Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

robert muldoon

long_b wrote: »

What's the term on the 150/€60 Vodafone contract do you know please?

I suspect it's an 18 month contract but I don't know for certain, if you find out let me know - thanks

irishchris

after couple excellent weeks since they upgraded the equipment here the speeds have been absolutely appalling today. here is an example of one of the highest tests today



not impressed that i need to contact them AGAIN after only few weeks on the service

robert muldoon

irishchris wrote: »

after couple excellent weeks since they upgraded the equipment here the speeds have been absolutely appalling today. here is an example of one of the highest tests today



not impressed that i need to contact them AGAIN after only few weeks on the service

Let us know what they say- thanks

robbiep958

Regarding the vodafone 150gb .. This is available for purchase once your take the bill pay 50gb/month plan .. Its an addon that you can get on the plan an extra 100gb for 10Euro making it 150gb for 60/month . Not Bad about time

irishchris

robert muldoon wrote: »

Let us know what they say- thanks

Will do.. Still he going speeds averaging 6mb/s. I'm hoping this is a mast or network issue and not contention or faulty equipment again.

robert muldoon

robbiep958 wrote: »

Regarding the vodafone 150gb .. This is available for purchase once your take the bill pay 50gb/month plan .. Its an addon that you can get on the plan an extra 100gb for 10Euro making it 150gb for 60/month . Not Bad about time

And I am sure t hat means an 18 month contract

irishchris

robert muldoon wrote: »

Let us know what they say- thanks

Totally down now. Internet unavailable and no sync light on modem.. Feel sorry for whichever person answers the phone to me tomorrow at imagine

Wing126

That's shockin' to hear Chris. Sucks that you've been having so many issues!

Wonder what it could be. Weather perhaps?

jfcunniffe

This is kind of hard to find on their website its right down at the bottom of the page under the code of practice the more people makes a complaint then more they have to listen.


HOW TO MAKE A COMPLAINT TO IMAGINE

By Telephone 1890 929 008

In writing to
Escalations team, Imagine,
Unit 6, Sandyford Business Centre
Blackthorn Road
Dublin 18.

By Fax 01-4375001

By Email complaints imagine.ie

marno21

The 12am - 7am slot must have been getting seriously abused on the network.

But then again if you're going to offer a data limit on a service that can be fulfilled in 30/40 minutes, for 60 quid a month, it's a major issue.

chris_ie

Was looking forward to this coming to my area, however now that they've changed their tune regarding the downloads between 12am-7am I'm not so sure. Fair enough if you were doing it every night and they gave you advanced warning, but from morgana's experience of using it one night and getting throttled within minutes/hours of being sent the warning mail, thats not good at all. My current provider is really slow in the evenings (1-3mb) but I can download game updates or backups if needed in the early hours when there is less traffic and no caps.

morgana

I've now upgraded my Asus RT-N66U firmware to the latest version (Merlin 380.59) which gives some nice traffic monitoring options (even per connected device, saved on attached USB drive). At least i know much better whats going on traffic-wise in the absence of an official usage monitoring portal.


However, I should not have to do this, nor would the average user (and I am no expert, just an enthusiastic hobbyist :P) have the means to do so. The provided router also does not have traffic monitoring from what I can see.
Networx also is a good alternative for traffic monitoring, if set to monitor the router rather than the PC it is installed on.

We still need official clarification of downloads in the 10 to 7 am time slot, has anyone got recent statements?

Gonzo

marno21 wrote: »

The 12am - 7am slot must have been getting seriously abused on the network.

But then again if you're going to offer a data limit on a service that can be fulfilled in 30/40 minutes, for 60 quid a month, it's a major issue.

if they are thinking of changing the data allowance to 20 gigs per day 24/7, then this service is not worth it for anyone other than the absolute lightest of users. You'd be better off on classic ADSL. Steam a few tv shows/movies in HD, some youtube, download a few patches and general browsing and your daily cap will be blown especially if a whole family is depending on it.

morgana

Not quite. It is still a huge improvement over what people in rural areas had available before. For instance, Ripplecom's highest cap is 150 gig/month for 55 Euro. And you'd have to be able to get "classic AdSL" in the first place. Nobody said its ideal, unlimited FFTH is the "holy grail", but in the meantime we make do with what we get. So I don't stream in HD, tbh, it doesn't bother me, normal is fine.

Dero

A far more fair (but more complex) system would be something along the lines of:
If you're under 20GB for three consecutive days, your quota rolls over until it gets to ~60GB, where it stays until you breach it (or breach the 20GB two days running), whereby it resets to 20GB again.

This would allow for a lot of the edge cases where people don't use near 20GB per day, but could blow it all in one game update for example, while also discouraging those with the pathological desire to back up the Internet.

Or of course, they could just actually use some discretion on the 12-7 slot.

• Ignore first breach
• Warn on second breach
• Throttle thereafter

Buck Turgidson

Like Morgana said, it works fine for us. At least 20 man hours every day, game downloads, skype, video (not hd) etc. Light years ahead of previous setup.

If you have fibre available then that would be the way to go.

morgana

Dero wrote: »

... while also discouraging those with the pathological desire to back up the Internet.

Ah that made me LOL !

chris_ie

I used to do quite a bit of gaming but gave up a few years ago because the connection was just frustrating to game on. Currently its just myself and my wife in the house. We use the 4G for the phone as we have AYCE with Three, broadband for Netflix and large downloads. Any large downloads are scheduled between 2am and 8am. Have also used the hotspot on the phone for Netflix via Firestick or iPad when the connection is slow.

All this works ok but the 4G can get slow at times aswell. I would think if I got Imagine I might actually start gaming again which would end up increasing the amount of data I'd be downloading (updates and the like). But then its twice the price of my current setup.

Difficult to know what to do! Although in saying that, I dont have a choice as they aren't even in my area yet

editorsean

Most of the HD streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix use roughly 5Mbps average or about 2GB per hour per device. So I wouldn't worry too much about dropping to standard definition if watching on a single device such as a set top box. Indeed if there are several people streaming in HD, this quickly adds up, such as 8GB per hour with 4 people streaming simultaneously.

The main killer to watch out for is 4K streaming. Netflix will go straight to 4K with a suitable set top box and 4K TV when playing content in 4K and that will potentially gobble over 10GB per hour, provided the connection sustains 25+Mbps during playback. I have also seen YouTube go straight to 4K when playing 4K (e.g. Techmoan's channel) even though my monitor is only capable of displaying 1080p max. So before watching a long video, just make sure it's not playing in 4K mode.

This page mentions the Netflix bandwidth usage according to the chosen playback quality / resolution. If your router logs device usage like morgana's screenshot, another way to check is note the usage before and after an hour of playback, particularly when trying a another streaming service that doesn't clearly mention bandwidth usage.

Scruff

that throttling change is bad news. Looks like i'll have to switch back the my tp-link mr-3420 that will let me use a 4g dongle with a 3 AYCE sim as backup for when i need to do big nightly ul/dls. At least i have that option but not a good development at all. Boo-hiss Imagine!!!

Ruffty^

In regards to the using the VOIP phone part. Instead of plugging a phone directly into it. If you use a phone cable and plug the greenpacket router into the main phone socket in your house, will that make all the other sockets in your house work do you reckon?

Dero

Should work yes.

On a related note, does anyone with the service know if it will work with an IP phone? It should be just a matter of plugging the relevant details into said phone and off you go, but that assumes Imagine will play ball.

I don't have an analogue phone any more, but I do have a Gigaset IP phone that I use with my current provider.

SpannerMonkey

My father just rang to join up and he was told that they are cancelling their ben dash service in clare and that anyone that joined up will be refunded because of lack of interest !! The signs advertising the service only went up 2 weeks ago surely they cant expect to be fully booked up in that time frame ?

I hope it was a mistake because i signed up last week . Its my only hope to get more than 0.10mb internet

chris_ie

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

My father just rang to join up and he was told that they are cancelling their ben dash service in clare and that anyone that joined up will be refunded because of lack of interest !! The signs advertising the service only went up 2 weeks ago surely they cant expect to be fully booked up in that time frame ?

I hope it was a mistake because i signed up last week . Its my only hope to get more than 0.10mb internet

This rollout is quite strange. Don't like the way all of this is going, pulling out of areas, changing T&Cs....

Johnboy1951

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

My father just rang to join up and he was told that they are cancelling their ben dash service in clare and that anyone that joined up will be refunded because of lack of interest !! The signs advertising the service only went up 2 weeks ago surely they cant expect to be fully booked up in that time frame ?

I hope it was a mistake because i signed up last week . Its my only hope to get more than 0.10mb internet

I doubt that is the real reason, if they really are cancelling Ben Dash.

SpannerMonkey

Makes no sense . Ben dash covers half the county

Goreme

morgana wrote: »

Not quite. It is still a huge improvement over what people in rural areas had available before. For instance, Ripplecom's highest cap is 150 gig/month for 55 Euro. And you'd have to be able to get "classic AdSL" in the first place. Nobody said its ideal, unlimited FFTH is the "holy grail", but in the meantime we make do with what we get. So I don't stream in HD, tbh, it doesn't bother me, normal is fine.

Agree with you there Morgana... We are 6miles from Kells, 9 miles from Navan... could only dream about an AdSL phone line being provided in our area of the countryside by those moneygrabbing losers Eir(com), even the mobile phone reception in the house is crap, so we have the added expence currently of a landliine which is needed to be sure you are actually reachable by telephone. When the kids watch cartoons on Youtube it often paused every minute or two... I was trying to watch some Dublin concert footage of Bruce Springsteen from this summer (was there, great concerts), but no, even Bruce won't stream on Three's NarrowBand (0.5Mb half the time when you Speedtest it!!). We get Three's NarrowBand from Rathmore/Jamestown transmitter (you know, the Irish Government's 2009 "Broadband" to every citizen in Ireland guarantee). And to add insult to injury, for the hell of it I called Ripple a few weeks ago - and they said my area (Cortown) wasn't covered by Ripple.. you'd have to laugh!! So, needless to say, if I finally, in a few weeks get an allowance of 20GB per day and a minimum speed of 30Mbps, I'll be delighted!

SpannerMonkey

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

My father just rang to join up and he was told that they are cancelling their ben dash service in clare and that anyone that joined up will be refunded because of lack of interest !! The signs advertising the service only went up 2 weeks ago surely they cant expect to be fully booked up in that time frame ?

I hope it was a mistake because i signed up last week . Its my only hope to get more than 0.10mb internet

False alarm.

They made a mistake. They mixed it up with another transmitter. Ben dash is going ahead .

Wing126

Just noticed that they've pulled the signs down from around my area (Covered by the Mount Oriel mast). Must ring them in the morning and see what the status is.

Dero

They took down all the signs around here (Kildare/Curragh) a while ago but as of yesterday, the service is still on track for this month. I thought maybe they had enough applications, but someone suggested that they might have been told to remove the signs.

It's a bit odd.