Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

Chef-1st

I wonder is it just dodgy equipment they're using? Like Chris there, dodgy installs and equipment.
Same with myself on the day of install, took them hours. Couldn't figure out why I was getting only a few meg speedtest results yet the signal strength was really good and all seemed ok their end. Turned out it was a dodgy router. Brand new one out of the box.
Still though...one can't deny it's only an issue in the evenings.

TireeTerror

I can't see how it can NOT be contention. They don't have enough bandwidth for all 400 users to be able to get 30Mb at the same time, in fact they couldn't even get 1.5Mb (1.5 not 15) if they were all on at the same time.

Its bizarre that the tech support people are supporting this "no contention" fallacy.

Chef-1st

In the past month since been with them, I've seen my speeds slowly but surely deteriorate. The speedtest graph says it all really.
It's the same with every wireless broadband provider I've ever dealt with. All the same, great at the start, spouting amazing reliable speeds, but can't hold it.
I'm honestly hoping Imagine is not like that, but it ain't looking good so far.
I'm still with my previous provider Carnsore, at least they didn't charge you 60euro for the privilege of poor wireless broadband.
So this is the last month for Imagine to get the finger out.

Nexarz

So I've been with Vodafone broadband for the last few years getting 6mb and decided to go for imagine since even with peak drops people here still seem to be getting around 10mb which is still faster than what have currently.

Called them on Wednesday and got a call Thursday to say they can install Friday morning.
Apparently I'm only 2.3km from tonabrockyim Galway so hopefully should have a strong signal.

Will post some speed tests in getting over next few days

Chef-1st

I don't understand why anyone would accept 10M at peak times from a wireless broadband provider, who's advertising "FIBRE SPEED BROADBAND", up to 70M, and a min of 30M, for 60euro a month? And that's even with a capped limit too.

If I could get wired broadband, with a solid 5-6M, and a decent ping, I'd take it any day over wireless broadband.

TireeTerror

Chef-1st wrote: »

I don't understand why anyone would accept 10M at peak times from a wireless broadband provider, who's advertising "FIBRE SPEED BROADBAND", up to 70M, and a min of 30M, for 60euro a month? And that's even with a capped limit too.

If I could get wired broadband, with a solid 5-6M, and a decent ping, I'd take it any day over wireless broadband.

Absolutely. It's highly likely that the poster above has never experienced wireless broadband and has been blinded by the potential speed boost.

Having had several wireless providers over the years I can absolutely guarantee you that given the choice, I would never have one again because they are shockingly unreliable and every single company has had customer service levels that are so bad, with an "I do not care what you say because we know there are no viable alternatives" attitude.

Its an absolute fact that this Imagine service is just getting worse and worse based on the reports here and the speeds are only going to be getting lower and lower as more subscribe. The fact Imagine are pretending there is no contention on their network is criminal and its about time someone to these scoundrels to task for the outright lies.

Nexarz

Yea I get what you mean. They are offering 'fibre' but its not fibre. It is though, atleast 100% faster than my 6mb wired that im paying 40e a month for. Personally, I would pay the extra 20 quid for double the speed. The engineer said that it will never drop below 30 :P Do they have that written that they will provide min of 30mbs? If it was sub 15mb all the time then no I wouldn't go for it but if I have 70+mb speeds most of the time then its worth it imo.

diarmuid05

Install ongoing
Getting over 80 in the van

TireeTerror

diarmuid05 wrote: »

Install ongoing
Getting over 80 in the van

Ask them to install it at 8pm this evening.....

df_h

I think some of the people having slow speeds could be due to the router, I first connected my good router to theirs and set the WAN to auto
Speeds I was getting then from my good router were in region of 10mbit, this was due to double NATing I think
Setting my router as AP fixed the problem, tho it leaves the DHCP to their box, which I am not happy about at all since its slow and their router doesnt seem to like NAS with static ip added to its local subnet, so development wise i wasted a day setting things up.

I am still not sure if this WN-600 is limited to 100mbit on its 4 ethernet ports or its a problem with my cat6 cables

I am still getting good speeds on a desktop connected to their router directly (tho like i said connection to their router says 100 not 1000mbit) and continue to test regularly

speedtest.net/results.php?sh=c97693cb25f42f9b316193caa3291d9d&ria=0

terryduff12

Seen load of new signs for imagine around ballina,knockmore and pontoon area there last week couldn't see 1 of them yesterday wonder did they pull out since they didn't get the government contract.

Chef-1st

Yeah I mentioned that in an earlier post. They seem to provide cheap dodgy routers. I'm hoping it is just an equipment related issue and it can be resolved. But I'm still very suspicious of the evening peak time drops. Every service provider I've gone with over the years had contention issues during peak use. Then again, I see Morgana has a pretty perfect speed graph. Very few drops on her tests. She's like the model advertiser to Imagine! So if she can get a reliable service, why can't we?

Ruffty^

Nexarz wrote: »

So I've been with Vodafone broadband for the last few years getting 6mb and decided to go for imagine since even with peak drops people here still seem to be getting around 10mb which is still faster than what have currently.

Called them on Wednesday and got a call Thursday to say they can install Friday morning.
Apparently I'm only 2.3km from tonabrockyim Galway so hopefully should have a strong signal.

Will post some speed tests in getting over next few days

Stay off my mast! Its full I tells ya!

jcd5971

Chef-1st wrote:

If I could get wired broadband, with a solid 5-6M, and a decent ping, I'd take it any day over wireless broadband.

Everyone would but that's a massive if

long_b

Can anyone confirm that this works with Xbox live /Wii U for online multiplayer?

Currently using 3 Mobile Broadband but Xbox constantly signing itself out and Wii U won't allow multilayer gaming

bk

Chef-1st wrote: »

In the past month since been with them, I've seen my speeds slowly but surely deteriorate. The speedtest graph says it all really.

Yup it is the same old story I've seen time and time again over the years with wireless technology.

When a new wireless technology launches, 3G, 4G, fixed wireless, Wimax, LTE fixed wireless, etc. The early adopters do speed tests and get great results and get all excited about it.

Of course their neighbours also hear about the great speeds, they all pile on it and a few months later it has all gone to ****!

I've seen this over and over again over the years on this forum. Every time people with more experience tell them to be cautious, but every time people get excited and think this time it will be different. The reality is wireless can't overcome the laws of physics, bandwidth is very limited and it will never be better then a solid wired connection.

That is why getting the NBP right is so important, even if it takes a few years. FTTH to every home will more then fix the rural broadband problem for the next 100 years.

coffeeJohn92

terryduff12 wrote: »

Seen load of new signs for imagine around ballina,knockmore and pontoon area there last week couldn't see 1 of them yesterday wonder did they pull out since they didn't get the government contract.

I've signed up for this area, was talking to a rep yesterday, he said the mast is to go live end of July start of August.

Surely they can't just pull out of an area after taking signups?

Maybe the signs were pulled down because they reached there 400 quota for this mast....?

diarmuid05

Had to go to work - but speeds were still at 80 when the lads left


Impressed so far - real test will be this evening

Scruff

long_b wrote: »

Can anyone confirm that this works with Xbox live /Wii U for online multiplayer?

Currently using 3 Mobile Broadband but Xbox constantly signing itself out and Wii U won't allow multilayer gaming

xbox live works fine for me. Dont have a headset so cant say if that works but can hear others nattering away

coffeeJohn92 wrote: »

Maybe the signs were pulled down because they reached there 400 quota for this mast....?

Or cause they were illegal and someone got on to them to take them down or be fined...

df_h

Xbox live works (was on battlefront last night), i no longer have an excuse for being crap
Says "NAT Moderate" under xbox one network settings page
Of course since you have no access to the crappy WN-600 router there is nothing one can do about this,

Looks longingly over at the now near useless Asus router with its xbox live optimisation options....

Gonzo

reading the past few pages confirms there is a problem. I doubt its anything to do with the router, if it can get 80 megs during the morning then it should be able to also provide 80 megs at 8pm unless there is congestion going on!

I've been over 15 years reading this forum and practically every wireless service has ended in tears with congestion, bad management and faulty equipment/masts etc.

The sooner Eir roll out their blue line scheme and the NBP (now guaranteed to be real fibre) the better for everyone involved.

editorsean

I tried doing some maths to work out what the average user can download in a day and it looks like it is physically not possible for everyone to download 20GB in an entire 24 hour day if Imagine managed to get 400 customers on a mast, all interested in streaming HD, downloading, etc. as an upgrade over their existing broadband.

Assumptions:

• A mast has 400 customers
• They are evenly divided across 3 sectors
• 100Mbps total real-world bandwidth available per sector
• Ignoring packet loss and other inefficiencies as this bandwidth is shared

Based on these assumptions, let's work out the total capacity over a 24-hour period:

• 100Mbps / 8 = 12.5MB per second
• 12.5MB * 3 = 37.5MB per second (all 3 sectors)
• 37.5MB x 3600 = 135,000MB per hour
• 135,000MB x 24 = 3,240,000MB per day

Looks like a jackpot So let's divide it across the 400 person syndicate...

• 3,240,000MB / 400 = 8,100MB per customer
• 8,100MB / 1024 = 7.91GB per customer

This is under ideal conditions where everyone is downloading / streaming around the clock, consistently making 100% use of the available bandwidth.

Realistically, most people go online in the evening, so let's say 6pm to midnight. So that's 7.91GB / 4 = 1.978GB per day peak time.

Let's double-check my math, i.e. all 400 customers downloading non-stop simultaneously for 6 hours:

• 3 sectors = 300Mbps total capacity
• 300 / 400 = 0.75Mbps / customer
• 0.75 / 8 = 0.09375MB / second
• 0.09375 * 3600 = 337.5MB / hour
• 337.5MB * 6 = 2,025MB peak time
• 2,025MB / 1024 = 1.978GB peak time average per customer

Unless the majority of those signing up to Imagine just use it to check e-mail, Facebook and some light browsing, there's no way a 3 sector mast with 100Mbps usable data throughput per sector can handle 400 customers.

long_b

Reading back through the thread it looks like you need line of sight. If so I'm probably screwed as I'm in a hollow.
Sales guy said I didn't need LOS.
I'm about 6km from the mast

Wing126

Seems like the Imagine sales reps are just full of nothing but lies. From no contention to not needing to be in the line of sight of the mast, it's just one lie after another from them desperately trying to get people to sign up.

I'm reluctant to cancel my reservation as I could do with the speed increase as Eir fibre is 2 years away minimum for me. But I feel like I've only encouraged the lies by agreeing to sign up while knowing about them.

Or can we attribute it to the fact that their equipment seems unfit for it's purpose?

KOR101

terryduff12 wrote: »

Seen load of new signs for imagine around ballina,knockmore and pontoon area there last week couldn't see 1 of them yesterday wonder did they pull out since they didn't get the government contract.

it's madness to make new investments at this point. It's all about recovering what they can from existing investment.

marno21

long_b wrote: »

Reading back through the thread it looks like you need line of sight. If so I'm probably screwed as I'm in a hollow.
Sales guy said I didn't need LOS.
I'm about 6km from the mast

LOS isn't 100% necessary but it strongly helps. Without LOS you have a lesser chance of attaining the 30Mbps needed to signup (if that's still a rule of theirs.)

long_b

marno21 wrote: »

LOS isn't 100% necessary but it strongly helps. Without LOS you have a lesser chance of attaining the 30Mbps needed to signup (if that's still a rule of theirs.)

Thanks very much @marno21
Im about 6km from the mast and most likely will have to no LOS.

Is having /not having 4G coverage from the mobile operators any indicator? As far as I know they're reusing an old Vodafone mast - I think all the operators have their masts clumped together.

imp1

I only signed up with Imagine the other day, using the Ballina mast, I am 10k or so away, landline capable of 4MB, but normal evening speed test comes up closer to 2M - should I just cancel Imagine (assuming I can) and take up the Eircom offer of €45 month inc vat and free local and national calls???????

Wing126

long_b wrote: »

Thanks very much @marno21
Im about 6km from the mast and most likely will have to no LOS.

Is having /not having 4G coverage from the mobile operators any indicator? As far as I know they're reusing an old Vodafone mast - I think all the operators have their masts clumped together.

I don't think the availability of 4G from Mobile Operators is an indicator of the Imagine coverage.

imp1 wrote: »

I only signed up with Imagine the other day, using the Ballina mast, I am 10k or so away, landline capable of 4MB, but normal evening speed test comes up closer to 2M - should I just cancel Imagine (assuming I can) and take up the Eircom offer of €45 month inc vat and free local and national calls???????

While you are likely to get higher speeds thatn your landline, just be aware that no matter how much the sales person guarantees you'll get minimum 30mb, you won't always get that by the looks of people's results. Not to mention nobody knows what's gonna happen when Imagine's licence expires next year.

I'd say if Eir/Siro Fibre is soon coming to .ou then wait, but if like me, Fibre is a good ways away (I'm not even on Eircom's famous blue line for planned Fibre connection), Imagine could be a good substitute for it for the faster speeds. Also, don't forget the extra 15 euro for Imagine.

I'm going with Imagine until a more viable Fibre solution is available. My connection hasn't been established yet anyway, the mast I'm to be connected to isn't going live till the end of next month.

9726_9726

coffeeJohn92 wrote: »

I've signed up for this area, was talking to a rep yesterday, he said the mast is to go live end of July start of August.

Surely they can't just pull out of an area after taking signups?

Maybe the signs were pulled down because they reached there 400 quota for this mast....?

Maybe your local incumbent WISP took it down! It happens!

Also the signs are basically illegal and can attract a €125 litter fine EACH. Hardly ever enforced but I have seen it happen. Sometimes the councils will ring the company and give them 24 hours to take them down before fining them.