Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

George Sunsnow

So if everyone goes online with that poor backhaul,they get 1 or 2 Mb max?

I assume masts must have a fibre source and you're talking about back up if something goes down?
I find it hard to believe that sites are set up to deliver only 2 to 10 Mb if everyone is on
Even here on boards with its tiny sample size,that's nowhere near the majority experience
No one has any idea how many are on individual masts and doubtless some are full or over full (which they shouldn't be)
The promise to give a min of 30 Mb to 400 users means they need a pipe of at least 12 gigs supply
An ordinary ftth passing a mast would deliver a lot more than that,an awful lot more

My point is a question really,is there something more behind all the Imagine hate by non customers?
Obviously there is
For some it's a hate for their promoting themselves against ftth
For others it looks like industry hate

None of this is helpful to the community here with no other choice than this stopgap until ftth arrives
What is helpful is a sharing of experiences with LTE from imagine good or bad
More of that please

9726_9726

George Sunsnow wrote: »

So if everyone goes online with that poor backhaul,they get 1 or 2 Mb max?

I assume masts must have a fibre source and you're talking about back up if something goes down?
I find it hard to believe that sites are set up to deliver only 2 to 10 Mb if everyone is on
Even here on boards with its tiny sample size,that's nowhere near the majority experience
No one has any idea how many are on individual masts and doubtless some are full or over full (which they shouldn't be)
The promise to give a min of 30 Mb to 400 users means they need a pipe of at least 12 gigs supply
An ordinary ftth passing a mast would deliver a lot more than that,an awful lot more

My point is a question really,is there something more behind all the Imagine hate by non customers?
Obviously there is
For some it's a hate for their promoting themselves against ftth
For others it looks like industry hate

None of this is helpful to the community here with no other choice than this stopgap until ftth arrives
What is helpful is a sharing of experiences with LTE from imagine good or bad
More of that please

First of all, I'm not hating. I can supply some technical insight into how these things work if you are interested. If not, that's cool.

You don't understand how broadband aggregation works. At current industry norms, an NGA customer pulls between 0.6M and 1M at peak time, on 95th percentile metering. This is increasing as the years go by (because of video), hence those rolling out new networks need to be mindful of the trend and over-provision. So you may find it hard to believe that a broadband POP is backhauled with a few hundred meg, but that my friend is how it's done.

And no, these mountain top sites do not have 12Gbps backhaul. Few hundred meg. I've been in enough of them to know. Most have no fibre at all. Lower sites do. The fibre sites usually have 1Gbps bearers (SFP ports), but often these are capped below that.

And FTTH does not deliver "an awful lot more" than 12Gbps. The current generation delivers 2.5Gbps with a 1:32 split, so 80Mbps per customer. You can still market 1Gps packages just fine over that. Also, it doesn't matter a whole lot whether a subscriber is on a 150Mbps package or 1Gbps - their peak draw with be similar, when averaged over the total aggregation pool. Differentiating packages does allow for tiering of prices though, which accelerates ROI. Which means more build-out, faster.

George Sunsnow

So what you're saying is ftth is also limited and there's very good reason for Eirs terabyte cap?
You're right I know nothing about the technicalities of the provision but having had this stopgap for over a year,I can continue to confirm from a user point of view that it's working perfectly for anyone I know that has it,certainly 10 times better than any currently available alternative

This might shock you but I know people happy enough to stay with this even with fibre passing their door
I find that stupid but there you go

There's very little point in doomcasting to the audience with no alternative
That in a community is extremely unhelpful to the unendowed

ED E

There's no doomcasting going on here, just lie busting.

Eirs 1TB FUP is nothing to do with the access network. Nada. Capacity on at the fibre, aggregation, pop, boundary are irrelevant. Its there to limit their peering bills. L3/CogentCo/Vodafone don't give them free submarine traffic.

Low end users are watching youtube which is cached in house. Heavy users are P2Ping with US seeds that's all chargeable.

Possedion

George Sunsnow wrote: »

I ask questions here ,kindly don't accuse me of lying.
I actually don't care though
I'll just go back to ignoring (like most with positive experiences do) the doomcasting from non users of the service and pitch in with advice to users or potential users which is what this community board is supposed to be about-sharing user experiences when passing by

Everything else is just noise

I'm a user on the capagh mast. I see serious contention issues. Clearly some masts are not overloaded. I would more than sing their praise if they were anyway decent instead off overloading masts. You can see the contention early morning 40 mbs. After 6pm drops to 3-6. Their hype on FB 70 mbs 50 mbs is bull. Users need to be aware off this.

George Sunsnow

Possedion wrote: »

I'm a user on the capagh mast. I see serious contention issues. Clearly some masts are not overloaded. I would more than sing their praise if they were anyway decent instead off overloading masts. You can see the contention early morning 40 mbs. After 6pm drops to 3-6. Their hype on FB 70 mbs 50 mbs is bull. Users need to be aware off this.

TBH I deleted my post just before see'ing your reply because I've lost interest in engaging with non users but I'm glad you quoted it in yours because I agree with you anyway

My view on this is,leave if there's nothing better

I'm not going to defend the up to 70 headline but lots of us are actually getting up to 70
I may not be a tech wizard but I do think some masts are unfortunate enough to have heavier gamer type (and there's no way Imagine can know if they are at sign up) users/downloaders than others and don't deny the technology is limited
The FUP is needed but it won't cover all bases

ED E

If you don't want to engage, bye bye.

Some masts are currently overloaded. Others aren't yet but may well be soon. The hardware is similar with the same user cap. With a 20km radius each should have ER-DSL users that are easy to sell to and enough to fill sectors.

George Sunsnow

Lol
I'm not engaging with you Ed because you're not a user of the service and I don't subscribe to the doomsaying
In actual fact I'm quite positive for 2 reasons,ftth rollout limits mast overuse and I along with most others hopefully will join the ftth party ,the road to which will be taking an an ever increasing amount off lte not onto it
Perfectly happy to exchange experiences with actual users,though so Sorry it won't be goodbye
I'm a glass half full sort of guy

rodge123

George Sunsnow wrote: »

Lol
I'm not engaging with you Ed because you're not a user of the service and I don't subscribe to the doomsaying
In actual fact I'm quite positive for 2 reasons,ftth rollout limits mast overuse and I along with most others hopefully will join the ftth party ,the road to which will be taking an an ever increasing amount off lte not onto it
Perfectly happy to exchange experiences with actual users,though so Sorry it won't be goodbye
I'm a glass half full sort of guy

Like Possedion, I'm a user on the Cappagh mast and it's nowhere even close to as advertised at peak hours. An engineer even admitted to me that it had too many people on it!
I've no other option as too far from an exchange so beggars can't be choosers. Imagine will fill the gap until nbp is implemented hopefully.

From my experience their customer service is also shockingly bad and god help us if they somehow manage to get their customers excluded from nbp!
If they put half the effort into their customer service/support as they put into their various bs marketing channels then I wouldn't be half as bitter towards them.

ED E

rodge123 wrote: »

Imagine will fill the gap until nbp is implemented hopefully.

This is the problem. The NBP wont really get moving until 2019, they'd be fine as a 12mo stopgap but not for the extended period.

Cisco wrote:

Overall, IP traffic will grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24 percent from 2016 to 2021.

Standing still you're slowing down and Imagine cant advance after the spectrum awards.

rodge123

ED E wrote: »

This is the problem. The NBP wont really get moving until 2019, they'd be fine as a 12mo stopgap but not for the extended period.

I agree, it's a problem. But unless some other commercial operator wants to come along and offer a better stop solution, then unfortunately the likes of myself is stuck with Imagine.

More worryingly, if nbp gets go ahead in areas that are served by Imagine then we could be left with an even worse service as they are hardly going to invest in maintaining their network if they know they are basically heading for extinction soon!

George Sunsnow

Medium to long term Imagine are fcuked because the Nbp will envelope their customer base and they'll have to close up
They're not a charity
Meantime if they're even double what your alternative is,the users not getting 20 or 30 at a min have a right still to complain but I wouldn't leave at that,it would be silly
Non customers complaining would be better placed worrying about more important things
I'd imagine churn goes up once that fibre passes the Imagine customers door or at least it should

Interestingly they've signs up on the 3km section of my road that has no ftth but no further than that and guess what most of the people I've spoken too think their 3Mb dsl is great and won't pay €60

Outside of the bubble of this forum there's lots of things considered which we'd think mad

Gonzo

George Sunsnow wrote: »

Medium to long term Imagine are fcuked because the Nbp will envelope their customer base and they'll have to close up
They're not a charity
Meantime if they're even double what your alternative is,the users not getting 20 or 30 at a min have a right still to complain but I wouldn't leave at that,it would be silly
Non customers complaining would be better placed worrying about more important things
I'd imagine churn goes up once that fibre passes the Imagine customers door or at least it should

Interestingly they've signs up on the 3km section of my road that has no ftth but no further than that and guess what most of the people I've spoken too think their 3Mb dsl is great and won't pay €60

Outside of the bubble of this forum there's lots of things considered which we'd think mad

The NBP is going to take years, possibly well past 2025 before it's finished. I reckon it's only a matter of time before Imagine will launch another wireless product around 2020 to provide for the remaining customers not on FTTH and to try and fool the public that wireless tech is the way to go. I don't see Imagine giving up that easy.

listermint

Well wireless can be the way to go 5g is coming along nicely elsewhere. More hubs would be required but it delivers fantastic speeds.

rob808

listermint wrote: »

Well wireless can be the way to go 5g is coming along nicely elsewhere. More hubs would be required but it delivers fantastic speeds.

while that great you'll be still stuck on small data caps a day with fast broadband.

Gonzo

listermint wrote: »

Well wireless can be the way to go 5g is coming along nicely elsewhere. More hubs would be required but it delivers fantastic speeds.

doesn't matter how fast wireless goes, it will still be highly limited bandwidth with Imagines very restrictive caps and the same terrible customer service. Imagine will probably retire their current LTE service in the same manner as they did with their Wimax product and start all over again from scratch with a new 5g wireless product. More of the same, just slightly faster.

George Sunsnow

Gonzo wrote: »

doesn't matter how fast wireless goes, it will still be highly limited bandwidth with Imagines very restrictive caps and the same terrible customer service. Imagine will probably retire their current LTE service in the same manner as they did with their Wimax product and start all over again from scratch with a new 5g wireless product. More of the same, just slightly faster.

Ah now your customer experience with Éir wasn't exactly stellar Gonzo in the run up to being connected,how many times did you have to chase up and have your installation delayed with fob off's for answers?
Iirc they lost your original application :rolleyes:

That said you're right probably except they won't be able to make a financial case for a new network,I don't see a logical future for Imagine in 3 to 5 years when ftth starts to fully take hold
Even now with 16k subs it's annual turnover couldn't be more than 12 million
They'll sell the tech to some third world company when they fold

In the meantime ,They're great compared to inferior poor dsl

Gonzo

George Sunsnow wrote: »

Ah now your customer experience with r wasn't exactly stellar Gonzo in the run up to being connected,how many times did you have to chase up and have your installation delayed with fob off's for answers?
Iirc they lost your original application :rolleyes:

That said you're right probably except they won't be able to make a financial case for a new network,I don't see a logical future for Imagine in 3 to 5 years when ftth starts to fully take hold
Even now with 16k subs it's annual turnover couldn't be more than 12 million
They'll sell the tech to some third world company when they fold

In the meantime ,They're great compared to inferior poor dsl

the delay was caused by my exchange going live but my road delayed by another month. The delays/loss of my order shouldn't have really happened but in the end it was all worth it for a great connection that's future proofed.

What annoys me more is Eir's fair usage policy which is not fair, it is crazy that everyone on fibre plans with speeds ranging from 7meg FTTC all the way up to 1000meg FTTH are expected to use the same monthly cap and hiding this policy as much as possible from the customer. Unlike Imagines small reserves of bandwidth, Eir have loads and could easily have different caps/fair usage policys for different speed plans.

terrarev

deadl0ck wrote: »

Both this morning and Friday morning my speed has dropped to sh1te (1 or 2 meg) and I had to turn off and on the router to fix it and then it was fine.

I wasn't here for the weekend so I assume it was the same.

Anybody else seeing this ?

EDIT : Spoke too soon - gone to crap again - 1000ms ping and download test failing - unreal...Waiting on tech support to pick up now
EDIT AGAIN : It's back while I was still on hold for CS...Hmm....Not good - we'll see how it goes - I'm working from home so I notice it very quickly if it goes bad.

BTW - For anyone calling support use 01-4375000 as opposed to paying for their 1890 support number.

We have a similar issues. Every evening at some point the download speed will drop away to less than 1 meg. If takes a restart to get things going again but there's a high chance it'll drop again before the evening is Out. We've heard there is a known issue with their routers but nothing of any certainty.

We've called dozens of times in this and are no closer to a solution. The customer service is appalling.

chrismon

Absolutely brutal the past two nights.
The fiber line outside my house has no sign of being installed any time soon so Im stuck with Imagine for another while.

xxyyzz

Something drastically wrong tonight
Tracing route to google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.0.0.1
2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.15.1
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 2797 ms 2023 ms 3110 ms DN11-ge-1-3-0-16-ballycoolin.irishbroadband.ie [89.127.192.81]
5 1570 ms 2126 ms 2327 ms DN07-ae1-7-ibis-gw-2.irishbroadband.ie [89.127.192.114]
6 1175 ms 2469 ms 1457 ms er4-inex.ask.com [194.88.240.55]
7 1395 ms 1111 ms 1410 ms 209.85.250.213
8 838 ms 828 ms 927 ms google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]

Trace complete.

deadl0ck

terrarev wrote: »

We have a similar issues. Every evening at some point the download speed will drop away to less than 1 meg. If takes a restart to get things going again but there's a high chance it'll drop again before the evening is Out. We've heard there is a known issue with their routers but nothing of any certainty.

We've called dozens of times in this and are no closer to a solution. The customer service is appalling.

Been away for a week, but discovered something very interesting before I left.
My Mac is causing a LOT of the speed issues I was seeing (Yes - I know that sounds wrong).

Basically when my speed got very slow I was getting pings of over 1000ms
I have my house wired with Cat6 and it's going through an old Cisco Catylst 2900 xl switch.
If I connected to a small linux box / NAS Drive I have that wired directly to the Imagine router, and do a ping test and leave it running and then plug out the Cisco switch, the ping immediately drops to about 35ms. I did this a few times to be sure.

When I was sure of this I then started to plug out network ports one by one to determine if it was the actual switch that had the problem or a device connected to it.
Turns out it was my Mac Book Pro (Work Laptop)
If I unplug that the network connection while doing the ping test it immediately fixes the issue.
Very weird.

The issue only happens sometimes, and every time it does unplugging the Mac network connection fixes it...

I'm now testing the WiFi on Mac to see if it does the same thing.
If so - it's a Mac issue. If not - It may be a combination of the Mac traffic and my old switch.

Anyhow - up to now sure this was an Imagine Issue - turns out it's something to do with my setup.

Also - while I was away I ssh'd into my linux box and did ping tests at random times and they were always fine (Mac was at home turned off).

I'll do a bit more digging today (I've installed Little Snitch on my mac to see if it's traffic form a particular application.

BTW - Any ideas / suggestion would be greatly appreciated !

jester999

deadl0ck wrote: »

Been away for a week, but discovered something very interesting before I left.
My Mac is causing a LOT of the speed issues I was seeing (Yes - I know that sounds wrong).

Basically when my speed got very slow I was getting pings of over 1000ms
I have my house wired with Cat6 and it's going through an old Cisco Catylst 2900 xl switch.
If I connected to a small linux box / NAS Drive I have that wired directly to the Imagine router, and do a ping test and leave it running and then plug out the Cisco switch, the ping immediately drops to about 35ms. I did this a few times to be sure.

When I was sure of this I then started to plug out network ports one by one to determine if it was the actual switch that had the problem or a device connected to it.
Turns out it was my Mac Book Pro (Work Laptop)
If I unplug that the network connection while doing the ping test it immediately fixes the issue.
Very weird.

The issue only happens sometimes, and every time it does unplugging the Mac network connection fixes it...

I'm now testing the WiFi on Mac to see if it does the same thing.
If so - it's a Mac issue. If not - It may be a combination of the Mac traffic and my old switch.

Anyhow - up to now sure this was an Imagine Issue - turns out it's something to do with my setup.

Also - while I was away I ssh'd into my linux box and did ping tests at random times and they were always fine (Mac was at home turned off).

I'll do a bit more digging today (I've installed on my mac to see if it's traffic form a particular application.

BTW - Any ideas / suggestion would be greatly appreciated !

Have you got Icloud enabled on the Mac? Sounds like it may be backing up, If all your upload bandwidth is being maxed out this will cause high ping times,

deadl0ck

jester999 wrote: »

Have you got Icloud enabled on the Mac? Sounds like it may be backing up, If all your upload bandwidth is being maxed out this will cause high ping times,

I'll take a look - thanks

ollie247

Hi,

Just spent almost an hour in the rabbit hole that is this thread.

I can see plenty of people have issues in this thread, but thats the nature of threads -people with bad experience always speak out, look for help, whereas the people having good service are blissfully unawares... so you don;t always get the right picture when researching.

Landline/Fibre is not an option in my location, and my current provider is only OK.

I am considering moving to Imagine as their data rates look good, and option of "landline" is a plus for us. I was told I am a 'good candidate' as I am within 10K of the Sliabh Bhui mast in Askamore. And, it is not at full capacity of 400 yet (I've no idea how many)


So, I have 2 questions:
1. Is there anyone else on this thread who is specifically on that transmission mast that is having a good OR bad experience? Or can someone point me to a thread/comment where it is discussed.

2. How 'bout the phone line - is anyone using it as a home phone, is it good/reliable even at 9pm when most people are streaming their hearts out?

Thanks

George Sunsnow

ollie247 wrote: »

Hi,

Just spent almost an hour in the rabbit hole that is this thread.

I can see plenty of people have issues in this thread, but thats the nature of threads -people with bad experience always speak out, look for help, whereas the people having good service are blissfully unawares... so you don;t always get the right picture when researching.

Landline/Fibre is not an option in my location, and my current provider is only OK.

I am considering moving to Imagine as their data rates look good, and option of "landline" is a plus for us. I was told I am a 'good candidate' as I am within 10K of the Sliabh Bhui mast in Askamore. And, it is not at full capacity of 400 yet (I've no idea how many)


So, I have 2 questions:
1. Is there anyone else on this thread who is specifically on that transmission mast that is having a good OR bad experience? Or can someone point me to a thread/comment where it is discussed.

2. How 'bout the phone line - is anyone using it as a home phone, is it good/reliable even at 9pm when most people are streaming their hearts out?

Thanks

I'm on the nearby barrackcroghan but I've friends on Slieve bhui who are having similar speeds to me and are consistent with over a year as are mine
There are serious issues with the same few masts coming up here but we never hear from any of the others

I'm using the phone no issues
Irish landline calls are included only

My first ever real speed slow down happened last night (15 mb vs the usual north of 40,that was around 10pm when I tested)
I notice people posting similar slow downs here last night that normally wouldn't be
It's back above 70 a few minutes ago as per the attached screenshot
I'm about 6kms from barrackcroghan but can also see slieve bhui about 20kms away

ED E

ollie247 wrote: »

2. How 'bout the phone line - is anyone using it as a home phone, is it good/reliable even at 9pm when most people are streaming their hearts out?

The voice traffic will be QoS'd out with its own VLAN or other so that it will never be impacted by demand.

Goreme

You have to stick with the router Imagine give you, right? The router that the external ariel/antenna comes into, that is. You can't just take that out and replace it with another shop bought one, into which you would attach the lead from the exterior Imagine ariel/antenna?

George Sunsnow

Yes you have to use their router
But you can use your own as an access point

People here have done so and I have also though I got Imagine tech to talk me through the process of avoiding ip conflicts

You could start a new thread if you want to do that as it might get lost in this one
Though I think someone ended up putting up detailed instructions

deadl0ck

Goreme wrote: »

You have to stick with the router Imagine give you, right? The router that the external ariel/antenna comes into, that is. You can't just take that out and replace it with another shop bought one, into which you would attach the lead from the exterior Imagine ariel/antenna?

Yep - I basically have their router going to my own that is running Gargoyle. Using Gargoyle I can fully monitor my bandwidth usage and all devices connected etc.

If you want port forwarding you have to ask them to help though.