Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

TireeTerror

I tried to download GTA V yesterday. Throttled as soon as I hit 20GB, the 70GB per week doesnt seem to be happening these days. Just off the phone to those guys at IMagine, the CS guy was nice, but thew clown from tech support needs sent back to Eastern Europe. The gimp just hung the phone up on me a few moments ago, hence why Im raging.

Please please please Eir hurry with the FTTH install, Im going to burn these cnuts.

Gonzo

TireeTerror wrote: »

I tried to download GTA V yesterday. Throttled as soon as I hit 20GB, the 70GB per week doesnt seem to be happening these days. Just off the phone to those guys at IMagine, the CS guy was nice, but thew clown from tech support needs sent back to Eastern Europe. The gimp just hung the phone up on me a few moments ago, hence why Im raging.

Please please please Eir hurry with the FTTH install, Im going to burn these cnuts.

Imagine LTE is promoted as the true fiber experience but we all know it's not if you want to download large files. The 20gb cap is a joke unless your a light to moderate user. The ONLY way a gamer can download large files like GTA5 in 1 go is to have 2 accounts, 1 which is Imagine LTE and the other which is Three 4g and all you can eat data and let that continue the download once the Imagine daily cap is close to breaching.

rodge123

Dero wrote: »

Which mast in Kildare? I'm on the Old Kilcullen mast, and I'd well believe it's full. The evening speeds are abysmal (having been great for the first few months).

Official complaint email to them followed by forwarding the complaint to comreg when they don't respond or resolve it.
That's what I've done due to terrible service performance in evening.
Comreg have sent a letter to them on my behalf so waiting for response to that.

If comreg get enough complaints in about them then maybe it might get their attention.
At least it will give comreg enough evidence that their 'fibre' broadband is not fit for purpose if imagine try to get their coverage areas excluded from nation broadband plan!

d31b0y

Just got connected today and so far so good. Up to 90MB off peak. Didn't do a speedtest during peak with a direct connection but I was watching HD tv all evening and didn't have any issues. First time in a long time that I have been able to watch full 1080p stream.

I'm just reading through the T's & C's that they sent on and notice this paragraph included;

8.4 LTE Broadband Package(s) have a monthly data usage allowance, with a daily usage limit. If you reach your daily limit your service will be restricted until midnight of the same day. At the beginning of the next day, your service and usage will be reset. We apply these limits to ensure quality of service and a fair and level playing field for all customers. It’s not the intention to restrict user’s enjoyment of the service including downloading games as may be required on an occasional basis. At imagines discretion, occasional usage above your daily limit and during the hours of 12am to 7am will be allowed. If we notice continual, disproportionate or abnormal download or upload usage patterns, we reserve the right, upon due notice to, terminate the provision of your LTE Service(s).

I know it's been mentioned before but has anyone recently put this to the test?

Full doc here.

ED E

It seems to be totally fictional.

TopTec

A few months ago it was discussed on here about Imagine's discretionary throttling and they were challenged about it by some boardies. I recall their response was it would not be applied in any circumstances, so a waste of ink and paper really.

TT

NakQuada

Im on the Athy mast and am getting less than 0.5mb speeds at the moment. Anyone having similar issue on the same mast?

EDIT: nevermind, I've been throttled.

bennyineire

So much whinging about caps and throttling, I went for a dodgy as funk 4mb line with eircom and now I have a consistent 40mb down
You know what you signed up for it's Cleary stated.
I'm with them for 6 months and have had a great experience, if you don't like the caps go back to a crappy eircom line

Gonzo

bennyineire wrote: »

So much whinging about caps and throttling, I went for a dodgy as funk 4mb line with eircom and now I have a consistent 40mb down
You know what you signed up for it's Cleary stated.
I'm with them for 6 months and have had a great experience, if you don't like the caps go back to a crappy eircom line

I don't agree with this, in layman's terms when someone reads the Imagine website they go from a crap almost unusable internet connection (which is 100% true) to a flawless future proofed fibre connection where you can let your (excuse the pun) imagination fly and be free to use the internet as you desire as this is the true fibre experience. (total bs). But in reality (you cannot download games or large files without being trottled and now recently reported your internet connection is completely disabled, you cannot log into your router, your connection speed is dependent on the distance and line of sight to the mast, then it's also dependent on the contention in the area).

Fair enough if your a light to moderate user who likes to check their Facebook, Twitter, few youtube videos, an hour of online gaming and a few Netflix films turned down to 480p and wifi usage then your fine, but for anyone who likes to purchase a game online then you have to spend 2-4 days downloading this game to keep in check with the daily allowance while allowing other internet activities to still work and most likely gonna run into trottling or lose of service.

The download allowance/fair usage policy is difficult to spot and in the terms and conditions it states that you can download to your hearts content in the small hours which is also false.

Imagine do provide a genuine better internet to those who need it but there's no point in sugar coating it, they are ruthless with their data allowance and a true fiber experience is a long way off, they have no competition, can do what they like and the customer has to either like it or lump it or face the trottle stick.

xxyyzz

Gonzo wrote: »

I don't agree with this, in layman's terms when someone reads the Imagine website they go from a crap almost unusable internet connection (which is 100% true) to a flawless future proofed fibre connection where you can let your (excuse the pun) imagination fly and be free to use the internet as you desire as this is the true fibre experience. (total bs). But in reality (you cannot download games or large files without being trottled and now recently reported your internet connection is completely disabled, you cannot log into your router, your connection speed is dependent on the distance and line of sight to the mast, then it's also dependent on the contention in the area).

Fair enough if your a light to moderate user who likes to check their Facebook, Twitter, few youtube videos, an hour of online gaming and a few Netflix films turned down to 480p and wifi usage then your fine, but for anyone who likes to purchase a game online then you have to spend 2-4 days downloading this game to keep in check with the daily allowance while allowing other internet activities to still work and most likely gonna run into trottling or lose of service.

The download allowance/fair usage policy is difficult to spot and in the terms and conditions it states that you can download to your hearts content in the small hours which is also false.

Imagine do provide a genuine better internet to those who need it but there's no point in sugar coating it, they are ruthless with their data allowance and a true fiber experience is a long way off, they have no competition, can do what they like and the customer has to either like it or lump it or face the trottle stick.

I really can't understand the bellyaching about the caps when people know the limitations of LTE. The service would be dire if they removed the caps so stop complaining. Realistically ftth is a pipe dream for rural dwellers regardless of what the nbp claims. And yes we know the marketing is ambiguous when they keep mentioning fibre but for now imagine us the only show in town and its a quantum leap beyond what was previously available.

TireeTerror

xxyyzz wrote: »

I really can't understand the bellyaching about the caps when people know the limitations of LTE. The service would be dire if they removed the caps so stop complaining. Realistically ftth is a pipe dream for rural dwellers regardless of what the nbp claims. And yes we know the marketing is ambiguous when they keep mentioning fibre but for now imagine us the only show in town and its a quantum leap beyond what was previously available.

I will complain as much as I see fit. FYI we were told we had unlimited downloads from midnight until 7am. So thats why we are pissed off. We were then told we could have one day where we could download 70GB to help with those large game downloads/updates. That didnt last long.

Just because it may not affect you, doesn't mean its not a load of utter ****e for the rest. It should be half the price.

threeball

In the last week they've started hitting us with mails saying we are exceeding our 20gb limit, every single day. This despite the fact that there may be no one at all on the internet in the house some days and most other days its some light web browsing. Ive a feeling that they cant handle the capacity they claimed of 400 or that they're adding more people and slowing the rest of us down to compensate.
They'll be out the gap if they keep it up much longer.

oscarBravo

xxyyzz wrote: »

Realistically ftth is a pipe dream for rural dwellers regardless of what the nbp claims.

That will come as a surprise to those rural dwellers who already have FTTH.

And yes we know the marketing is ambiguous when they keep mentioning fibre...

"Ambiguous" is one way to put it.

vanman99

anyone else experiencing a lot of sky tv interference because of the 4G receiver, i was blaming the weather for awhile but it seems to be constant interference

vanman99

Apparently the new SKY Q system is not affected by 4G interference so maybe it is the weather.....

9726_9726

xxyyzz wrote: »

I really can't understand the bellyaching about the caps when people know the limitations of LTE. The service would be dire if they removed the caps so stop complaining. Realistically ftth is a pipe dream for rural dwellers regardless of what the nbp claims. And yes we know the marketing is ambiguous when they keep mentioning fibre but for now imagine us the only show in town and its a quantum leap beyond what was previously available.

You are correct in that, if they had no cap it would absolutely unusable every night. As in 100Kbps or less probably with huge packet loss and latency I'd guess.

But is HONEST or even ETHICAL marketing too much to ask for???

And no, not everyone is familiar with the limitations of LTE. Maybe avid Boardsies are but average people don't know what it is, apart from reading Imagine's website. Which has an agenda and falsely tells people it's the "full fibre experience". Which of course it is not.

So yes it's a handy stop gap but should be marketed honestly. Especially with the price of it. It's €1,212 contract commit. That's a lot of money from a family budget.

jcd5971

Can you pay more for a higher cap, I'm delighted with the speed but there's 3 teenagers and myself using it and slam into the cap around 9pm most evenings

ED E

jcd5971 wrote: »

Can you pay more for a higher cap, I'm delighted with the speed but there's 3 teenagers and myself using it and slam into the cap around 9pm most evenings

If they allowed that you wouldn't be delighted with the speed.

Johnboy1951

9726_9726 wrote: »

You are correct in that, if they had no cap it would absolutely unusable every night. As in 100Kbps or less probably with huge packet loss and latency I'd guess.

But is HONEST or even ETHICAL marketing too much to ask for???

Yes. Definitely too much to expect.
Legislation is required to try to achieve something acceptable.

And no, not everyone is familiar with the limitations of LTE. Maybe avid Boardsies are but average people don't know what it is, apart from reading Imagine's website. Which has an agenda and falsely tells people it's the "full fibre experience". Which of course it is not.

So yes it's a handy stop gap but should be marketed honestly. Especially with the price of it. It's €1,212 contract commit. That's a lot of money from a family budget.

rodge123

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Yes. Definitely too much to expect.
Legislation is required to try to achieve something acceptable.

No point complaining here unfortunately, nothing will be done about it.
Make a complaint here:
http://www.asai.ie/make-a-complaint/

I done so, highlighting their dishonest marketing.
If enough people lodge complaints, something may be done.

9726_9726

jcd5971 wrote: »

Can you pay more for a higher cap, I'm delighted with the speed but there's 3 teenagers and myself using it and slam into the cap around 9pm most evenings

Short of spending another €1212 on another install and 18 months... Splitting it in two WiFi networks.... No.

It does raise the question though.... Should there be a tiered offering here.

I've said this before, but in Oz they sell broadband based on volume (i.e. caps) to differentiate tiers rather than speed, which actually is more closely related to the load a customer puts on the finite network resource than speed. This allows fair tiering so light users pay less and heavy users pay more.

I mean putting different rate limiters on tiers (speeds) makes not a huge difference to the amount of network resource someone uses.

Someone on 150Mb FTTH and someone on 1Gb FTTH will use almost exactly the same in practice, in terms of aggregate bandwidth, so these are arbitrary ways of tiering packages really, nothing more.

oscarBravo

vanman99 wrote: »

Apparently the new SKY Q system is not affected by 4G interference so maybe it is the weather.....

My only experience with Sky Q was someone who thought his broadband was knackered; after a lot of troubleshooting he turned off all the Sky boxes and the broadband worked perfectly again. It wasn't anything to do with Internet traffic, but it seemed to be completely buggering up his LAN.

Gonzo

9726_9726 wrote: »

Short of spending another €1212 on another install and 18 months... Splitting it in two WiFi networks.... No.

It does raise the question though.... Should there be a tiered offering here.

I've said this before, but in Oz they sell broadband based on volume (i.e. caps) to differentiate tiers rather than speed, which actually is more closely related to the load a customer puts on the finite network resource than speed. This allows fair tiering so light users pay less and heavy users pay more.

I mean putting different rate limiters on tiers (speeds) makes not a huge difference to the amount of network resource someone uses.

Someone on 150Mb FTTH and someone on 1Gb FTTH will use almost exactly the same in practice, in terms of aggregate bandwidth, so these are arbitrary ways of tiering packages really, nothing more.

I totally agree that If Imagine raised their caps that the network would crumble but there are several things they need to do to set the record straight:

1 - strictly state that the limit is 20gigs per day 24/7
2 - End the marketing bs stating that it's the true fibre experience
3 - introduce an optional gamer add on download allowance which can only be purchased twice per month (40gb extra) and each addon used within the 24 hour period. This can allow gamers on the network to happily download a large game file without being punished, but can only do this twice per month at an extra cost of about 5 euros.
4 - stop issuing threatening emails when the download allowance is nowhere nearly reached.
5 - perhaps reduce the price of the service, 60 euros per month is far from cheap for a half arsed 'fibre' product.
6 - Imagine are not known to be friendly after you sign up to the product, they really need to change their horrible attitude to customers once they are signed up.

Eir should really change their plans as well, rather than selling a 150, 300 and 1000 product all with hidden fup's of 1 tb data per month, what they should do is have all products on 1000/100 and the 3 plans offer 1 tb per month cheapest, 2 tb per month middle and 3 tb per month premium.

marno21

9726_9726 wrote: »

You are correct in that, if they had no cap it would absolutely unusable every night. As in 100Kbps or less probably with huge packet loss and latency I'd guess.

But is HONEST or even ETHICAL marketing too much to ask for???

And no, not everyone is familiar with the limitations of LTE. Maybe avid Boardsies are but average people don't know what it is, apart from reading Imagine's website. Which has an agenda and falsely tells people it's the "full fibre experience". Which of course it is not.

So yes it's a handy stop gap but should be marketed honestly. Especially with the price of it. It's €1,212 contract commit. That's a lot of money from a family budget.

Indeed.

The level of misinformation (not Imagine - but just amongst the general public) and ignorance regarding broadband in this country is scandalous. Companies like/including Imagine advertising this product as "fibre" access and tieing said customer into a long term contract when it's not "fibre" at all is not right. I accept that for the users availing of this it's a lifeline for some (coming from a very rural background so I do understand how difficult it can be to get connected). There was a slot about rural broadband on Today FM a few weeks back (which I posted on the NBP thread) and the contributor himself was clueless about rural broadband and mobile connectivity. It's not helping when the 'experts' themselves know little about the issue.

marno21

Gonzo wrote: »

I totally agree that If Imagine raised their caps that the network would crumble but there are several things they need to do to set the record straight:

1 - strictly state that the limit is 20gigs per day 24/7
2 - End the marketing bs stating that it's the true fibre experience
3 - introduce an optional gamer add on download allowance which can only be purchased twice per month (40gb extra) and each addon used within the 24 hour period. This can allow gamers on the network to happily download a large game file without being punished, but can only do this twice per month at an extra cost of about 5 euros.
4 - stop issuing threatening emails when the download allowance is nowhere nearly reached.
5 - perhaps reduce the price of the service, 60 euros per month is far from cheap for a half arsed 'fibre' product.
6 - Imagine are not known to be friendly after you sign up to the product, they really need to change their horrible attitude to customers once they are signed up.

Eir should really change their plans as well, rather than selling a 150, 300 and 1000 product all with hidden fup's of 1 tb data per month, what they should do is have all products on 1000/100 and the 3 plans offer 1 tb per month cheapest, 2 tb per month middle and 3 tb per month premium.

This is correct. Allowing people extra data between 1am and 7am is not going to cripple the network for most users - so should be allowed discretionally. I wouldn't be allowing people to take the piss with it either - but there's lots of spare bandwidth available during this window so it should be used.

Eir's FUP is more to do with people not using FTTH for sharing between several users than actual network capacity. Imagine's limit is because the network itself can't take it. I would argue that Eir's 1Tb limit should be waived for certain users because it's not affecting the network substantially if people do exceed the 1Tb limit - however certain users could be taking the piss so it's no harm to have some sort of framework for limiting users.

ED E

marno21 wrote: »

I would argue that Eir's 1Tb limit should be waived for certain users because it's not affecting the network substantially if people do exceed the 1Tb limit - however certain users could be taking the piss so it's no harm to have some sort of framework for limiting users.

Eir have it because of peering costs, not access level load. Heavy users bump their bills up.

dobbs2210

Gonzo wrote: »

I totally agree that If Imagine raised their caps that the network would crumble but there are several things they need to do to set the record straight:

1 - strictly state that the limit is 20gigs per day 24/7
2 - End the marketing bs stating that it's the true fibre experience
3 - introduce an optional gamer add on download allowance which can only be purchased twice per month (40gb extra) and each addon used within the 24 hour period. This can allow gamers on the network to happily download a large game file without being punished, but can only do this twice per month at an extra cost of about 5 euros.
4 - stop issuing threatening emails when the download allowance is nowhere nearly reached.
5 - perhaps reduce the price of the service, 60 euros per month is far from cheap for a half arsed 'fibre' product.
6 - Imagine are not known to be friendly after you sign up to the product, they really need to change their horrible attitude to customers once they are signed up.

Eir should really change their plans as well, rather than selling a 150, 300 and 1000 product all with hidden fup's of 1 tb data per month, what they should do is have all products on 1000/100 and the 3 plans offer 1 tb per month cheapest, 2 tb per month middle and 3 tb per month premium.

Fairplay Gonzo, all very valid and logical points well made. My thoughts entirely so I agree.

cyber12asd

If anyone has the admin password for the Gemtek router, I'd appreciate if you could send it on my way, please.

xxyyzz

oscarBravo wrote: »

That will come as a surprise to those rural dwellers who already have FTTH. "Ambiguous" is one way to put it.

now you're being obtuse you know well what I mean. The vast majority of rural dwellers are in so-called intervention areas. The NBP is turning into the biggest bureaucratic clatterf*ck since Irish water and the main player, Eir is doing their level best to scupper it. If FTTH was offered to me tomorrow I'd bit their arm off to get it but realistically I can't see it happening for a long time.

9726_9726

Gonzo wrote: »

I totally agree that If Imagine raised their caps that the network would crumble but there are several things they need to do to set the record straight:

1 - strictly state that the limit is 20gigs per day 24/7
2 - End the marketing bs stating that it's the true fibre experience
3 - introduce an optional gamer add on download allowance which can only be purchased twice per month (40gb extra) and each addon used within the 24 hour period. This can allow gamers on the network to happily download a large game file without being punished, but can only do this twice per month at an extra cost of about 5 euros.
4 - stop issuing threatening emails when the download allowance is nowhere nearly reached.
5 - perhaps reduce the price of the service, 60 euros per month is far from cheap for a half arsed 'fibre' product.
6 - Imagine are not known to be friendly after you sign up to the product, they really need to change their horrible attitude to customers once they are signed up.

Eir should really change their plans as well, rather than selling a 150, 300 and 1000 product all with hidden fup's of 1 tb data per month, what they should do is have all products on 1000/100 and the 3 plans offer 1 tb per month cheapest, 2 tb per month middle and 3 tb per month premium.

Agreed on all points. On your last point, the public perception of broadband as being "unlimited" has been tainted by unscrupulous marketing. I agree that the full 1Gbps speed of FTTH with 1,2,3 TB tiers would make absolute sense. Many people now though just expect "unlimited" when the medium they are buying is *absolutely* limited. It's through unscrupulous marketing that this expectation has been created. How can you sell something that is limited as unlimited? Now everyone has to or the product looks poor in comparison.

Having dealt with many types of networks at many different levels, i can say with certainty that having everyone on 1Gbps rather than tiering at 150, 300/350, 1000 would make absolutely NO difference at the top of the network. The servers you are accessing can't take those speeds usually anyway. There is a joke in the industry that the killer application for gigabit broadband is speedtest.net. That won't always be the case but at >100Mbps, tiering by data would make way more sense.

But for LTE, or any wireless, where capacity is precious, a monthly "boost" ticket for a fiver or happy hours during the night would be a great compromise.