €100 is expensive monthly, but if what you say about 6down6up and no monthly limits is true then I'd gladly pay it if I had it! At the moment I pay €60 per month for Eircoms 7mbdown 3xxkb up with a limit of 30 gigs I think, but I'm a heavy user and it hasn't been capped yet. I have had dealings before with Irish Broadband, and it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, I had the Ripwave service and found them to be very uninterested in what their customers thought as long as the money was paid over every month. I'm not going to get into exactly what happened cos it would take pages to detail, but its left me very unwilling to return to them unless this WiMax is out of this world! And yeah I don't like being compared to a kid in a car either!

conolan

daffy_duc wrote: »

Imagine/Irish Broadband offer Breeze. I have no complaints. Its the perfect solution for me, because its a symmetrical service. No-one else offers a 6mbit down/6mbit up service, with no usage limit for €100 a month.

Can't find that service on imagine. Only mention 4mb at €55.
I'm looking for a service with fast upload speeds. Not too many around...

Hammer of Thor

conolan wrote: »

Can't find that service on imagine. Only mention 4mb at €55.
I'm looking for a service with fast upload speeds. Not too many around...

The 4mb package you saw advertised is 4down 4up. Wouldn't that do ya?

pistolpetes11

conolan wrote: »

Can't find that service on imagine. Only mention 4mb at €55.
I'm looking for a service with fast upload speeds. Not too many around...

Its in the business section :

http://www.irishbroadband.ie/product_summaries.php?cid=8

Wcool

Pure speculation but maybe Imagine had to rush the ad campaign, as it is being pushed by Intel and Motorola.

Wimax is a hype word for most of this decade now, hyped mostly by Intel.
Lately it looked that Wimax was about to be overtaken by a competitive technology called LTE (Long Term Evolution).

Maybe Intel/Motorola/Imagine are trying to get the Wimax word into fashion again, even if in places where it makes no sense to place billboards, as those regions will not be connected for some time?

But the incredible low amount of details surely shoots them in the foot...

Scutter

I don't know if it's a coincidence but I have a lot of customers in Greystones and as WiMax is hitting the streets in Dublin the old Greystones ripwave service is shot to bits.

I setup 12 or so people last year and 6 called me today to say they couldn't get online and it's been unreliable for them anything from the last day to two weeks.

I wonder if we're paying the price to maintain a faster service in Dublin.

jor el

Wimax hasn't even launched yet. Your problems with Ripwave are that it's crap.

Scutter

jor el wrote: »

Wimax hasn't even launched yet. Your problems with Ripwave are that it's crap.

You're right. I said Ripwave and I meant breeze. I'd been reading this thread. I wouldn't touch ripwave.

I've had 4MB for ages and it's been rock solid. I run blueface over it and so do a bunch of my clients.

My understanding from talking to some of the team at Imagine was that there are a few places using WiMAX already.
I figured that they've stuffed our network in the process.
I ran thier own tests from them earlier and I was getting a ping of 1404ms.

jor el

Unless they've somehow screwed their entire network, any Wimax work shouldn't effect Breeze. They have trialled Wimax, but it hasn't launched.

thebman

Scutter wrote: »

You're right. I said Ripwave and I meant breeze. I'd been reading this thread. I wouldn't touch ripwave.

I've had 4MB for ages and it's been rock solid. I run blueface over it and so do a bunch of my clients.

My understanding from talking to some of the team at Imagine was that there are a few places using WiMAX already.
I figured that they've stuffed our network in the process.
I ran thier own tests from them earlier and I was getting a ping of 1404ms.

From whats been said in the thread so far, I thought they planned to move these services to WiMAX. Am I confused or are they starting to make the change over without alerting customers or are staff working frantically to get WiMAX ready for launch and there is no time to fix problems for existing customers?

Sponge Bob

They may have stuffed the cell backhaul , what customer equipment do you have ??

Breeze Access gear is licenced and would use the same bands as this new thing . Breezemax should be on different ( higher ) spectrum and would carry on regardless .

They use the same spectrum for Ripwave in big cities and towns as they do for Breeze in smaller towns like Athlone ...so the answer is location dependent .

Thats not to say the lads did not knock something out in the base station while installing new gear or especially antennae .

You could always PM Imagine That and see if he was up your mast with a spanner today and maybe loosened something

mattman

well its working...the "hype"..we are all talking about it!


no good for me..im a gamer...18ms ping or nothin please! Back to eircom after trying everyone else...ya pay for what ya get..i think...

but im rural and dam luckey to get 6down, .3 up...and 18ms pings!! yess

but just up the road, a good few of my friends all all on about wimax..and the thing is..there is nothin to talk about YEt!

looks like a glorified mobile product....we shall see...we shall see...

m.

mattman

super fast me conkers!

up to 3 meg IF your one of the lucky ones.

average around 1meg.

Nothing to get excited about.

ping times around 100ms-500ms, so that gamers out.

Super fast in my mind is at least 20 meg or over.

so the pricing will be the big issue, to subscribe for most "ordinary" users.


m.

pistolpetes11

mattman wrote: »

super fast me conkers!

up to 3 meg IF your one of the lucky ones.

average around 1meg.

Nothing to get excited about.

ping times around 100ms-500ms, so that gamers out.

Super fast in my mind is at least 20 meg or over.

so the pricing will be the big issue, to subscribe for most "ordinary" users.


m.

I think you may be a bit off on the up to 3meg from what I have been looking at on www.wimax.com , I have been keeping a eye out for this product for well over a year now , not sure on the ping times , but Im sure we will know soon enough, or so Imagine have said .

bealtine

pistolpetes11 wrote: »

I think you may be a bit off on the up to 3meg from what I have been looking at on www.wimax.com , I have been keeping a eye out for this product for well over a year now , not sure on the ping times , but Im sure we will know soon enough, or so Imagine have said .

So in the interest of fairness I'll volunteer to test this service and report on speed and ping times and any other issues that come up.

Sponge Bob

bealtine wrote: »

So in the interest of fairness I'll volunteer to test this service and report on speed and ping times and any other issues that come up.

Fair play , and if you can get your hands on one can you find out the pricing while you are at it ??

pistolpetes11

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Fair play , and if you can get your hands on one can you find out the pricing while you are at it ??

Took the words out of my mouth !

Sponge Bob

pistolpetes11 wrote: »

Took the words out of my mouth !

They are getting ratty about it over on facebook , not very social networking what what

jor el

Sponge Bob wrote: »

They are getting ratty about it over on facebook , not very social networking what what

I would put a comment myself, but I don't want to become a fan and give them the publicity.

Imagine rep wrote:

What I guarantee is we will be upto 50% cheaper,including the mobile dongles.

Hmmm, up to 50% cheaper than mobile 3G, eh? So it's going to be 10 euro a month? Call me cynical, but I simply don't believe that.

Sponge Bob

jor el wrote: »

Hmmm, up to 50% cheaper than mobile 3G, eh? So it's going to be 10 euro a month? Call me cynical, but I simply don't believe that.

I wonder if it is anything to do with an allegedly imminent ( or maybe not imminent at all but nobody told Imagine yet ) eircom campaign about their 10 months free line rental .offer ...in Dublin ( terms and conditions apply like the line should be ceased since 2008)

We also should not forget that the bimonthly ASAI complaints bulletin was released yesterday with plenty of telcos on it as always so there will be no public censure for false advertising until the special christmas list is released around the 20th of December .

I fully expect the misleading advertising to rock on for most of November ...not that Imagine were my number one suspect but I am getting downright suspicious now as is my wont :cool:

bigpaddy2004

I was watching a couple of riggers today erecting a mast on the side of the MAN's building in Portlaoise. It is obviously going to be used to support some sort of radio equipment. I wonder if this is going to be one of their Wimax base stations, as i have not learned of any new providers coming to Portlaoise other than Airspeed.

zod

just called them, guy said prices are out on Saturday 7th for DEFINITE

thebman

zod wrote: »

just called them, guy said prices are out on Saturday 7th for DEFINITE

Did you ask him how that differed from all the other times they gave out dates?

Kev.

mattman wrote: »

super fast me conkers!

up to 3 meg IF your one of the lucky ones.

average around 1meg.

Nothing to get excited about.

ping times around 100ms-500ms, so that gamers out.

Super fast in my mind is at least 20 meg or over.

so the pricing will be the big issue, to subscribe for most "ordinary" users.


m.

What are you on about ?
Where are you getting all this information from,
If Breeze is 4 mb up and down then surely wimax is alot quicker?

Marlow

Kev. wrote: »

What are you on about ?
Where are you getting all this information from,
If Breeze is 4 mb up and down then surely wimax is alot quicker?

Sorry .. you are comparing apples and pears here.

Breeze is a fixed wireless / fixed wimax deployment and will always outperform any nomadic/mobile deployment on speed, latency and reliability, no matter how you shake it.

/M

Kev.

Is Wimax not fixed wireless?

Hammer of Thor

Kev. wrote: »

Is Wimax not fixed wireless?

Welcome to teh learning experience! Look back thru the previous pages, it'll take awhile, but it'll be an education!

Marlow

Kev. wrote: »

Is Wimax not fixed wireless?

Wimax is a wireless technology, basically next generation from Wifi. It can be deployed mobile/nomadic or fixed wireless.

Some Breeze basestations have been upgraded to Wimax technology a while ago, as far as I know. There's other fixed wireless providers also already using Wimax for their fixed wireless deployments.

What Imagine currently is advertising for is a nomadic/mobile deployment. So basically a usb dongle, an internal radio module for a laptop or a stationary unit (like the one clearwire uses), that you can move around. It might maybe outperform 3G type internet services, but it will never match fixed wireless performance.

/M

Kev.

Cheers Marlow

The person who I was talking to on the phone from Imagine said to me that
they would be removing my breeze antenna and replacing it with a box of some sort,
She mentioned nothing about it being mobile and told me it would be much better than Breeze!


To me it sounded like another fixed wireless option .

Is it only Mobile Imagine are rolling out or is there a fixed option?

Thanks in advance

Sponge Bob

Kev. wrote: »

Cheers Marlow

The person who I was talking to on the phone from Imagine said to me that
they would be removing my breeze antenna and replacing it with a box of some sort

Whoops :eek:

She mentioned nothing about it being mobile and told me it would be much better than Breeze!

If you are on 2 mb breeze now and live right under the mast then there may not be much difference. At a longer distance the difference could be dismal . The laws of physics apply more than salespeoples Bull**** ever will.

To me it sounded like another fixed wireless option .

Is it only Mobile Imagine are rolling out or is there a fixed option?

Thanks in advance

It is highly unlikely to be better than Breeze unless you are close to the mast . In that case you may well see a speeds increase if on 1 or 2 mbits right now.

It would be wise to get onto yer wan _in writing_ and to tell her you do not intend to be worse off and that you want confirmation that a disimprovement in speed and pings with the new technology would be a breach of contract by them and you therefore want the right to leave them with 7 days notice before you let them swap the gear out . If they confirm that revised notice period there is nothing much you can do beyond that .

Tell her furthermore that swapping the gear out is not a contract extension of any sort and that you want confirmation of that in writing .

What is your speed and ping to boards right now?

Basically you want an outdoor aerial pointing right at the mast and if that is taken away and you are a distance form the mast the quality will suffer and that is that .

You must be in a 'non ripwave' area right now and they need that spectrum for the new product so they intend to turn your current service off compeletely .

thebman

I thought they were offering a fixed version of this WiMAX product to go with the Mobile one?

Might have taken them up wrong, it sucks if they aren't and its just going to be another mobile solution. Oh well, at least we might have a battle of sorts between mobile operators and imagine for customers.

Marlow

thebman wrote: »

I thought they were offering a fixed version of this WiMAX product to go with the Mobile one?

Might have taken them up wrong, it sucks if they aren't and its just going to be another mobile solution. Oh well, at least we might have a battle of sorts between mobile operators and imagine for customers.

Check the video ealier. Leo showed the 3 devices they are going to use with the technology. That's the extend of the devices, that they are going to use.

Also, even if they added a fixed wireless option, you still have the problem with unknown contention due to roaming customers and low signal clients will drag the signal extensively down.

Breeze is so good, because IBB constantly checks up on it and decommissions customers, that have extensively low signal, thus drag the signal/quality/speed for others down. That sort of quality control is not possible with a nomadic/mobile product.

/M

inertia99

Just called again today for third time....... Still didn't know any pricing and promised it would be up by Saturday (just like they promised it would be up all of the last times I called) Didn't know for sure if my area was covered and didn't know when it would be. What a waste of all that good launch publicity.

If this is what the launch is like it wouldn't inspire much confidence in what the service will be like, if it ever gets going:mad: Stuck with expensive DSL for another while I reckon.......

Kev.

Thanks Marlow and Spongebob,helpful as usual ,

I am on 4mb down and up,and am sick now that this is going to be a mobile dongle rubbish,

Rumours about an 8mb package thats perfect for gaming are false then,

Anyway I think Ill stick with what I have ,although not perfect its okay for gaming and downloading

Attached is a screenshot of pings which is unusually high

Marlow

Kev. wrote: »

I am on 4mb down and up,and am sick now that this is going to be a mobile dongle rubbish,

Again, check that video, where they demo the product. What he shows is a connection within a room from his dongle to the sector with no other users on it, so no contention. He's getting 20 mbit down/ 2 mbit up on that.

You'd never see 4 mbit up on it so.

Also, fixed wireless is approx. 20 mbit up and down on a 20 MHz channel, about 12 mbit/s up and down on a 10 MHz channel. So I'd expect considerable more in a WiMAX fixed wireless setup. This is before contention.

Also, you're guaranteed to say bye bye to your 24 ms latency and probably get even higher jitter on a mobile deployment.

/M