Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

I run a small online training business over it. Everything turned up to the maximum quality and the link has been fairly rock solid, whether it's Google Meet, Teams, Zoom or Webex, I've not had any connection issues in the longest time now. Yes there have been outages, but not many at all and none have impacted me during the working day so far.

I used to have a very stable Fixed Wireless connection with 10 down, 5 up, which I bonded with a 4G connection to give me a little extra capacity. Before 3pm on school days I could get 25-30 down and 20 up on the two connections. After 3pm, the 4G was effectively worthless. I would have probably stayed on that setup, except the FWA provider shut down their service last year, so I had to get something that was reliable and it turns out Starlink is that.

Yep my lads play all those, no issue with weather

Back again it seems

Hey guys, did anyone get an email today from Imagine with new terms and conditions? From the summary they provided looks like maybe you can reject the new terms? Could this be used to exit before the end of minimum contract period?

Anyone having connection issues this evening? It's being on and off for me for the last hour (well more off than on). North Cork area.

Can't wait either. It's been a continuous downward trend with imagine for over a year now.

Have you looked at Starlink? I've been on it 18 months now and never see that kind of issue. Download speeds consistently over 200Mbps, uploads between 10 and 20Mbps.

Same issue here. They tell me it's at my end but nothing in my setup had changed since I signed up with them. Also my setup is the same after midnight when I get 150+ downloads. Starlink is a bit expensive so I'll just have to wait 12 months for NBI.

They have an option to rent the equipment which might make more sense if you expect NBI in next year or two.

Anyone having issues (more than normal) this evening? Seems to be dropping the connection every few seconds for the last hour or so.

Quite possible. I'm 4 years with them, first 2 years very good, last 2 years progressively worse to the point of being essentially unusable between 6pm and 11pm.

I live in Laois and have Imagine about seven years, it's our ONLY option in this area, so we either want Internet or don't. It has always been the case that the lights indicating signal have always been no greater than two out of four and the quality has always been from OK to exceptionally poor on a Sunday night from five or six in the evening until eleven or twelve.

We recently had a 'service' from Imagine where the router was changed and the antenna was turned from the original direction it was facing to a new direction as there was 'interference' between us and the original tower (which we can see line-of-sight) and it is now facing a new direction on a mast mounted on the side of our house and is about 20' off the ground. Our Internet is now no better and seems a bit worse, still a maximum of two lights indicating signal and watching anything on Netflix or YouTube etc is impossible, especially on a Sunday night.

Calling them in the morning.

Can also confirm, Starlink.

My SIL uses it for WFH and general home use. Installed since July, no issues to date.

Actually, after the initial purchase cost of the Starlink kit, dish €300/ethernet adapter/mounting items their monthly Starlink subscription is approximately two-thirds less than their previous setup.

It was almost €130 per month for her Bigblu satellite broadband sub, just for WFH, they also had landline phone and broadband for home use. Landline broadband was practically unusable at 4.5 km from the exchange.

They cancelled both of these services and get everything now for €65 pm plus an annual VoIP sub.

They are very happy with Starlink but will move to fibre once it arrives, expected 2025/26

I don't know whether this belongs here or in the NBI progress thread, but probably here. I've been with Imagine for over seven years (!) now while waiting for fibre. I've been out of contract a long time, and waiting for the day that I can ditch them. It's been a reasonable stopgap, but they're an awful company because they know that the vast majority of their customers have no choice and they act accordingly.

Anyway, NBI are scheduled to go live here in Q2 next year. Work has already started and just this week, they started installing the fibre on our road so it finally feels palpable.

Then lo and behold this evening, I get a call from Imagine out of the blue. Seemingly I'm such a good customer that they would like to offer me a 20% discount. Wow, how generous. All I have to do is sign this itty-bitty little 18 month contract. 😂

I have to say, their sense of comic timing is amazing.