Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

Metric Tensor

Got a text to say they are in my area now (rural Laois).

I was quite excited until I see all the hassle wrt port forwarding.

I use a vpn to work from home - I also have SIP phone to work which doesn't need port forwarding in its current guise but might if there are configuration changes elsewhere.

Am I out of luck. Has anyone used the connection with VPN?

It would be a big upgrade from my fixed wireless 10/3 connection but to be fair to my current providers they have been reasonably good from a technical point of view and are very easy to contact by phone when I need to.

amadablam

Dero wrote: »

Yep, mine is doing exactly the same.

Do you have a Huawei CPE? If so, that's probably the cause. I believe there is a bug that triggers under certain signal conditions and causes the speed to drop to ~2mbps until power-cycled.

Imagine/Huawei are aware of it, so ring and ask them if that's what is affecting you.

Fix coming soon apparently.

Im just off the phone with them now and they said there is a fix due out within the week but just keep turning on and off the router to get out of the cycle and they will push this out OTA.

Said exactly the same thing to me about the fault mode being triggered when it drops. I asked why when rebooted does it drop so quickly and cause the same error to reoccur, repeatedly?

Hopefully they will sort it out but part of me thinks that there is a bigger problem when the signal keeps dropping over and over and causing this error in the first place or is the service intentionally designed to keep dropping back when you dont use it and back up to normal when you are?

Dero

amadablam wrote: »

Hopefully they will sort it out but part of me thinks that there is a bigger problem when the signal keeps dropping over and over and causing this error in the first place or is the service intentionally designed to keep dropping back when you dont use it and back up to normal when you are?

I think the signal drop is probably normal, depending on your location. I don't think the signal drop means a total drop; just that if it goes below a certain threshold, the bug will trigger. That same signal level would presumably be fine without the Huawei bug.

This is just me reading between the lines of what i was told though, so don't rely on it.

momo_32

Dero, did you get your ports forwarded to your satisfaction?

Dero

Not yet, it's still a work-in-progress. They're making encouraging noises, but we shall see...

Let's see if they can get the speed issues sorted first. It's all moot when it tops out at 2mbps!

momo_32

Dero wrote: »

Not yet, it's still a work-in-progress. They're making encouraging noises, but we shall see...

Let's see if they can get the speed issues sorted first. It's all moot when it tops out at 2mbps!

Well I can't fault on speed, worst has been just below 30. Briefly. At least I got the static address after 5 weeks yesterday...

Ruffty^

Mr Velo wrote: »

Looks like the issue i was having during install was what Dero is describing there. It was the Huawei equipment that was being installed, and while they were getting speeds of 40MB+ , it was dropping to under 2MB when all was in place.
I had asked if they could put the antenna up on our chimney - as this is where we had the Irish Broadband (breeze) antenna in the past, as well as a Lightnet antenna (both pointing to Tonabruckey) - but they didn't seem interested in going up there.

Phoned Imagine again last night explaining - and they say we should have been installed, and that the installers should have put a 10ft pole on the gable if they were having any signal issues, and should also have tried the chimney. Looks like an install is going to be rearranged again.

Yes, sounds like it. I have the earlier equipment, the greenpacket stuff.

robert muldoon

Got a call today from schedule department, they are coming am tomorrow for test and hopefully installation ( kilcullen co kldare mast), am having phone as well but haven't got my head around that yet
If all goes well, shall report speeds etc tomorrow pm

robert muldoon

Am just wondering, is there an extender that works with their router that you can plug in to lmprove the wifi signal around the house, I have one with my present netgear router that really works well

leex

robert muldoon wrote: »

Am just wondering, is there an extender that works with their router that you can plug in to lmprove the wifi signal around the house, I have one with my present netgear router that really works well

Same one should work ok.

robert muldoon

Just confirmed
Imagine won't work for me, can't get sufficient signal due to trees

Dero

robert muldoon wrote: »

Just confirmed
Imagine won't work for me, can't get sufficient signal due to trees

:(:(

df_h

Metric Tensor wrote: »

Am I out of luck. Has anyone used the connection with VPN?
.

Use VPN all time, have dozen SSH sessions during work as well, no problems at all. I think ive been with them for a month now,speeds staying good at 75-80 mbit range with the greenpacket equipment. So far so good, i am happy, rest of family is happy.

momo_32

df_h wrote: »

Use VPN all time, have dozen SSH sessions during work as well, no problems at all. I think ive been with them for a month now,speeds staying good at 75-80 mbit range with the greenpacket equipment. So far so good, i am happy, rest of family is happy.

Are you using ssh FROM home or TO home? IOW, have they forwarded port 22 for you?

NakQuada

momo_32 wrote: »

Are you using ssh FROM home or TO home? IOW, have they forwarded port 22 for you?

I'd very much like to know this too!

df_h

df_h wrote: »

Use VPN all time, have dozen SSH sessions during work as well, no problems at all. I think ive been with them for a month now,speeds staying good at 75-80 mbit range with the greenpacket equipment. So far so good, i am happy, rest of family is happy.

Please explain!

df_h

momo_32 wrote: »

Are you using ssh FROM home or TO home? IOW, have they forwarded port 22 for you?

Both no problems SSHing in or out, see my long and descriptive posts earlier in thread, they forwarded a pile of ports on my request and given me a static ip.

I can SSH from outside no problem, its not port 22 but a higher one i asked them to forward, i just change the port my sshd runs on the work linux box in my home, its a good idea anyways to change your SSH ports from 22 btw unless you want your linux box being constantly buggered by bots ...

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Please explain!

It seems from reading the thread earlier customers like me are on crappy Greenpacket CPE and routers, and I mean real crap (slow wifi, 100mbit ports) since then they seem to be giving out different equipment


Edit: they wont forward ports 80 or 22 since their equipment uses these

I am not sure why anyone would want to port forward port 80? To host a website? why? a $5 VPS can do this
While their connection so far has been excellent I would not host a site on it

kevovek

How badly do they throttle your DL speed once you exceed the daily allowance? I wonder is there any chance they will raise the download limit

TireeTerror

kevovek wrote: »

How badly do they throttle your DL speed once you exceed the daily allowance? I wonder is there any chance they will raise the download limit

Reduced to 1Mb and no, they will not increase the limit, its set so that everyone has a good experience.

kevovek

TireeTerror wrote: »

Reduced to 1Mb and no, they will not increase the limit, its set so that everyone has a good experience.

Ah ok thanks for the answer I'm using threes 4g at the moment but the speeds can be a bit all over the place at times.
So I'm looking for a more permanent solution the 20GB daily cap wouldn't work for me.

TireeTerror

kevovek wrote: »

Ah ok thanks for the answer I'm using threes 4g at the moment but the speeds can be a bit all over the place at times.
So I'm looking for a more permanent solution the 20GB daily cap wouldn't work for me.

I find it difficult to believe its not a better solution that the 4G service from 3. You would still have your 4g service from 3 to download from if you went over the 20GB per day limit.

Goreme

TireeTerror wrote: »

kevovek wrote: »

Ah ok thanks for the answer I'm using threes 4g at the moment but the speeds can be a bit all over the place at times.
So I'm looking for a more permanent solution the 20GB daily cap wouldn't work for me.

I find it difficult to believe its not a better solution that the 4G service from 3. You would still have your 4g service from 3 to download from if you went over the 20GB per day limit.

Someone near me has Three's 4G offering. But its 60GB per month total download limit, for 40 euro per month? That seems a really low download limirt compared to Imagine LTE's offering?

TireeTerror

Goreme wrote: »

Someone near me has Three's 4G offering. But its 60GB per month total download limit, for 40 euro per month? That seems a really low download limirt compared to Imagine LTE's offering?

He probably tethers on a PAYG or on a contract sim, rather than the 3 broadband sim. Its unlimited, no download cap at all. Technically it's not supported by 3, but they don't stop you.

Goreme

TireeTerror wrote: »

Goreme wrote: »

Someone near me has Three's 4G offering. But its 60GB per month total download limit, for 40 euro per month? That seems a really low download limirt compared to Imagine LTE's offering?

He probably tethers on a PAYG or on a contract sim, rather than the 3 broadband sim. Its unlimited, no download cap at all. Technically it's not supported by 3, but they don't stop you.

No he just used the Three sim, through one of those small Three MiFi receivers you leave in the window. And the limit is just 60GB per month, on an 18 month contract. Is there some way around that limit?

TireeTerror wrote: »

Goreme wrote: »

Someone near me has Three's 4G offering. But its 60GB per month total download limit, for 40 euro per month? That seems a really low download limirt compared to Imagine LTE's offering?

He probably tethers on a PAYG or on a contract sim, rather than the 3 broadband sim. Its unlimited, no download cap at all. Technically it's not supported by 3, but they don't stop you.

TireeTerror

Goreme wrote: »

No he just used the Three sim, through one of those small Three MiFi receivers you leave in the window. And the limit is just 60GB per month, on an 18 month contract. Is there some way around that limit?

That's because he has a 3 broadband contract. Once his contract is up, just get a PAYG sim in it, top up €20 once per month and it will give him unlimited data on the All You Can Eat plan. They say there is a fair use policy, but its not true, I've done it for years. Before I had Imagine it was my only source of internet use and I regularly used hundreds of GB per month file sharing.

If buying the PAYG sim from a shop, he cannot tell them he is going to put it in the Mifi router, as its not meant to be done officially. Just buy it and that's it. He will still have the €20 credit, it will build up and up each month, so he could put it in a handset every now and again and use that for calls if he wanted.

irishchris

kevovek wrote: »

How badly do they throttle your DL speed once you exceed the daily allowance? I wonder is there any chance they will raise the download limit

Had long conversation with customer support about the limits.. Said at the moment they have a 50gb boost that can be used at either 70gb in one day or multiples throughout the week that add up to the 50gb extra.. Said it is still being looked at and originally the boost was to be once a month but they have now decided on a once a week.
He also said the 15gb warning email will trigger it regardless of this but you will still have the 50gb boost and the warning was more as a way of informing customers until the web portal is live. They have also supposedly changed the wording of the warning email as have poor advice regards security updates etc.
If this is all true I'm more than happy with that and would only prob be every few weeks where I would need to use more than the 20gb daily

NakQuada

irishchris wrote: »

Had long conversation with customer support about the limits.. Said at the moment they have a 50gb boost that can be used at either 70gb in one day or multiples throughout the week that add up to the 50gb extra.. Said it is still being looked at and originally the boost was to be once a month but they have now decided on a once a week.
He also said the 15gb warning email will trigger it regardless of this but you will still have the 50gb boost and the warning was more as a way of informing customers until the web portal is live. They have also supposedly changed the wording of the warning email as have poor advice regards security updates etc.
If this is all true I'm more than happy with that and would only prob be every few weeks where I would need to use more than the 20gb daily

If this is true it would be great!

highlydebased

Got our old eircom phone number ported over today. Making and receiving calls fine, but when dialling out there is no tone when it is ringing the other person. There is just silence til the other person answers. Anyone having this problem?

Wing126

irishchris wrote: »

Had long conversation with customer support about the limits.. Said at the moment they have a 50gb boost that can be used at either 70gb in one day or multiples throughout the week that add up to the 50gb extra.. Said it is still being looked at and originally the boost was to be once a month but they have now decided on a once a week.
He also said the 15gb warning email will trigger it regardless of this but you will still have the 50gb boost and the warning was more as a way of informing customers until the web portal is live. They have also supposedly changed the wording of the warning email as have poor advice regards security updates etc.
If this is all true I'm more than happy with that and would only prob be every few weeks where I would need to use more than the 20gb daily

So, correct me if I misunderstood, one day a week we can technically use up to 120Gb? Or have an extra 7Gb a day, or split it up when needed?

That would be a decent enough alternative to the 12-7 window. Not quite the same, but a very acceptable solution.

long_b

robert muldoon wrote: »

Just confirmed
Imagine won't work for me, can't get sufficient signal due to trees

Would you be completely surrounded by trees/mostly surrounded by trees/just a couple of trees in the way? Distance from mast?