Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

listermint

My speeds are grand but the cap needs to be about 30, that's the only Achilles.

Marlow

Ultimanemo wrote: »

Do they have cooling off period

I'd try to read back in the thread and see, how people got on with that one. I don't think it matters. You're stuck either way, once you've signed up.

/M

Homer

We signed up a couple of months ago as we had no other option but have been pleasantly surprised by the service. Speeds have stayed consistently above 30mb and despite watching quite a lot of Netflix most evenings we haven’t had any interruption in service. Suppose it depends on the mast you are on but we would certainly recommend them based on our experience.

Marlow

Homer wrote: »

Speeds have stayed consistently above 30mb

But that's the point. They advertise 70 Mbit/s.

/M

deadl0ck

Marlow wrote: »

But that's the point. They advertise 70 Mbit/s.

/M

The advertise speeds of up to 70 IIRC

SkepticQuark

Marlow wrote: »

But that's the point. They advertise 70 Mbit/s.

/M

"Up to 70mbps" Eir tell us all the time we can get "up to 24mbps" but we actually get 1.5 or so off their line. Imagine is an "up to" 70mbps and apparently a guarantee that they won't serve you unless you can get at least 30mbps.

listermint

Marlow wrote: »

But that's the point. They advertise 70 Mbit/s.

/M

Up to.

Oh and I'm getting over 80 and 90 often

Homer

Marlow wrote: »

But that's the point. They advertise 70 Mbit/s.

/M

No, they don’t. They advertise up to 70 Mbit/s.

Calhoun

At the time in my area it was , 70 on all the signs around the town and the sales rep was guaranteeing 35MB or they wouldn't connect you.

If for the most of your connection period it was relatively high and fast you could understand but that's not always the case. For a while mine was as low as 10mb for allot of the time I used it.

If your getting high download rates enjoy it while you can before they oversell your mast.

Gonzo

George Sunsnow wrote: »

They don’t because they have to manage the limited bandwidth
400 per mast is too many for purists who always want 30 Mb no matter what versus the majority who want something that actually works

They have emailed me as to whether I want a much faster speed which they hope to offer soon
I presume they are on about a 5G service
I said yes of course
If ftth comes first I’ll be on it ,wouldn’t I be mad not to

5G won't be available for years. High chance you'll have FTTH before then. I reckon Imagine's current LTE product will stay the way it is till 2020, they will just add more mast's around the country.

Marlow

Marlow wrote: »

But that's the point. They advertise 70 Mbit/s

deadl0ck wrote: »

up to 70 IIRC

roddy15 wrote: »

"Up to 70mbps"

listermint wrote: »

Up to.

Homer wrote: »

up to 70 Mbit/s.

This is exactly, what's wrong with this country. I can understand people, that have no other choice. And for them, this service is brilliant.

But then again, I've seen other areas, where providers are offering products of 10, 20 or 30 Mbit/s at a lot less than 60 EUR and often with a much higher cap or none ....

Customers get lured in by the "Up to" and tied into an 18 month contract.

The "Up to" isn't even the bad part of it. The bad part is, that there isn't consistancy, of what they're telling people, what the product is supposed to deliver. I've seen posts with varying figures, what sales have stated it's supposed to be: 70, 50, 35, 30. And the reason it's so f***** up, is because they let everyone rip on the full 100 Mbit/s interface speed and have no proper bandwidth management to even it out.

I don't mind ... if somebody is happy paying 60 EUR for a product advertised at 70 Mbit/s but delivering between 10-30 Mbit/s and with a 600 GB/month cap ... Their problem.

But it's funny, when this happens in areas where other providers are offering 15-30 Mbit/s with a 1 TB cap or FUP for 50-55 EUR and a 6 months contract instead. And they deliver that, because they manage their bandwidth.

It's not the product I complain about. It's the advertising standards. It's time that somebody really clamps down on those here.

Either way .. this is the reason, they might be afraid .. because they know, that once they've pissed customers off, they won't come back. Especially, if there are better options. If they delivered an honest product, they wouldn't have that problem. But that's not sexy for sales.

They also advertise it at fiber speed .... FTTH products in Ireland start at 150 Mbit/s .. (dum di dum) for less money than theirs.

/M

The Cush

George Sunsnow wrote: »

They have emailed me as to whether I want a much faster speed which they hope to offer soon
I presume they are on about a 5G service
I said yes of course
If ftth comes first I’ll be on it ,wouldn’t I be mad not to

The 5G standard hasn't been finalised yet, should be commercially ready 2019/2020.

This is probably what they were on about - http://www.huawei.com/en/news/2017/8/WTTxGame-Changer-Superfast-Broadband

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=104366231

Marlow

The Cush wrote: »

This is probably what they were on about - http://www.huawei.com/en/news/2017/8/WTTxGame-Changer-Superfast-Broadband

I wonder, how they're going to deliver those speeds to customers in places, where they already have issues with providing backhaul to bring enough bandwidth in for the current setup.

Often, it's not their sectors, that are overcontended, but the bandwidth that they're bringing to the mast.

More speed to the end-customer won't change that.

If you've got a 600 Mbit/s licensed link to a site and you give 200 Mbit/s to each customer .. all it takes is 3 heavy users.

/M

Ultimanemo

Marlow wrote: »

I wonder, how they're going to deliver those speeds to customers in places, where they already have issues with providing backhaul to bring enough bandwidth in for the current setup.

Often, it's not their sectors, that are overcontended, but the bandwidth that they're bringing to the mast.

More speed to the end-customer won't change that.

If you've got a 600 Mbit/s licensed link to a site and you give 200 Mbit/s to each customer .. all it takes is 3 heavy users.

/M

I thought similar then I said: I don't know much about technology so there must be something I am not aware of.

Marlow

Ultimanemo wrote: »

I thought similar then I said: I don't know much about technology so there must be something I am not aware of.

Nope. Nothing new there .. licensed link frequencies out of urban are getting scarce. So failing to obtain more licensed links or wider spectrum (more cost), you'd need to dig fiber down.

And currently the issue with that is, that even most Urban masts don't have fiber. At least in the west.

In Galway for example, there is no fiber at Thonabrucky .. . and there is also no fiber at Ballinfoyle. Nevermind the mast further out in the county.

And for example in South Dublin, a lot of providers feed rural areas out of three rock .. with ... guess ... ?? Licensed links .... due to the lack of fiber.

/M

rodge123

Marlow wrote: »

I wonder, how they're going to deliver those speeds to customers in places, where they already have issues with providing backhaul to bring enough bandwidth in for the current setup.

Often, it's not their sectors, that are overcontended, but the bandwidth that they're bringing to the mast.

More speed to the end-customer won't change that.

If you've got a 600 Mbit/s licensed link to a site and you give 200 Mbit/s to each customer .. all it takes is 3 heavy users.

/M

Im really concerned that that are lining up their ducks to meet the existing minimum requirements to be excludd from nbp intervention area (30down, 6up) to make a play for getting areas they cover excluded from nbp..just like what eir done.
The big difference been that at least the 300k eir ones will get ftth where as imagine customers will be left with a network forever playing catchup with ever increasing demands that they can't truly meet.
I think naughton would love nothing better than to take credit for another group of users taking out of nbp by a commercial operator.

I hope to dear god I am just been overly paranoid and pessimistic.
That imagine CEO Bolger ain't afraid of a fight and he won't lay down down easily I reckon.

Marlow

rodge123 wrote: »

Im really concerned that that are lining up their ducks to meet the existing minimum requirements to be excludd from nbp intervention area (30down, 6up) to make a play for getting areas they cover excluded from nbp..just like what eir done.

The minimum for the NBP is silly anyhow. It was defined quite a while ago and it would be valid today. It will be outdated by the time the NBP gets awarded.

There is no real forward planning in the department.

/M

rodge123

Marlow wrote: »

The minimum for the NBP is silly anyhow. It was defined quite a while ago and it would be valid today. It will be outdated by the time the NBP gets awarded.

There is no real forward planning in the department.

/M

Agreed, yet no talk of it been updated to reflect increased consumer data demands in last few years

Marlow

rodge123 wrote: »

Agreed, yet no talk of it been updated to reflect increased consumer data demands in last few years

Of course not. That would mean, that they would have to revise everything and restart the whole process.

That can't be good for votes, when you have to admit failure, because you a) are clueless and b) incompetent.

It brings us down the core problem: the dept should focus on building infrastructure into those areas and regulate wholesale pricing to be comptetive. The providers will automatically build the access network then.

Trying to push the access side of things fixes nothing. The core issue isn't solved.

/M

SkepticQuark

Marlow wrote: »

This is exactly, what's wrong with this country. I can understand people, that have no other choice. And for them, this service is brilliant.

But then again, I've seen other areas, where providers are offering products of 10, 20 or 30 Mbit/s at a lot less than 60 EUR and often with a much higher cap or none ....

Customers get lured in by the "Up to" and tied into an 18 month contract.

The "Up to" isn't even the bad part of it. The bad part is, that there isn't consistancy, of what they're telling people, what the product is supposed to deliver. I've seen posts with varying figures, what sales have stated it's supposed to be: 70, 50, 35, 30. And the reason it's so f***** up, is because they let everyone rip on the full 100 Mbit/s interface speed and have no proper bandwidth management to even it out.

I don't mind ... if somebody is happy paying 60 EUR for a product advertised at 70 Mbit/s but delivering between 10-30 Mbit/s and with a 600 GB/month cap ... Their problem.

But it's funny, when this happens in areas where other providers are offering 15-30 Mbit/s with a 1 TB cap or FUP for 50-55 EUR and a 6 months contract instead. And they deliver that, because they manage their bandwidth.

It's not the product I complain about. It's the advertising standards. It's time that somebody really clamps down on those here.

Either way .. this is the reason, they might be afraid .. because they know, that once they've pissed customers off, they won't come back. Especially, if there are better options. If they delivered an honest product, they wouldn't have that problem. But that's not sexy for sales.

They also advertise it at fiber speed .... FTTH products in Ireland start at 150 Mbit/s .. (dum di dum) for less money than theirs.

/M

If you want to clamp down on advertising standards tell ComReg to grow a pair, complaining about companies individually does nothing when the regulator lets them do what they want. The "up to" and poor advertising standards is an industry-wide problem that is not exclusive to Ireland and not exclusive to Imagine. ComReg seems happy with the status quo though so long may the "up to", "unlimited usage" etc. claims continue......

Marlow

roddy15 wrote: »

If you want to clamp down on advertising standards tell ComReg to grow a pair

Oh .. I do on a regular basis. Need more people to do that.

As for complaining about one particular company .. that's not it .. just about one of the ones, that's taking the p*** in more than one way.

/M

George Sunsnow

You hardly expect quango’s created by politicians to clamp down on empty promises when there’s a lot of them in manifesto’s

I pay no heed to Imagine like any company blowing in social media or any avenue to promote their business
That’s capitalism
Paying any heed is a waste of breath,I’d rather research the cheapest holiday or go down the pub for a few tbh Healthier mentally
Customers are exposed to all competing companies and make their decision

SkepticQuark

George Sunsnow wrote: »

You hardly expect quango’s created by politicians to clamp down on empty promises when there’s a lot of them in manifesto’s

I pay no heed to Imagine like any company blowing in social media or any avenue to promote their business
That’s capitalism
Paying any heed is a waste of breath,I’d rather research the cheapest holiday or go down the pub for a few tbh Healthier mentally
Customers are exposed to all competing companies and make their decision

I give you Ofcom, even the Tories have a watchdog that works better than here.

Marlow

roddy15 wrote: »

I give you Ofcom, even the Tories have a watchdog that works better than here.

Jup. They recently reviewed BTs landline rental pricing and decided, that BT has to drop it by 7 GBP, as it was over inflated.

That's the type of regulation, we need here.

/M

George Sunsnow

roddy15 wrote: »

I give you Ofcom, even the Tories have a watchdog that works better than here.

This is not the United Kingdom though
Our politicians don’t like cutting off their noses to spite their faces
You can blame the electorate really
Broadband availability and quality is probably overall better here now though
Go figure

Marlow

George Sunsnow wrote: »

This is not the United Kingdom though

The UK isn't the only place, where the regulator actually does some work.

- In Denmark, the regulator enforced TDC, that they had to roll ADSL to 95% of all homes, country wide within a year, no matter rural or urban (end '99 to end '00). If they didn't, they were fined for not complying, as they are sitting on the incumbent infrastructure. Ireland didn't get DSL for another year or two .. because: Dial-Up Dempsey. Oh wait ... 17 years later and there's still homes in Ireland, that can't get any broadband at all

- In Germany, part of the LTE licenses required, that providers who had obtained a license had to cover rural areas first, before they were allowed to upgrade their urban/metro 3G infrastructure to 4G. They had to have 90+% coverage in rural areas before the first city cells were allowed to be upgraded.

And those are just some small examples.

Here it goes the other way: Comreg 3.5 GHz licensing, that has extensively been used by both bigger and smaller ISPs has been cancelled. All licenses were not renewed.

The new 3.6 GHz license only allows providers to obtain this, if they fork out the money for a nationwide license. Oh .. and you can now only use LTE equipment in that spectrum. No free choice on transmission protocol anymore. (Just because .. there isn't a chance, that somebody could come up with something better than LTE).

Which means, the small providers are out to dry and competition has been removed.

/M

George Sunsnow

Same answer
This is not Denmark
Or a myriad of other well run countries

We are a patronage society,it’s endemic
So don’t expect heavy regulation or moves on pithy things like broadband I’m afraid

ED E

Marlow wrote: »

Denmark
Germany

Apples and oranges. Its like saying oh look what Singapore has done. Great, but not relevant at all to Ireland.

Marlow

ED E wrote: »

Apples and oranges. Its like saying oh look what Singapore has done. Great, but not relevant at all to Ireland.

The only reason it's not relevant for Ireland is because people just accept to get ripped off and that Comreg is useless. They're more interested in going to the pub and having a pint, instead of fixing it. If they fixed it, there would be more money for pints.

So yes .. I believe, it's very relevant for Ireland.

That's the core problem. It's the reason we don't have a decent broadband rollout ... unless somebody figures a way of getting massively rich by doing it.

If it wasn't for Microsoft to threaten to leave Ireland back around 2001, due to lack of high speed broadband for employees etc., we would have had no DSL at all (I know that wasn't the only factor ... but it certainly was one of them). And suddenly the government can push some buttons.

/M

ED E

Disagree.

Problem lies with the Co Cos and ABP/successive governments. The vast majority of homes are commercially served in most developed countries. We need the NBP and fill in tech like TDD thanks to dwelling patterns.