Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

pfx1942

terrarev wrote: »

Thanks but it's definitely not network related. I've reproduced it while every device in the house was off and connected to the royter directly over ethernet using a bare bones Linux system. It's on the Imagine side. It only happens at peak times too.

If router restart helps, it is definitely your side.
If it would be Imagine contention at peak times, restarting router would make no difference.

Router restart causes all local devices to drop connections for period of time and that is why it helps.

Do not discount the device you are testing on as source of heavy usage and if you have devices like android boxes, TV boxes, game consoles, make sure that these devices are powered off from mains, not just in standby, as these type of devices can still use network in standby mode.

I don't have Imagine myself, but I believe you have no access to router and can't check dhcp leases from it, to see if devices are still connected.

But if you do, turn off all devices, restart the router and check dhcp table. If there are any other IP-s in the DHCP table besides the device you use to access router, that device is still on. If any device has static IP, it will not show up in dhcp table.

Most routers also have statistics page, where you can see what is currently using connection. Devices with static IP-s would show up in there.

Hope this helps you to narrow down where the problem is coming from.

If you want to go extreme route. Turn off wifi from router and connect managed switch to router lan. Run all your devices through that managed switch and use snmp to graph traffic on the port that goes to router. :cool:

dufferlover

I'm told our new house is approx 12km from the Rathmore mast. Anyone in here close to it and care to report how it's working for them. Sales have called me and of course want me to reserve my space. We are not moving until the new year but I will reserve if it's worth it.
Thanks in advance, folks.

terrarev

pfx1942 wrote: »

If router restart helps, it is definitely your side.
If it would be Imagine contention at peak times, restarting router would make no difference.

Router restart causes all local devices to drop connections for period of time and that is why it helps.

Do not discount the device you are testing on as source of heavy usage and if you have devices like android boxes, TV boxes, game consoles, make sure that these devices are powered off from mains, not just in standby, as these type of devices can still use network in standby mode.

I don't have Imagine myself, but I believe you have no access to router and can't check dhcp leases from it, to see if devices are still connected.

But if you do, turn off all devices, restart the router and check dhcp table. If there are any other IP-s in the DHCP table besides the device you use to access router, that device is still on. If any device has static IP, it will not show up in dhcp table.

Most routers also have statistics page, where you can see what is currently using connection. Devices with static IP-s would show up in there.

Hope this helps you to narrow down where the problem is coming from.

If you want to go extreme route. Turn off wifi from router and connect managed switch to router lan. Run all your devices through that managed switch and use snmp to graph traffic on the port that goes to router. :cool:

Thanks, I've done a lot that. I've disconnected everything and confirmed there was no leases ( I have the p/w to access the router) apart from the device I was using. There was nothing heavy running on the machine. Imagine can log into the router themselves and view all the stats etc. and they confirmed there was no heavy usage on our side cuasing the issue.

For what it's worth I don't think it's a network problem with imagine either, I think it's a hardware issue on their side. I think the issue is somewhere between the aerial on the house and the router bringing the signal in.

tsue921i8wljb3

dufferlover wrote: »

I'm told our new house is approx 12km from the Rathmore mast. Anyone in here close to it and care to report how it's working for them. Sales have called me and of course want me to reserve my space. We are not moving until the new year but I will reserve if it's worth it.
Thanks in advance, folks.

I'm on that mast though probably a different sector than you would be on. It is fine, not great and not terrible. I came from an older Imagine product 3Mb/3Mb that was really 1Mb down at peak times. LTE is a vast improvement over that but as someone coming from an urban connection you may not be as impressed.

Off peak i.e. after 1am I could get over 90Mb, peak (6 - 10pm) I'd struggle to break 30Mb with some sub 10Mb speeds. Packet loss seems fine though I'm not a gamer. The 20GB daily cap may be an issue for you, it is not for me really.

dufferlover

Reyansh Little Bandage wrote: »

I'm on that mast though probably a different sector than you would be on. It is fine, not great and not terrible. I came from an older Imagine product 3Mb/3Mb that was really 1Mb down at peak times. LTE is a vast improvement over that but as someone coming from an urban connection you may not be as impressed.

Off peak i.e. after 1am I could get over 90Mb, peak (6 - 10pm) I'd struggle to break 30Mb with some sub 10Mb speeds. Packet loss seems fine though I'm not a gamer. The 20GB daily cap may be an issue for you, it is not for me really.

Appreciate that Navi. We are moving to Lismullen if you know it. We will need it for the usual, Netflix, general browsing, while I also run a website that needs to be updated a few times a week with posts and pictures. Fingers crossed it's a runner!

tsue921i8wljb3

dufferlover wrote: »

Appreciate that Navi. We are moving to Lismullen if you know it. We will need it for the usual, Netflix, general browsing, while I also run a website that needs to be updated a few times a week with posts and pictures. Fingers crossed it's a runner!

I would not know the area very well but hopefully they can install for you. They will do a line of sight test and depending on the results the installation will go ahead or be abandoned.

pfx1942

terrarev wrote: »

Thanks, I've done a lot that. I've disconnected everything and confirmed there was no leases ( I have the p/w to access the router) apart from the device I was using. There was nothing heavy running on the machine. Imagine can log into the router themselves and view all the stats etc. and they confirmed there was no heavy usage on our side cuasing the issue.

For what it's worth I don't think it's a network problem with imagine either, I think it's a hardware issue on their side. I think the issue is somewhere between the aerial on the house and the router bringing the signal in.

Most CPE-s wireless ISP-s use can monitor ethernet statistics and problems between radio and router are easily identified.
Link speed, FSC/CRC errors, pause frames and packet drops would clearly show, if there is an issue.
They can also monitor radio statistics and identify if CPE has problems.
RSSI, modulation and SNR levels can be monitored both CPE and basestation side and can be used to identify is there is issue with radio link to customers house.

All this can be done by support technician in the office.

Unfortunately I have no experience with Imagine or their CPE equipment and can't tell, if they have such monitoring options.

What does their support say about your issues?

tsue921i8wljb3

pfx1942 wrote: »

Most CPE-s wireless ISP-s use can monitor ethernet statistics and problems between radio and router are easily identified.
Link speed, FSC/CRC errors, pause frames and packet drops would clearly show, if there is an issue.
They can also monitor radio statistics and identify if CPE has problems.
RSSI, modulation and SNR levels can be monitored both CPE and basestation side and can be used to identify is there is issue with radio link to customers house.

All this can be done by support technician in the office.

Unfortunately I have no experience with Imagine or their CPE equipment and can't tell, if they have such monitoring options.

What does their support say about your issues?

It is most likely contention. It has been observed on several masts around the country. I see it myself on my own connection. I have access to the radio and can see CINR, RSRP, RSRQ etc and despite little variation in these levels I observe slowdowns at peak times.

It comes down to the fact that PtMP wireless at the scale needed to be commercially viable is not really a suitable delivery system for the modern video driven internet.

pfx1942

Reyansh Little Bandage wrote: »

It is most likely contention. It has been observed on several masts around the country. I see it myself on my own connection. I have access to the radio and can see CINR, RSRP, RSRQ etc and despite little variation in these levels I observe slowdowns at peak times.

It comes down to the fact that PtMP wireless at the scale needed to be commercially viable is not really a suitable delivery system for the modern video driven internet.

I assume Imagine uses LTE TDD equipment with GPS sync, 4 sectors per mast 20MHz channel width and ABAB configuration. Not sure what exact equipment they use, but this type of setup does not allow more than 400Mbps per sector (Theoretical maximum if their equipment can use TxBF).

This maximum is not achievable of course, because you will have CPE-s with poor connection that will use up lots off TDD timeslots. If they use beamforming, CPE-s will not be spread out in ideal pattern anyway to get close to maximum.

They could overcome contention by clever QOS, where portion of traffic per customer gets prioritized and rest is shared out using SFQ type queue. Customers with poor snr and modulation get limited timeslots per TDD cycle.

This way customers with good signal will not suffer that much and poor connections would need to be repaired or removed anyway.

Providing reliable video streaming over wireless is not an issue, if done correctly. Bigger problem is reliable video streaming source (cough IPTV).

tsue921i8wljb3

pfx1942 wrote: »

I assume Imagine uses LTE TDD equipment with GPS sync, 4 sectors per mast 20MHz channel width and ABAB configuration. Not sure what exact equipment they use, but this type of setup does not allow more than 400Mbps per sector (Theoretical maximum if their equipment can use TxBF).

This maximum is not achievable of course, because you will have CPE-s with poor connection that will use up lots off TDD timeslots. If they use beamforming, CPE-s will not be spread out in ideal pattern anyway to get close to maximum.

They could overcome contention by clever QOS, where portion of traffic per customer gets prioritized and rest is shared out using SFQ type queue. Customers with poor snr and modulation get limited timeslots per TDD cycle.

This way customers with good signal will not suffer that much and poor connections would need to be repaired or removed anyway.

Providing reliable video streaming over wireless is not an issue, if done correctly. Bigger problem is reliable video streaming source (cough IPTV).

9726 posted earlier about the equipment in use...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=100251935&postcount=802

We see eir saying today that YouTube is now 30% of retail traffic with Netflix another 18%

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/eir-core-network-design

It is my contention, pardon the pun, that wireless systems are fighting a losing battle to try to keep up with the explosion in data use.

pfx1942

Reyansh Little Bandage wrote: »

9726 posted earlier about the equipment in use...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=100251935&postcount=802

We see eir saying today that YouTube is now 30% of retail traffic with Netflix another 18%

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/eir-core-network-design

It is my contention, pardon the pun, that wireless systems are fighting a losing battle to try to keep up with the explosion in data use.

If 9726 is right, then Imagine customers are screwed.
I would not have thought that they would advertise guaranteed 30Mbps on cat3 or cat 4 lte.
I expected cat 5 or 6.

Using 3 sectors per mast does not make sense though.
Imagine has 60MHz bandwidth. 4x20MHz sectors in ABAB and GPS sync would be easily manageable even with overlapping sites.
I highly doubt, that they use 3x20MHz sectors in ABC, this would be planning nightmare.

DL/UL ratio of 66%/33% again is too much wasted upload.
75%/25% or even 80%/20% would utilize available spectrum better. Some ul slots will be of course used for TDD management/bandwidth requests so 80%/20% may not work out on Cat3/4.

So lets say they use Cat3, 80%/20% DL/UL ratio, 4 sectors per site ABAB configuration, that would give 130Mbps down per sector.
400 subscribers per site, 100 per sector, that is still 130Mbps per 100 customers (theoretical maximum).

Real life comes in and 10 customers have CPE moved during storm and modulation has dropped for their CPE from 64QAM to QPSK.
Another 10 have trees grown in front of their CPE and they have dropped to 16QAM. (I know Imagine installers may say, that trees are not an issue, but have they heard of absorption and scattering?)
Theoretical sector throughput would drop from 130Mbps to below 80Mbps.

And Imagine is still happily advertising guaranteed 30Mbps?

There are license free 5GHz equipment in use by other broadband providers in Ireland, that can do more than 300Mbps per 20MHz sector in real life.
Imagine may be falling bit behind using cat3/4, but I expect that they will upgrade to cat5/6 (or even 7/8) at some point.


Eir article is good though.
Google/Youtube traffic is most certainly highest and Netflix is up there also, but there was about 10% increase in traffic when Sky closed cardsharing.
This accounts now a sizeable amount of daily traffic and headache for all broadband providers.

The sooner the court order to shut it down is served for broadband providers, the better. We could all enjoy better speeds in peak times then.

ED E

Wireless systems will always be like buying property on Ailesbury road, you can do it, but if you want more than a 1m x 1m square you're going to be paying through the fecking nose.

Imagines product could theoretically be superfast, but they'd need to buy up 100Mhz nationally and then only sell to a tiny number of customers. Nobody will pay them €400/month to support that.


@Morgana: Long time no see, how are you getting on if still reading this?

tsue921i8wljb3

pfx1942 wrote: »

If 9726 is right, then Imagine customers are screwed.
I would not have thought that they would advertise guaranteed 30Mbps on cat3 or cat 4 lte.
I expected cat 5 or 6.

They don't guarantee 30Mb though. They will only install if they can get 30Mb at the time of installation which is usually morning or early afternoon. After that there are no guarantees as support will be happy to tell you.

pfx1942

Reyansh Little Bandage wrote: »

They don't guarantee 30Mb though. They will only install if they can get 30Mb at the time of installation which is usually morning or early afternoon. After that there are no guarantees as support will be happy to tell you.

That makes it even worse!

They knowingly install connections with low modulation.
If they have all connections per sector with 30Mbps speeds, the maximum capacity of that sector is 30Mbps.

If it is few CPE-s with low modulation, it can still be manageable, but if it is more that 50% they are in deep trouble.

Lets say that 80% of CPE-s are at maximum modulation and sector can do 80Mbps. Even with 100 CPE-s connected, it is possible to provide reliable service for video streaming for most of the customers (known good source of course, not service that comes from east coast of Africa).
It all depends how is their QOS set up.
Contention ratio is always the number of customers per sector, so in Imagines case it can be up to 100/1, if they use scenario I described few posts earlier.

They would need to manage heavier users and low modulations well, to achieve that, but it is not beyond possibility. Yes speed tests and downloads would suffer, but time critical services would work ok.

I have no idea how is their QOS set up, or if they even use it. They could be using FIFO queueing as far as I know and only prioritize their own phone service over other traffic.





Just a little rant in the end as well

For people who happen to read this and have IPTV:

Lots of people think that their broadband is crap because their IPTV is not streaming.

IPTV is not reliable service. It is run by organized criminals (by that I mean no taxes are paid and service is stolen from Sky/Virgin). Their interest is not to provide reliable service, but to make lots of money. Law wont touch them and they fob you off saying, that "It's your broadband, mate. It is too slow."

You can easily call their bluff tough.

Do following.

Ping 8.8.8.8 and ping IPTV source at the same time (make sure to use cable connection to router, wifi can be unreliable).
Play your IPTV.

When it starts to glitch, see if pings to 8.8.8.8 are constantly higher than 100ms (few pings higher here and there make no difference, it has to be constant), if they are not over 100ms, your broadband is ok.

If pings to IPTV source are high, but 8.8.8.8 is ok, your IPTV service provider does not have fast enough broadband service to serve all of his customers. Your own broadband is still ok.

If pings to IPTV source and 8.8.8.8 are both ok, but IPTV still glitches, then your IPTV service provider does not have enough resources in his streaming server to serve all his customers, because you are not pinging his server, but router/firewall before it.

Guy who sells you the box, is not your IPTV service provider, he buys the lines online as well.

End of rant

Marlow

pfx1942 wrote: »

If 9726 is right, then Imagine customers are screwed.

It is and they are .. as you can see from the many complaints in this thread.

pfx1942 wrote: »

So lets say they use Cat3, 80%/20% DL/UL ratio, 4 sectors per site ABAB configuration, that would give 130Mbps down per sector.
400 subscribers per site, 100 per sector, that is still 130Mbps per 100 customers (theoretical maximum).

Here comes the next bottleneck: A lot of the rural masts they use don't have fiber connectivity. So they'll have to haul traffic off the mast using a licensed link .. often 20-40km to the next mast .. until they hit fiber. Even with XPic and dual radio, a link like that often comes in at 500 maximum 650 Mbit/s. So your total of 130 MBit/s per 100 customers, 400 customers per site = 520 Mbit/s is your max anyhow. Because the backhaul won't bring more bandwidth in.

And yes, they could buy a second licensed link, but I've yet to see a site, where they've done that.

ED E wrote: »

Wireless systems will always be like buying property on Ailesbury road, you can do it, but if you want more than a 1m x 1m square you're going to be paying through the fecking nose.

The problem is not wireless systems. The problem is how you advertise your fixed wireless products, what speeds you define and promise and what you charge. Fixed wireless is also not the solution for everybody, but it's solves broadband needs for a lot of people that have no other possibilities. And often comes in cheaper or near the same price as phone line rental ... before you add broadband to it.

Lots of fixed wireless providers out there that actually give realistic figures of what they deliver and don't completely oversubscribe their systems. Irish Broadbands Breeze product was a perfect example of a well managed fixed wireless network, where what you got, was what it said on the tin .. because it was managed properly and marketing wasn't allowed to go mad. That ended when they were bought ......

60 EUR/month for something advertised as 70 Mbit/s, tested at 30 Mbit/s and then often delivering under 10 Mbit/s and to the point of useless, never mind the support (or lack thereof) that comes with it, is not what I would call well managed. Just a calculation of above figures tells a 5th grader, that it's not going to deliver.

/M

pfx1942

Marlow wrote: »

It is and they are .. as you can see from the many complaints in this thread.



Here comes the next bottleneck: A lot of the rural masts they use don't have fiber connectivity. So they'll have to haul traffic off the mast using a licensed link .. often 20-40km to the next mast .. until they hit fiber. Even with XPic and dual radio, a link like that often comes in at 500 maximum 650 Mbit/s. So your total of 130 MBit/s per 100 customers, 400 customers per site = 520 Mbit/s is your max anyhow. Because the backhaul won't bring more bandwidth in.

And yes, they could buy a second licensed link, but I've yet to see a site, where they've done that.

/M

I think you are hinting to IP20C radios here.
I think Comreg does not give more than 40Mhz licenses at 11Ghz and 13Ghz. So you are right. 680Mbps is max.
If link is shorter and 18Ghz 55Mhz license is used you can get close to 1Gbps.

Marlow

pfx1942 wrote: »

I think you are hinting to IP20C radios here.
I think Comreg does not give more than 40Mhz licenses at 11Ghz and 13Ghz. So you are right. 680Mbps is max.
If link is shorter and 18Ghz 55Mhz license is used you can get close to 1Gbps.

Doesn't really matter what brand it is, but yeah .. my knowledge mainly circles around Ceragon, SAF, SIAE and a few other bits and bobs.

The tech limitations is the same for them all though.

11 GHz is 40 MHz max, 13, 15 and 18 GHz is 56 MHz max. XPic then is dual-polarity, both polarities running same frequencies.

If your link is over 20km, you're unlikely to get anything else than 11 GHz. Over 35km you're at 7 GHz.

So yes ... at optimum and the distances we're talking, 40 Mhz max. That's 680 Mbit/s, if you archieve optimum. Virgin at least will buy multiple links and bundle them. I've yet to see a site, where Imagine have forked out for that .. and I've seen a few.

And yes .. Virgin do feed some villages/towns with licensed link infrastructure due to lack of actual fiber availability. A lot of the old MMDS deflector masts have been upgraded as data link hubs.

/M

pfx1942

Marlow wrote: »

Doesn't really matter what brand it is, but yeah .. my knowledge mainly circles around Ceragon, SAF, SIAE and a few other bits and bobs.

The tech limitations is the same for them all though.

11 GHz is 40 MHz max, 13, 15 and 18 GHz is 56 MHz max. XPic then is dual-polarity, both polarities running same frequencies.

If your link is over 20km, you're unlikely to get anything else than 11 GHz. Over 35km you're at 7 GHz.

So yes ... at optimum and the distances we're talking, 40 Mhz max. That's 680 Mbit/s, if you archieve optimum. Virgin at least will buy multiple links and bundle them. I've yet to see a site, where Imagine have forked out for that .. and I've seen a few.

And yes .. Virgin do feed some villages/towns with licensed link infrastructure due to lack of actual fiber availability. A lot of the old MMDS deflector masts have been upgraded as data link hubs.

/M

That brings up another question.

How many masts they have to go through before they hit fiber?
Are all these masts also serving another 400 customers?

It starts to sound really horrible.
Let your marketing go mad and advertise speeds you cant provide. Then let your engineering to worry about the problems without financing them properly.
Perfect management

Marlow

pfx1942 wrote: »

That brings up another question.

How many masts they have to go through before they hit fiber?
Are all these masts also serving another 400 customers?

One particular example ?
- North Co. Galway over 20km to a Mast in the city (that has no fiber) and from there to another mast with fiber.

And that last hop is still over 8km, so you can't do it with 80GHz .. so it'll be most likely be 18 GHz or the likes .. meaning 950 Mbit/s for the 2 masts (or 800 customers) combined.

Customers are only limited to the 100 Mbit/s interface of the radio. So in theory 10 customers (if on different sectors) can max out the entire bandwidth. Until they hit the 20 GB daily cap that is.

This is the reason, why a fixed wireless provider that sells 10-20 Mbit/s FWA at 35-40 EUR/month is a much more sustainable model. But that doesn't go well with Marketing, who in reality want to sell fiber where there is none, but charge the same price or more. Or refridgerators to eskimos.

/M

seanvanseanvan

Coming up on a year now with Imagine and to be honest I can't fault them in the slightest.

pfx1942

Marlow wrote: »

One particular example ?
Customers are only limited to the 100 Mbit/s interface of the radio. So in theory 10 customers (if on different sectors) can max out the entire bandwidth. Until they hit the 20 GB daily cap that is.

This is the reason, why a fixed wireless provider that sells 10-20 Mbit/s FWA at 35-40 EUR/month is a much more sustainable model. But that doesn't go well with Marketing, who in reality want to sell fiber where there is none, but charge the same price or more. Or refridgerators to eskimos.

/M

That is very valid point.

I completely agree, that fixed wireless provider selling packages, that they can actually provide, is much better model. At least you will not be starved of connection at peak times, even if your off peak speed is not as high as Imagines.

But I still believe, that Imagine could improve their customer experience by using well tailored QOS policies.
I think, that people usually don't complain or even run speed tests, until they run into problems with their connection.

Marlow

pfx1942 wrote: »

I think, that people usually don't complain or even run speed tests, until they run into problems with their connection.

That is indeed the norm. Less than 10 mbit/s will get you in trouble in most households with 2 or 3 teenagers on Snapchat, YouTube and Netflix though.

And the 20 GB daily cap gets anyone in trouble, that has a game console, as the games now are bigger than that to download.

/M

pfx1942

Marlow wrote: »

That is indeed the norm. Less than 10 mbit/s will get you in trouble in most households with 2 or 3 teenagers on Snapchat, YouTube and Netflix though.

And the 20 GB daily cap gets anyone in trouble, that has a game console, as the games now are bigger than that to download.

/M

You are right. Games are 40 - 60 GB and waiting up to 3 days to download it would piss everyone off.

That reminded me the happy days of late 1999 with my 28kbps US Robotics modem and Napster. Found a song, waited days to download it. Had to get off the internet every time someone wanted to use the phone and in the end the file was corrupt.

George Sunsnow

No issues here,on imagine Lte for over a year now,mostly 40 to 50 in the evenings and often 90 during the day
The point made that people don't test unless there are issues is very valid

The number complaining here are actually very few
There are a few here who will tell you while it's not 30mb in the evenings for them,it's a lot faster than what fixed line broadband used get them
There are a few here who don't have the service at all who are constantly complaining and there's a few here who are on boards anyway who have no issues

In short,try to leave sky in contract or most others and you'll know all about it
With these,you are charged a max €100

It's a stopgap untill ftth reaches me and I'm pretty happy with it after well over a year ,everything is working well compared to my old pathetic 2mb or less fixed line so called broadband that I used relatively speaking pay through the nose for

The sample size here is small,tiny in fact considering there's over 16,000 connected to imagine Lte
Most of them are connected because frankly their alternatives are shoite
For those of us that remember dial up,that does change,not fast enough but change it does so here's hoping
Meanwhile dissing a limited technology for the sake of it,if it's a useful stopgap seems wearily pointless to me

km79

seanvanseanvan wrote: »

Coming up on a year now with Imagine and to be honest I can't fault them in the slightest.

Same
Been a godsend
And broadband is going to be a priority when we move house in a few years

Goreme

George Sunsnow wrote: »

No issues here,on imagine Lte for over a year now,mostly 40 to 50 in the evenings and often 90 during the day
The point made that people don't test unless there are issues is very valid

The number complaining here are actually very few
There are a few here who will tell you while it's not 30mb in the evenings for them,it's a lot faster than what fixed line broadband used get them
There are a few here who don't have the service at all who are constantly complaining and there's a few here who are on boards anyway who have no issues

In short,try to leave sky in contract or most others and you'll know all about it
With these,you are charged a max €100

It's a stopgap untill ftth  reaches me and I'm pretty happy with it after well over a year ,everything is working well compared to my old pathetic 2mb or less fixed line so called broadband that I used relatively speaking pay through the nose for

The sample size here is small,tiny in fact considering there's over 16,000 connected to imagine Lte
Most of them are connected because frankly their alternatives are shoite
For those of us that remember dial up,that does change,not fast enough but change it does so here's hoping
Meanwhile dissing a limited technology for the sake of it,if it's a useful stopgap seems wearily pointless to me

I'm the same, I have Imagine LTE for 14 months now and find it excellent. A few weeks in I had intermittent problems. I was able to get through to customer service easily enough. They had me track the problem for a couple of days and when when the problem recurred the third time they said they would send someone out to fix it. A two person crew came out in a couple of days and replaced the outside receiver and router with a different model. I haven't had any problems in the year since.
Now I do sympathise with people here who do have genuine problems with Imagine Customer Service, or unsolved technical issues. Aslo I'm not a gamer, so I definitely see and agree that the 20GB limit is a BIG problem for them (the kids are youngish still and use youTube or online games - and also stream TV [again the 20GB limit can be a problem there too - I would like it increased - or at least allow you a total of 600GB cumulative allowance])
As someone/a family who struggled with 0.5Mbps!!! with a Three dongle/receiver stuck to the window for E30 or whatever silly price I had as a monthly allowance, I find that Imagine LTE has worked out very well overall for us. I even use the landline, as for some inexplicable reason - all mobile phone signal are intermittent in the centre of the house, (this may be because I built all the house's outer walls with foil backed insulated plasterboard inside the blockwork?), and its good to know if someone can't reach me on the mobile, I tell them to try the landline.
Again, its bad for those people for whom there have had major technical and Cust Service problems, but I would say to anyone, its definitely worth a trial if you have no other alternatives - it has been a success for a lot of people. And one year on, the speeds also seem to be fine. I am in Co. Meath receiving off the Rathmore mast.

rodge123

Goreme wrote: »

I'm the same, I have Imagine LTE for 14 months now and find it excellent. A few weeks in I had intermittent problems. I was able to get through to customer service easily enough. They had me track the problem for a couple of days and when when the problem recurred the third time they said they would send someone out to fix it. A two person crew came out in a couple of days and replaced the outside receiver and router with a different model. I haven't had any problems in the year since.
Now I do sympathise with people here who do have genuine problems with Imagine Customer Service, or unsolved technical issues. Aslo I'm not a gamer, so I definitely see and agree that the 20GB limit is a BIG problem for them (the kids are youngish still and use youTube or online games - and also stream TV [again the 20GB limit can be a problem there too - I would like it increased - or at least allow you a total of 600GB cumulative allowance])
As someone/a family who struggled with 0.5Mbps!!! with a Three dongle/receiver stuck to the window for E30 or whatever silly price I had as a monthly allowance, I find that Imagine LTE has worked out very well overall for us. I even use the landline, as for some inexplicable reason - all mobile phone signal are intermittent in the centre of the house, (this may be because I built all the house's outer walls with foil backed insulated plasterboard inside the blockwork?), and its good to know if someone can't reach me on the mobile, I tell them to try the landline.
Again, its bad for those people for whom there have had major technical and Cust Service problems, but I would say to anyone, its definitely worth a trial if you have no other alternatives - it has been a success for a lot of people. And one year on, the speeds also seem to be fine. I am in Co. Meath receiving off the Rathmore mast.

I too suffer with poor mobile phone coverage in the house due to foil backed insualtion in a new build.

Why phone did you purchase to use with Imagine? Easy to setup?

Goreme

rodge123 wrote: »

I too suffer with poor mobile phone coverage in the house due to foil backed insualtion in a new build.

Why phone did you purchase to use with Imagine? Easy to setup?

I just plugged my old standard landline phone which I previously used, into the Imagine router. No setup needed, it connects straight away.

George Sunsnow

Ditto ,using a Siemens dect phone here,I just plugged it in and away she went
Only landline numbers are included
Ringing mobiles will cost you,the rates are on their site

During a power cut you will have no phone though as obviously their modem will be off
They usually give you a local area landline number
If you don’t know it just ring your mobile from the landline

bwana_dik

Have Imagine for about 4 months. Previously getting roughly 3.5Mbs on ADSL from eir (promised fibre to cabinet, but cabinet is 1800m from house - no go).
Now getting at least 40 Mbs at all times, generally in range of 60 Mbs and 95 Mbs at times.
Hit the 20GB limit a few times, I'm not a gamer.
Located about 3.5k from middle of Dundalk, I can see allsorts of options over the fields - SIRO, Virgin, eir - none of them available to me, and no short-term prospect of being available either.

Mighty pleased with Imagine so far, I would imagine (no pun intended) there are many in a similar position to me and with the same opinion. Comparing a product that is actually available with others which are not is unfair in my opinion. Sure, if you have fibre et al. available, go for it.