Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

morgana

I can tell you exactly what they will say ^^ had the same experience - after so-called optimisation works peak speeds have gone to pots

9726_9726

They only have 60MHz of spectrum to work with now under the new licensing scheme, so I'd expect things to get very tight in terms of contention/oversubscription. Rollout will probably slow, too.

ED E

9726_9726 wrote: »

They only have 60MHz of spectrum to work with now under the new licensing scheme, so I'd expect things to get very tight in terms of contention/oversubscription. Rollout will probably slow, too.

What about their claims that they now had more bw than before? Total fabrication?

Dero

ED E wrote: »

What about their claims that they now had more bw than before? Total fabrication?

Yeah, I do wonder about that. I was speaking to a high-ish level network guy there the day after the spectrum announcement, and he said the same thing; that they now have more than they did before. We shall see, but colour me sceptical.

ED E

On mobile so can't check now, do they still have the test licence? If so would they have more for the very short overlap period then a lot less?

DredFX

TopTec wrote: »

I have one from Tesco's in the UK, a Binatone with two handsets... works fine,

TT

You do? Binatone was one of the brands the customer agent recommended avoiding. Is it a specific build?

TopTec

DredFX wrote: »

You do? Binatone was one of the brands the customer agent recommended avoiding. Is it a specific build?

It's a Shield 6015 call blocker, twin handset with answer machine. It was on sale in Tesco's, Bracknell for about 40 euro, £30 sterling. Had it since I signed up to Imagine nearly a year ago. Never given me a problem, apart from an occasional international call echo which corrects itself on call back.

TT

tsue921i8wljb3

9726_9726 wrote: »

They only have 60MHz of spectrum to work with now under the new licensing scheme, so I'd expect things to get very tight in terms of contention/oversubscription. Rollout will probably slow, too.

Would there be the option of leasing spectrum from the other owners do you think? Will all the mobile operators have a current use for the 3.6 GHz band in rural areas? I know at the minute my Imagine radio is using frequencies that will be owned by Vodafone come July.

ED E

Note: 15yr licences so Telcos are purchasing for later LTE-A and 5G.

The Auction offered this spectrum in 594 lots spread over nine
geographic regions (four rural and five urban) and is assigned on a contiguous basis

The Auction resulted in five Winning Bidders:
 Imagine Communications Ireland Ltd (Imagine), currently the largest
Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) obtained spectrum rights of use for
60 MHz in each of the rural regions;

 Airspan Spectrum Holdings Ltd (Airspan), a new entrant and the UK arm
of a US global provider of 4G broadband wireless systems and solutions.
Airspan's products serve operators and markets such as smart utilities,
transportation and public safety in both licensed and licence exempt frequency
bands. Airspan obtained spectrum rights of use for 25 MHz in the rural
regions and 60 MHz in the cities;

 Vodafone Ireland Ltd, a mobile network operator with circa 2.3 million
mobile subscribers (38.5% market share) and circa 268,00 fixed broadband
subscribers (19.7% market share) obtained 85 MHz in rural regions and
105 MHz in the cities;

 Three Ireland Hutchison Ltd, a mobile network operator with circa 2.08
million mobile subscribers (35% market share) obtained 100 MHz nationally;
and

 Meteor Mobile Communications Ltd, a mobile network operator and a
wholly owned subsidiary of Eircom Group which has circa 1.08 million mobile
subscribers (18 % market share). Eircom Group has circa 444,000 fixed
broadband subscribers (32.6% market share). Meteor obtained 80 MHz in
the rural regions and 85 MHz in the cities.

--

Following this award, ComReg is at the vanguard in Europe, having awarded 350
MHz on a TDD basis and in full accordance with the harmonisation Decision, fully
ready for any future 5G deployment.

..

Imagine Communications Ireland Limited, by far the largest provider of fixed
wireless access services in the 3.6 GHz band, holding 80% of the existing licences
in the band, has secured sufficient spectrum so as to be in a position to maintain
and enhance services

I cant for the life of me find the original award up to July 17 that allowed the trial. Anyone got the doc number?

Edit:

ED E wrote: »

Comregs map shows them as currently deploying: A, B, K*, K, D, E

25Mhz A
35Mhz B
11Mhz K
16Mhz K *
25Mhz D
14Mhz E
_______

126Mhz

So 126 Mhz Non contig to 60Mhz Contiguous? Still seems like a downgrade.

Suppose the big plus is the Airspan stealing all the Imagine customers and reducing cell load significantly.

ED E

Reyansh Little Bandage wrote: »

Would there be the option of leasing spectrum from the other owners do you think? Will all the mobile operators have a current use for the 3.6 GHz band in rural areas? I know at the minute my Imagine radio is using frequencies that will be owned by Vodafone come July.

There's some rather long legalese in the docs about the transition plan that may give Imagine some extra time to get things in order.

Not sure how many Band 42 UEs(phones/modems) exist in present operation with the MNOs so they wont be just flicking a switch to make use of it. Potentially they could sell new Huawei MBB devices as an improved midband product.

@9726/OB: Can the BBU/RRUs currently operated by the MNOs TX in B42 or is it all new hardware?

DredFX

Forgive my weakness with telecoms, but does anybody know if this phone with this adaptor would work with Imagine's service?

I'd ask them myself but they don't seem like answering questions.

tsue921i8wljb3

DredFX wrote: »

Forgive my weakness with telecoms, but does anybody know if this phone with this adaptor would work with Imagine's service?

I'd ask them myself but they don't seem like answering questions.

Do you have a phone with a UK plug on it? Google UK phone plug if you are unsure. It is noticeably larger than the RJ11 plug that is used here.

Edit: the phone should work without the adapter. Why do you think you need the adapter?

oscarBravo

ED E wrote: »

So 126 Mhz Non contig to 60Mhz Contiguous? Still seems like a downgrade.

It's really hard to say for sure, but let's best-case it: the old licensing regime was based on frequencies allocated to circular areas. It was possible (and not unusual) for an operator to licence several frequencies for a single area, to increase available spectrum.

So, in the extreme case, it's possible that a given high site at the moment only has 28MHz (one FWALA licence) allocated to it. In that case, the 60MHz represents an effective doubling of available spectrum at that site. But if a site had two 35MHz licences allocated to it, it's now going from 70MHz total spectrum down to 60.

ED E wrote: »

@9726/OB: Can the BBU/RRUs currently operated by the MNOs TX in B42 or is it all new hardware?

I'm not that familiar with MNO hardware. Best guess is that they'd need to add new radio modules for bands 42 & 43, along with separate antenna clusters. I'll defer to someone who knows what they're talking about.

DredFX

Reyansh Little Bandage wrote: »

Do you have a phone with a UK plug on it? Google UK phone plug if you are unsure. It is noticeably larger than the RJ11 plug that is used here.

Edit: the phone should work without the adapter. Why do you think you need the adapter?

Was told by an Imagine rep before that I should stay away from phones like Panasonic and Binatone, but I've read that someone here got Binatone working.

Customer service has me paranoid about what phone I should buy. They said no British phones and to look for VOIP compatibility, but good luck if I can figure which ones work for myself.

tsue921i8wljb3

DredFX wrote: »

Was told by an Imagine rep before that I should stay away from phones like Panasonic and Binatone, but I've read that someone here got Binatone working.

Customer service has me paranoid about what phone I should buy. They said no British phones and to look for VOIP compatibility, but good luck if I can figure which ones work for myself.

I have bought Panasonic cordless phones from Amazon UK and they were fine. They came with an RJ11 socket. There may be some UK only phones out there which is where you may need an adapter. If you want to be sure go into Argos and ask to see the phone. If is has an RJ11 socket you don't need the adapter. The UK have a weird phone connection system that is not widely used.

That is also bull**** about the VoIP compatibility. You could plug an old Eircom phone from the 80's into the router and it would work. The support are clueless.

ED E

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'm not that familiar with MNO hardware. Best guess is that they'd need to add new radio modules for bands 42 & 43, along with separate antenna clusters. I'll defer to someone who knows what they're talking about.

The specs are in COMREG site listings, but redacted as its commercially sensitive



COMREGs point that the total available bandwidth to Mobile/MBB/FWALA has increased massively now which will help with the nations ever increasing hunger for content.

The Cush

ED E wrote: »

I cant for the life of me find the original award up to July 17 that allowed the trial. Anyone got the doc number?

There isn't a single document for the award of spectrum in the band. Spectrum has been made available since 2003 with additional spectrum blocks made available over the years. Once available, operators simply applied for spectrum at a particular site on a first come first served basis with a licence term from 1 to 7 years up to 2010 under the General Authorisation Scheme. Since 2010 licences were issued on a reducing term down to July this year when all existing licences expire. In April 2012, for example, ComReg had issued 273 licences in this band to 13 different operators. Looking at the FWALA map there are currently 268 licences issued to a number of operators in the band, some such as eircom with a single licence.

As you said earlier, now at least they have contiguous 60MHz blocks of spectrum covering particular geographic areas.

http://siteviewer.comreg.ie/fwala/

oscarBravo

The Cush wrote: »

http://siteviewer.comreg.ie/fwala/

Woo, I wondered where that went! Never occurred to me that it had moved to siteviewer...

DredFX

Reyansh Little Bandage wrote: »

I have bought Panasonic cordless phones from Amazon UK and they were fine. They came with an RJ11 socket. There may be some UK only phones out there which is where you may need an adapter. If you want to be sure go into Argos and ask to see the phone. If is has an RJ11 socket you don't need the adapter. The UK have a weird phone connection system that is not widely used.

That is also bull**** about the VoIP compatibility. You could plug an old Eircom phone from the 80's into the router and it would work. The support are clueless.

Thanks. Got the phone and it works like a charm.

Should be you working in that support service. Though I'd imagine you have better prospects. :P

Ninjakettle

Anyone know if CS can remotely reboot if the Internet has gone down?  I'm away on holiday and suddenly can't access cameras or NAS i was using fine yesterday..  Wireless and Wired - so prob is most likely broadband down. Sent them an email...can probably call later but thought i'd ask.

9726_9726

ED E wrote: »

There's some rather long legalese in the docs about the transition plan that may give Imagine some extra time to get things in order.

Not sure how many Band 42 UEs(phones/modems) exist in present operation with the MNOs so they wont be just flicking a switch to make use of it. Potentially they could sell new Huawei MBB devices as an improved midband product.

@9726/OB: Can the BBU/RRUs currently operated by the MNOs TX in B42 or is it all new hardware?

Not sure about band 42 TBH.

126MHz down to 60MHz does seem like an overall limitation. I'm sure on some sites it's more but overall it is a downgrade.

They are using 20MHz channels so it only allows 3 channels within the allocation. Using TDD GPS sync, they can do spectrum reuse (ABAB probably) but it's quite limiting.

Although if I was an RF planner, having the same frequency plan in the whole coverage area would make life simpler. Although hard to get density in fairness.

It will be interesting to see user stories here re congestion and rollout come, say, September.

ED E

Probably shouldnt drag this OT, but briefly:

http://www.gsmarena.com/_essential_ph_1-8710.php
One handset with 42/43, soon to be released, balls to the wall radio (LTE-A (4CA) Cat16 1024/150 Mbps)

http://www.gsmarena.com/sharp_aquos_crystal_2-7251.php
One with 42

So no imminent use in mobile for sure. The PH1 could be insanely fast though.

chrismon

Anyone else here on the Athlone mast having unusable internet the past few days?
I'm getting less than 1Mb down all weekend.
On my phone's LTE sending this.

jcd5971

rang yesterday asked about the download limit again.
I explained I had one big file to download that was about 50gb and was there any way to avoid a throttle, was told no need you get the go over between 12 and 7 once a week with no limit.

I explained that i had been throttled the last few times this happened, he said it should not have but he`d make sure it would be okay this time anyway.

roll on today dl=.86 and upload =1.1....................sigh

Dero

yeah, I've had a very similar experience. Was explicitly told that there is different limit of 50GB over a week applied at night. However, we tried it with a large download last week and we were throttled by three o'clock the next day. It makes the service worthless as every day I'm wondering when we're going to be throttled. Summer holidays with two teenagers will not be fun. :-(

Life with Imagine.png

d31b0y

I have successfully downloaded large files overnight with no throttling (as recently as two weeks ago). Was told 50GB per week between 12 and 7.
It's not exactly a massive amount extra though, in fairness.

Macspower

I emailed customer service and got a reply telling me to turn off and on my router after 30 secs. I giggled a little as thats the age old solution to everything technical.

But hey presto!! would you believe?

Before



after :



and it's still going well today off peak

NakQuada

Hey folks, Im on the Athy mast.
In the last fortnight my speeds have dropped to single figures at peak times and I am getting latency spikes 200+ms. Really frustrating. Anyone experiencing similar issues?

morgana

I experienced a similar issue after so-called optimisation works 2 weeks ago at the Bweeng high site. Mailed support (got the boiler plate response) who then requested some more speed & ping tests but must have already escalated to 2nd level support. Before I could do the requested tests, I had a phone call from a 2nd level support guy who confirmed the issue and that technicians would be on site reinstating firmware (the new one apparently had a bug) and that he would follow up with me today. He did, and while off-peak speeds are back to normal, peak speeds have improved to around 20-30, but are not back to the level they were (40-50).
He said he will continue to look into this and thanked me for alerting them to the issue. Can't complain about their 2nd level support, credit where credit is due.

ED E

The credentials are "known" correct?

Would love if some of the subs here can keep an eye on radio metrics if available. Nice to see what they do with the spectrum they have.