Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

km79

Dinerve wrote: »

All new here, got my LTE service up and running in Galway about 10 days ago, following Eir's inability to effectively running prequals; site was listing 40mbps over VDSL, field tech came and modem would not even sync.

Was with 17Mbps sync on the modem over ADSL but 6.5Mbps often dipping lower during peak times (not to mention the miserable upload speed, 765kbps!)

Overall pretty happy thus far except the 20gb cap, averaging at 40-45Mbps regardless of hours; But the newly inflated debate about the new cap implementation here is rather out of place as these terms were in place when I was prospecting a few months back and in spite of whatever sales rep say, always read the terms...Hardly a change to be honest.

Odd thing is that I already received 2! emails advising I had gone past my allowance several times already and that Imagine MAY throttle my speed. I immediately called Tech Support and on the 1st occasion I had downloaded 16gigs and the 2nd 12gigs! Hardly near the cap!

They told me they are tweaking the notification system but when I voiced my concerns about PSN and Steam downloads between 00:00-07:00 the 1st time around the Tech rep told me it should not be an issue.

The 2nd Tech support, about a week later after the 1st one though was adamant that 20gigs is the daily limit and when I quoted the T&Cs he insisted on the "At Imagine's discretion" to which I replied but if occasional and he replied the same.

Something that lets me think that indeed they have no intentions of honoring that point which is the main selling point when asked to their sales team.

Either way, while clearly limiting on that aspect, it's the best solution offered in my area to have decent speeds and the cap is not a huge issue for someone not torrenting 24/7 (besides, who stores such things when streaming is widely available).

I was just hoping I could get that 20+gb download from the PSN form time to time without hassle by downloading overnight as suggested in the T&Cs, something that does not seem to be the case.

what part of galway

Dinerve

km79 wrote: »

what part of galway

Cregmore

km79

Dinerve wrote: »

Cregmore

Ah I seen the sign out at the head of the Raheen woods roads alright
Damn it I'm so close
I'm gonna hang on with 3 Mobile for another few months and pray
I'm in Killimordaly and the coverage map JUST ends here

Dinerve

km79 wrote: »

Ah I seen the sign out at the head of the Raheen woods roads alright
Damn it I'm so close
I'm gonna hang on with 3 Mobile for another few months and pray
I'm in Killimordaly and the coverage map JUST ends here

Did you ask them? Cregmore is not listed as enabled but all adjacent places where and when I gave them my eircode they said I'm in coverage.

Three was not an option as it seems I am in a dark spot and barely get 3g with unuseable latencies (I play online mostly)

km79

Dinerve wrote: »

Did you ask them? Cregmore is not listed as enabled but all adjacent places where and when I gave them my eircode they said I'm in coverage.

Three was not an option as it seems I am in a dark spot and barely get 3g with unuseable latencies (I play online mostly)

yeah I've checked with them once a month since may

Ruffty^

On top of the turn around regarding 0000 to 0700, it is total bullsh1t they offer no way to measure your use.

They have no web portal.
Their stupid equipment has no such feature.

Dinerve

Ruffty^ wrote: »

On top of the turn around regarding 0000 to 0700, it is total bullsh1t they offer no way to measure your use.

They have no web portal.
Their stupid equipment has no such feature.

True that, tech guys told me they are working on it. You would expect at least to be able to monitor it and manage your allowance accordingly. I also question the tools that they use to monitor it cuz if it's the same that sends alerts, as said earlier been getting emails hinting at multiple offenses while I never reached it once (as confirmed over the phone by the tech crew: 1 occurence at 16gigs and 1 at 12gigs...)

They need to give an unlimited window, even if between 2-7, it's more than enough for large legit downloads they can even exlude things like known locations (PSN, Microsoft both for XBox and Microsoft updates wich can be quite large, Google Play, Apple Store, Drop Box and so on). I understand they want to discourage agaist abuse of torrents and dodgy file hosting services, but 20gigs is a rather average to low use for a single person, let alone a family!

padraig.od

Signed up for this yesterday. I'm in South Kilkenny. Input my eircode a couple of months back and got a text during the week to say it was available. Installation will be end of September.

Current using two Vodafone 4G dongles, so capped to 40gb a month. 20gb a day doesn't sound too bad, I can get a lot of online services now that I hadn't considered. I'll be delighted with a solid 30 or 40 meg connection with a low ping.

Local VDSL is over 2 miles away. Eir blue line terminates couple of hundred metres from my house, and I don't have a wired phone line. KN have been out replacing poles and say the fibre will be passing the house though.

Imagine is a 18month contract with a 100 cancellation fee so if an eir or nbp fibre line passes the house in a couple of months time I can cancel it for relatively low cost.

I'll post again when the installation is complete.

Ten Pin

Imagine landline DSL customers could check daily usage in their web portal so it can't be too much effort for them to do the same for LTE users.

It wasn't real time though, previous 24 hours usage up until midnight was available at about 1am.

Wing126

So, just off the phone from Imagine now. The tech support member I was dealing with couldn't have been more helpful, but he did clarify that the 12am-7am unlimited download is 100% not in place.

He also got full clarification on how they're supposed to be working the system. I was told that if you go over 10gb download or 5gb upload, you'd receive a warning. Then if you go over 20Gb for the first time in a week, you'd receive another warning but would not be throttled. If you go over 20gb a second time in a week then you are throttled. I was also told that if you go over 70gb in a week, you are immediately throttled with no warning.

He was saying that sales reps are now being told not to say that there is a 12am-7am unlimited download period and that it's very unlikely that they'd be changing the policy.

sennah

Wing126 wrote: »

..... I was also told that if you go over 70gb in a week, you are immediately throttled with no warning...

Surely this would imply that you can't actually use 20GB / day?

Gonzo

Wing126 wrote: »

he did clarify that the 12am-7am unlimited download is 100% not in place.

He also got full clarification on how they're supposed to be working the system. I was told that if you go over 10gb download or 5gb upload, you'd receive a warning. Then if you go over 20Gb for the first time in a week, you'd receive another warning but would not be throttled. If you go over 20gb a second time in a week then you are throttled. I was also told that if you go over 70gb in a week, you are immediately throttled with no warning.

What a confusing mess, they need to state clearly on their website exactly what is allowed? Even tho their daily limit is 20gigs a day they are now saying that if you download 10gb and upload 5gb that you will receive a warning? If that's the case that's even worse, the download limit is 10 gigs or 20 gigs?

morgana

Wing126 wrote: »

He also got full clarification on how they're supposed to be working the system. I was told that if you go over 10gb download or 5gb upload, you'd receive a warning. Then if you go over 20Gb for the first time in a week, you'd receive another warning but would not be throttled. If you go over 20gb a second time in a week then you are throttled. I was also told that if you go over 70gb in a week, you are immediately throttled with no warning.

Well I got just ONE warning and got throttled shortly after. And to the best of my knowledge, I had NOT gone over the cap before that week. So even that is not applied consistently.
Also of interest, how far over will they let you go that once a week? Enough to download a larger game or just a tiny fraction? (I was over just a tiny bit) Does the time when you go over play a role?

The 70 gig week throttling surely can only apply if you go over then in that week? Otherwise their 20 gig/day cap is a lie.

This is becoming a major issue IMO as it severely affects how you can use an otherwise excellent service. They need to unambiguously lay down the way they implement restrictions on their website AND provide a real time usage monitoring portal incl. a full usage history.

chris_ie

Wing126 wrote: »

So, just off the phone from Imagine now. The tech support member I was dealing with couldn't have been more helpful, but he did clarify that the 12am-7am unlimited download is 100% not in place.

He also got full clarification on how they're supposed to be working the system. I was told that if you go over 10gb download or 5gb upload, you'd receive a warning. Then if you go over 20Gb for the first time in a week, you'd receive another warning but would not be throttled. If you go over 20gb a second time in a week then you are throttled. I was also told that if you go over 70gb in a week, you are immediately throttled with no warning.

He was saying that sales reps are now being told not to say that there is a 12am-7am unlimited download period and that it's very unlikely that they'd be changing the policy.

Well that's me out then so. Going to ask for my name to be removed as I'm no longer interested.

jfcunniffe

sorry but is 20GB x 7 days in the week = 140Gb per week. they say if you go over 70Gb you get throttled is it me or are they missing the other 70GB because they are technically saying that you only have 10GB per day 70/7 = 10GB per day then

morgana

Yea its extremely confusing, I would interpret it that, if you have already used 70 gig the week when you go over the cap they throttle you. If you stay within the 20gig allowance they should not throttle you as you have stayed within the allowance.
There is an urgent need for official exhaustive clarification of how throttling will be applied.

Wing126

Gonzo wrote: »

What a confusing mess, they need to state clearly on their website exactly what is allowed? Even tho their daily limit is 20gigs a day they are now saying that if you download 10gb and upload 5gb that you will receive a warning? If that's the case that's even worse, the download limit is 10 gigs or 20 gigs?

The warning for going over 10gb and 5gb upload is a warning to let you know that you were close to your allowance for the day, My apologies I should have made that more clear in my original post.

morgana wrote: »

Well I got just ONE warning and got throttled shortly after. And to the best of my knowledge, I had NOT gone over the cap before that week. So even that is not applied consistently.
Also of interest, how far over will they let you go that once a week? Enough to download a larger game or just a tiny fraction? (I was over just a tiny bit) Does the time when you go over play a role?

The 70 gig week throttling surely can only apply if you go over then in that week? Otherwise their 20 gig/day cap is a lie.

This is becoming a major issue IMO as it severely affects how you can use an otherwise excellent service. They need to unambiguously lay down the way they implement restrictions on their website AND provide a real time usage monitoring portal incl. a full usage history.

sennah wrote: »

Surely this would imply that you can't actually use 20GB / day?

Yeah that part confused me very much as well. Because surely to reach 70gb, you would have to go over by 20gb at least twice and be throttled as soon as that happened? It's a mess of a situation. But I think the way Morgana is interpreting it is probably what the rep meant.

morgana wrote: »

Yea its extremely confusing, I would interpret it that, if you have already used 70 gig the week when you go over the cap they throttle you. If you stay within the 20gig allowance they should not throttle you as you have stayed within the allowance.
There is an urgent need for official exhaustive clarification of how throttling will be applied.

Gonzo

Wing126 wrote: »

The warning for going over 10gb and 5gb upload is a warning to let you know that you were close to your allowance for the day, My apologies I should have made that more clear in my original post.


Yeah that part confused me very much as well. Because surely to reach 70gb, you would have to go over by 20gb at least twice and be throttled as soon as that happened? It's a mess of a situation. But I think the way Morgana is interpreting it is probably what the rep meant.

so what they are saying is that when your half way through your daily allowance they will give you a warning to say your nearing the end of your daily allowance.... that's still really petty of them. Seems like there is different viewpoints on what is the allowance and what isnt inside of imagine themselves. They really need to clear this up for everyone. Inbuilt data monitoring software is also an absolute must for every customer to keep track of that small daily data allowance. All it takes is a few family members binge watching tv shows on netflix to go through the cap within a matter of hours.

Gooser14

You can now get 150 GB per month from Vodafone for Eur 60. You pay Eur 50 for 50 GB and then pay Eur 10 for a 100 GB add-on. There is a thread on the Vodafone page about it.

robbiep958

Gooser14 wrote: »

You can now get 150 GB per month from Vodafone for Eur 60. You pay Eur 50 for 50 GB and then pay Eur 10 for a 100 GB add-on. There is a thread on the Vodafone page about it.

Yes vodafone is a much better option that imagine atm if you can get 4G from vodafone then you are on the ball .. It works out at extra 10 gb a month compared to imagine with there ****ty throttle cap

morgana

I fail to see how vf is a better option. Our normal daily usage is around 4 to 8 gig so that alone would blow a measly 150 gig / month out of the water without any larger download unless I'm missing something there

Gonzo

morgana wrote: »

I fail to see how vf is a better option. Our normal daily usage is around 4 to 8 gig so that alone would blow a measly 150 gig / month out of the water without any larger download unless I'm missing something there

for light users Imagine is great, 4 to 8 gigs is an extremely low amount of usage on a daily basis. Ive an 8 meg adsl connection and my average daily use is emails, social media, boards.ie, 2 hours of multiplayer gaming per day, download a few movies or episodes of shows with Sky on demand, maybe stream the odd show. None of that is heavy use, i dont 'download' torrents, I apply patch updates on steam every now and then but my daily useage is easily over 15gb per day. If i buy a game digitally it can be anything up to a 40-60GB file which i'll leave downloading when I go to bed and its usually finished by the time i get up in the morning. There are some days epecially around the steam summer sales where my daily usage could go beyond 100GB but those cases are rare.

Imagine is fine for social media, emails, general browsing, some online gaming and a limited amount of streaming but anything other than that I think people have to start looking for another provider because Imagine is not fit for downloading large files especially games which can add up to 3 days worth of imagine caps in one download.

Imagine really need to take a look at what they are doing and at the very least offer an add on download allowance which can allow people use the service the way it was intended and can download a large file without worrying about being throttled or cut off.

cowlick

Gooser14 wrote: »

You can now get 150 GB per month from Vodafone for Eur 60. You pay Eur 50 for 50 GB and then pay Eur 10 for a 100 GB add-on. There is a thread on the Vodafone page about it.

Do you not have to be already on a high vodafone mobile phone red plan in order to get this deal? FRom reading the thread it looks that way to me.

Johnboy1951

Gonzo wrote: »

Imagine really need to take a look at what they are doing and at the very least offer an add on download allowance which can allow people use the service the way it was intended and can download a large file without worrying about being throttled or cut off.

I feel fairly confident the service is operating as Imagine intend, which is what one should expect from any commercial service.
It might be a good idea for all gamers to avoid this service.
Other than gaming the service seems to be very suitable for most other users, particularly as a lot of those covered have no real alternative at all.

SpannerMonkey

To be fair this is service is aimed mainly at rural areas . Many of whom have little or no internet service at the moment . Its not a competitor to any sort of proper fixed line broadband but its not ment to be .
I do stream and play games and am always surfing the net and bar downloading a new game or heavy game patches would never use 20gb a day i really dont understand the people here ive seen say " oh its useless to me because i download 5 Tb a month " seriously wtf 5tb a month is insane and if you are currently avle to do that why are u even looking at imagines service .

I agree that them changing their aggreement of free download between midnight and 7 is bad form because it would have been great for torrent or game downloads . But its not like your cut off or charged extra . Your cut back to a speed that is still usable for streaming or downloading or gaming . Maybe not all at once but still remember this is for rural areas. people that have prob at best 3mb down and 0.25 mb up and a lot of whom would have tiny monthly limits


But the need to get up a way for you to monitor your usage asap

guil

cowlick wrote: »

Do you not have to be already on a high vodafone mobile phone red plan in order to get this deal? FRom reading the thread it looks that way to me.

No. As far as I know it's the mobile broadband plan with 50gb usage.

robert muldoon

robbiep958 wrote: »

Yes vodafone is a much better option that imagine atm if you can get 4G from vodafone then you are on the ball .. It works out at extra 10 gb a month compared to imagine with there ****ty throttle cap

Yes Vodafone is ok for me, but it's not going to suit people who are exceeding 20gbs a DAY, also I find where I am in Kildare the 4g can drop to 3G so its NOT consistent however at the moment it's the best I have until imagine comes in a few weeks time then I will use he VF inconsistency to get out of my 18 month contract

robert muldoon

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

To be fair this is service is aimed mainly at rural areas . Many of whom have little or no internet service at the moment . Its not a competitor to any sort of proper fixed line broadband but its not ment to be .
I do stream and play games and am always surfing the net and bar downloading a new game or heavy game patches would never use 20gb a day i really dont understand the people here ive seen say " oh its useless to me because i download 5 Tb a month " seriously wtf 5tb a month is insane and if you are currently avle to do that why are u even looking at imagines service .

I agree that them changing their aggreement of free download between midnight and 7 is bad form because it would have been great for torrent or game downloads . But its not like your cut off or charged extra . Your cut back to a speed that is still usable for streaming or downloading or gaming . Maybe not all at once but still remember this is for rural areas. people that have prob at best 3mb down and 0.25 mb up and a lot of whom would have tiny monthly limits


But the need to get up a way for you to monitor your usage asap

Whole heartily agree with you!!!

robert muldoon

Gonzo wrote: »

for light users Imagine is great, 4 to 8 gigs is an extremely low amount of usage on a daily basis. Ive an 8 meg adsl connection and my average daily use is emails, social media, boards.ie, 2 hours of multiplayer gaming per day, download a few movies or episodes of shows with Sky on demand, maybe stream the odd show. None of that is heavy use, i dont 'download' torrents, I apply patch updates on steam every now and then but my daily useage is easily over 15gb per day. If i buy a game digitally it can be anything up to a 40-60GB file which i'll leave downloading when I go to bed and its usually finished by the time i get up in the morning. There are some days epecially around the steam summer sales where my daily usage could go beyond 100GB but those cases are rare.

Imagine is fine for social media, emails, general browsing, some online gaming and a limited amount of streaming but anything other than that I think people have to start looking for another provider because Imagine is not fit for downloading large files especially games which can add up to 3 days worth of imagine caps in one download.

Imagine really need to take a look at what they are doing and at the very least offer an add on download allowance which can allow people use the service the way it was intended and can download a large file without worrying about being throttled or cut off.

From what I can see on this forum is that imagine is trying to provide a modest alternative to landline fibre around the whole country and I don't know of any other provider that's doing this,as time goes on they may be able to improve what they are doing - so let's be patient

ED E

robert muldoon wrote: »

From what I can see on this forum is that imagine is trying to provide a modest alternative to landline fibre around the whole country and I don't know of any other provider that's doing this,as time goes on they may be able to improve what they are doing - so let's be patient

Its not like fixed line, the possibility for upgrades are very limited.