Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

Gonzo

deadl0ck wrote: »

In fairness 5mb is not "barely enough to load google or any website."
I had 5MB with Eircom for years before I switched to Imagine and that worked for Netflix no problem.
It's not what he's paying for, but saying it's barely enough for google is a bit over exaggerating....

He gets 5meg sometimes and somtimes considerably lower, so a fairly poor connection and certainly not acceptable at 60 euros per month considering what is advertised. I had an 8/9 meg connection up to March 2017 which was grand till about 2015.

By 2016 I was finding streaming networks less stable with higher bitrates, 1080p was out of the question with plenty of buffering, even 720p would occassionaly pause, reduce in quality or skip, less than ideal. Sometimes I would default to 576p for a smooth experience at the expense of a slightly blurry but stable image.

What i'm really on about is now that we're in 2020, single digit speeds are completely unacceptable from a 'fibre' broadband' provider claiming speeds up to 150 Mbps. Imagine should not be allowing their service to buckle to such slow speeds in the evenings for any customer.

Mortelaro

rayfitzharris wrote: »

Gone to the dogs this evening. :mad:





Ethernet this time.

That's a reason to break the contract in my opinion
No service

Quin_Dub

The good and bad over the last day or so

Gonzo

Quin_Dub wrote: »

The good and bad over the last day or so

alot of contention there, great speeds in the early part of the day, then single digits in the evening when you need it the most.

rlaffey

Gonzo wrote: »

alot of contention there, great speeds in the early part of the day, then single digits in the evening when you need it the most.

This is practically identical to my experience over the last month. Today I'm getting 200+, tonight I'll be under 5, pretty much a certainty.

Interestingly they called me again today to follow up further and seemed to step back from yesterdays statement of 5mb being acceptable.

They did however get into a lot of detail on the devices I've got connected, and my network topology (I don't use their router for devices, I run my own mesh system) my guess is they were looking to blame those for the degradation. All my tests sent to them were done via direct cable connection with no other devices connected. They actually disabled wireless to ensure the only connected device was my laptop during tests.......just seems like they're looking for something to blame it on (on my side) rather than actually working past 8pm and and seeing what users are truly experiencing.

Mortelaro

god's toy wrote: »

Yep my antenna is pointing towards barrackcroghan one so Id suppose that's it.

I don't think you're on barrackcroghan
Imagine are pushing Rathdrum with a new mast in the area which is currently empty
Hence your speed
They're working Ashford, Glenealy and Rathdrum areas at the moment
You might want to disconnect their van batteries...

god's toy

Mortelaro wrote: »

I don't think you're on barrackcroghan
Imagine are pushing Rathdrum with a new mast in the area which is currently empty
Hence your speed
They're working Ashford, Glenealy and Rathdrum areas at the moment
You might want to disconnect their van batteries...

The mast in Rathdrum wasn't theirs at the time I was connected, was about 3 months after it went live, they have never said anything to me or the bloke next door about moving us to a different one. I found a photo I took of the guys laptop when he was setting it up and it says the high-site was/is Ballintombay

touch wood its always been a good connection...

Mortelaro

god's toy wrote: »

The mast in Rathdrum wasn't theirs at the time I was connected, was about 3 months after it went live, they have never said anything to me or the bloke next door about moving us to a different one. I found a photo I took of the guys laptop when he was setting it up and it says the high-site was/is Ballintombay

touch wood its always been a good connection...

That's not Barrackcroghan then, it's a new site near Greenan village
It's going to be actively pushed in their advertising drive next week
It wouldn't be too far off a similar vector from Rathdrum as Croghan but obviously an awful awful lot nearer to you
Its new so empty
My advice regarding their Van's stands

My speed atm is 52 down 13 up

bertie4evr

We had this installed today. When the installer was doing their initial test it was at 125mb, then up to 130mb then 127mb. All good, go ahead.



15 minutes after they left I had a go on Wifi and it was 5mb. Went closer to the router (Practically on top of it) and it's barely hitting 7mb.



All these speeds were within an hour of each other. This evening the speeds aren't even hitting 1mb.



Surely there's something wrong here? Is there anything I can do here?

Headshot

bertie4evr wrote: »

We had this installed today. When the installer was doing their initial test it was at 125mb, then up to 130mb then 127mb. All good, go ahead.



15 minutes after they left I had a go on Wifi and it was 5mb. Went closer to the router (Practically on top of it) and it's barely hitting 7mb.



All these speeds were within an hour of each other. This evening the speeds aren't even hitting 1mb.



Surely there's something wrong here? Is there anything I can do here?

You need to connect directly to the router using a network cable (cat 5e cable) to really test

Testing via wifi is a waste of time

wotzgoingon

This thread me reminds me of the time a rep came to my parents house trying to sell DSL broadband. Standard 2Mb for a country location is all they can get. He told them he will test to see what speeds they can get. He had a wireless device to test the connection.

When they told me he tested the connection I said did he hook up to the phone line, They said no. So I said how can he test the phone line speeds without connecting to the phone line.

He tricked my parents and I don't know how many other people going around with this wireless device. I forget what speeds he told them they could get.

Unless of course they had a wireless box connected to the phone line outside the house which I really doubt and his device connected up to that.

ED E

bertie4evr wrote: »

We had this installed today. When the installer was doing their initial test it was at 125mb, then up to 130mb then 127mb. All good, go ahead.
15 minutes after they left I had a go on Wifi and it was 5mb. Went closer to the router (Practically on top of it) and it's barely hitting 7mb.

All these speeds were within an hour of each other. This evening the speeds aren't even hitting 1mb.

Surely there's something wrong here? Is there anything I can do here?

Headshot wrote: »

You need to connect directly to the router using a network cable (cat 5e cable) to really test

Testing via wifi is a waste of time

While you're right Headshot he needn't bother.


150Mb sold to 400 homes or thereabouts. Take an average of 3 people per home thats 1200 people sharing 150Mb. Even if only 10% are online at 7 or 8PM that cell is oversubscribed to beeeejaysus.

Headshot

ED E wrote: »

While you're right Headshot he needn't bother.


150Mb sold to 400 homes or thereabouts. Take an average of 3 people per home thats 1200 people sharing 150Mb. Even if only 10% are online at 7 or 8PM that cell is oversubscribed to beeeejaysus.

That's ridiculous

I cannot wait for the day when NBP destroys Imagine's LTE venture but they are like cockroaches and will probably go into the fibre reseller route then

god's toy

Do we know what backend connection/capacity each cell/site has? You would think they would have to provide some sort of proof of spare capacity at peek times after all the complaints?

Quin_Dub

god's toy wrote: »

Do we know what backend connection/capacity each cell/site has? You would think they would have to provide some sort of proof of spare capacity at peek times after all the complaints?

Why ?

Nobody stops them calling it "5G" or "Fibre" either.

There seems to be absolutely no control over what providers can claim about their service here.

Grab All Association

Headshot wrote: »

That's ridiculous

I cannot wait for the day when NBP destroys Imagine's LTE venture but they are like cockroaches and will probably go into the fibre reseller route then

They're selling their snake oil here in my village and the farmers are signing up in the droves despite eircom DP' outside their doors. They wholeheartedly believe fibre is old technology and it's Fianna Fáil on a local level telling them this! THANKFULLY there's no line of sight in my part of the village and everyone has FTTH installed.

Gonzo

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Why ?

Nobody stops them calling it "5G" or "Fibre" either.

There seems to be absolutely no control over what providers can claim about their service here.

Imagine will continue to get away with it. They are now calling their service a 'Terabyte Connection' along with the 5g and fibre buzzwords as it will continue to impress those who believe everything written on an official website.

tuxy

Ireland needs both a telecom and advertising standards regulator.....

Ultimanemo

Grab All Association wrote: »

They're selling their snake oil here in my village and the farmers are signing up in the droves despite eircom DP' outside their doors. They wholeheartedly believe fibre is old technology and it's Fianna Fáil on a local level telling them this! THANKFULLY there's no line of sight in my part of the village and everyone has FTTH installed.

ED E

god's toy wrote: »

Do we know what backend connection/capacity each cell/site has? You would think they would have to provide some sort of proof of spare capacity at peek times after all the complaints?

*peak

Backhaul to core isnt their main issue, spectrum is.

Grab All Association

Gonzo wrote: »

He gets 5meg sometimes and somtimes considerably lower, so a fairly poor connection and certainly not acceptable at 60 euros per month considering what is advertised. I had an 8/9 meg connection up to March 2017 which was grand till about 2015.

By 2016 I was finding streaming networks less stable with higher bitrates, 1080p was out of the question with plenty of buffering, even 720p would occassionaly pause, reduce in quality or skip, less than ideal. Sometimes I would default to 576p for a smooth experience at the expense of a slightly blurry but stable image.

What i'm really on about is now that we're in 2020, single digit speeds are completely unacceptable from a 'fibre' broadband' provider claiming speeds up to 150 Mbps. Imagine should not be allowing their service to buckle to such slow speeds in the evenings for any customer.

I’d say it was well well below 2mb for you for that to be happening. Even people I knew on the NBS 3mb(?) who luckily got the satellite “broadband” option could stream video at a reasonable quality. Rté Player etc.

Before I had 1000mb FTTH, I had <3mb ADSL with Vodafone. 2.7mbps 3 miles+ from the exchange+ Non branded Motorola Netopia router I purchased from the USA.

I could watch VOD, download to my SkyHD (later Sky Q) Now TV etc. I played GTA online on my PS4. Streaming wasn’t exactly full HD quality for sure but it wasn’t as piśš poor quality as the old Sky digibox/TV3 on Saorview.

If I wasn’t part of the 300,000 I wouldn’t have gave up that rock solid 2,7mbps ADSL for Imagine even if I had line of sight. I was also on old T&Cs which was truly unlimited downloads. One memorable occasion during and after Storm Ophelia my speed was over the 3mbs for two weeks.

As I suggested on here before, a number of boardies should set up a Twitter called Imagine Fraudband posting their poor speeds tagging Comreg, ASAI, Rté and local press etc.

Mortelaro

Imagine are on steroids with me lately
Haven't tested in a while
Probably a good sign

215 down 12.5 up

I'll test around 9pm and see how it is then

user1842

What router are Imagine currently supplying.

They just upgraded my parents router and my father is saying there are no Ethernet ports on the router.

Is this true?

Tommy Lagahan

Mortelaro wrote: »

Imagine are on steroids with me lately
Haven't tested in a while
Probably a good sign

215 down 12.5 up

I'll test around 9pm and see how it is then

Don't jinx it!

user1842 wrote: »

What router are Imagine currently supplying.

They just upgraded my parents router and my father is saying there are no Ethernet ports on the router.

Is this true?

I got hooked up back in october and there's ethernet ports on mine, my asus router works fine as an access point from it.

TopTec

user1842 wrote: »

What router are Imagine currently supplying.

They just upgraded my parents router and my father is saying there are no Ethernet ports on the router.

Is this true?

I've got one of the newer ones, white thing with 2 aerials and and orange circular circle on the right. Might be a Huawei? This does have ethernet ports as normal.


TT

Nyum Nyum

ED E wrote: »

*peak

Backhaul to core isnt their main issue, spectrum is.

*isn't

Mitch Connor

Can/Will Imagine install their antenna on to a pole?

My house has External Wall Insulation and the wife is loath to get any installers drilling holes in the wall because of that. I know Imagine (nor Sky) will touch it as it is not a standard install.

My current plan for Sky is to put a pole in back garden (i've checked the position we'd need the dish to be pointing and that should be fine) - something like this: https://www.satworld.ie/patio-ground-mount-sky-dish-900mm-x-33mm-3-x-1-1-4.html

For Imagine, assuming I can get LoS from this location, would Imagine have an issue putting their stuff either on that pole or a similar one?

Mortelaro

Yes imagine will install in a pole
Their own though
Too much wind load with a dish on the same pole,you'd be losing connection half the time

bennyineire

Mortelaro wrote: »

Yes imagine will install in a pole
Their own though
Too much wind load with a dish on the same pole,you'd be losing connection half the time

Satellite line of site is FAR more critical than imagine's, if the pole is good enough for the satellite then it would be more than good enough for imagines antenna

Galway_guy_33

Been with them a few years, speeds nothing amazing 10 - 20 MBPS but was happy enough, Over the last few months my router keeps restarting, logged a call was told its a known issue with the router.

Engineers came out today replaced both the Antenna & Router (newer Gemtek Model), shortly after they left started to notice my laptop keeps losing its internet connection (not wifi) for a few seconds at a time but recovers without restarting anything, so annoying now. Trying a ping external to www.rte.ie during this time I get “Request timed out”, this only happens for a few seconds then the all is ok again, but its happening a few times every min or so.

Same issue with phones & Ipad over wifi. Connected direct using ethernet cable to the router same issue, router has all Leds lit up as normal e.g Sys, two bar signal led. Router never restarts or drops leds e.g. Signal strength.

Rang them a few times today, they don’t seem to know what wrong, talk about locking the cell, or moving me to another site.

I suspect it’s a faulty or misconfigured router, or signaling issue as my signal strength used to be 3 bars now it up and down from 1 to 2 bars.

Anyone seen anything like this before with Imagine?