Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

Still bucked tonight for anyone else? Games are unplayable. Will have to give them a call tomorrow.

Central mayo and no broadband for 2 days now . Weird as when I check my usage it seems to think I’ve used 8G of broadband . I can’t even open boards.ie . What’s up imagine . ? If this carries on I’ll have to give Elon a call .

They are completely overloading their connections. When I joined it was great but after 18 months it hit a slippery slope and has been getting worse ever since. I'm trying to hold out until October when NBI is due but I may have to give Starlink a go in the meantime.

Imagine blitzed our area just before OpenEir fibre started to rollout to the houses without VDSL. Not a peep of advertising or promotion from them since.

The other half's homeplace which had zero broadband options got absolutely blitzed by Imagine a few months before NBI went live to order - posters, door-to-door and letterbox flyers. Similarly, not a peep now it has gone live.

Reports on here too of existing customers being offered exclusive offers to recontract for another 18 months when their area was similarly due to go live in the near future.

I'm sure that's all completely coincidental timing of course!

Yes, but NBI isn't available around here, Oct to Dec of this year is the word from NBI, yet so nobody leaving Imagine just yet. I'm hoping they can't add anymore at this stage.

I was on to them last week about an issue I had and they asked if I wanted to speak to someone about a new contract at reduced price but I declined.

Yes, you can port it.

10 euro rental per month. Don't have to buy.

A business in decline.

When I was on the phone to them again yesterday they said they had tried to fix the backend issue on wednesday night but it hadnt worked. They said there was going to be another attempt to fix it last night. Yer man put a ticket in for me and said I should get a text if it was fixed, no text so far so probably no gaming tonight either lol.

Paywalled, whats the TL;DR?

Same here in North Cork. My starlink can't come soon enough

the article

What's the future for WISPs, in competition with FTTH, Starlink, 4G/5G MBB?

I was a satellite hater for a long time, due to my previous experience with the really expensive crap of yesteryear.

I became a WISP advocate when I was able to replace the shyte satellite with the services of a fairly robust and extremely reliable FWA provider for more than a decade. I enhanced this 5/1 service by bonding a 3 4G MBB solution to it in my router, so I could get ~30/~20 mon-fri until 3pm when the local children got home from school and effectively killed the 4G for me ... but my FWA was always bang on 5/1, so I could still do work.

Then COVID rocked up and 3's 4G was effectively useless all day every day, so I paid my FWA provider to increase the service to 10/5. I did continue using the 3 router, but instead of the €30pm contract, I went with the €20 AYCE instead and just had it for whatever bit of extra bandwidth I could get from it.

My FWA provider then shut down in 2022. In fairness to them they gave everyone a year's notice and if you cancelled your account before the end, they closed it pretty much there and then, with no messing around.

So that pushed me to the only alternative available to me ... Starlink.

I am now a satellite advocate, because Starlink now is an absolute game changer.

When I got it 2 years ago, it was very expensive. €500 once off for equipment and €99pm. Because I needed good connectivity for my business, it was the only option as MBB was too unstable.

Now with the refurbed option at half price and €50pm, WISPs and MBB operators should not stand a chance against Starlink.

Don't get me wrong. When NBI comes calling to me in, hopefully, 16 months time, I will be "lighting" up my home, but I may be keeping my dishy and using it for backup connectivity, as it has been superbly reliable, with consistent speeds and service.

On WISP vs. MBB, mobile has its place in the hierarchy being national networks that fill the mobile and fixed wireless niche, backed by large MNOs. WISPs are always going to be limited by spectrum availability and regionality.

My brother uses a 4G router going on 2 years now, with a €10 per month SIM, and wouldn't even consider the reduced €50 per month Starlink sub.

WISP coverage has pretty much disappeared in our area bar Imagine of course, if you have decent line of sight to one of their scarce masts.

I wonder when Amazon's Project Kuiper will launch? Will there be price war between them and Starlink then?

Yes they emailed about it about 2 months ago

With NBI finally arriving I've been left with the P2P receiver from my old Imagine subscription that they chose never to pick up. Does anyone have any knowledge on what the receiver actually is and if it's able to be reset and paired with another P2P unit?

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/tipperary/news/tipperary-td-warns-of-catastrophic-broadband-blackouts-if-suppliers-withdraw-before-nbi-rollout/a624818513.html

Michael Lowey advocating for Imagine Broadband in the Dáil yesterday

Imagine are in financial dire straits by the looks of things. Starlink may be gaining some new subscribers in the coming months.

A Tipperary TD has warned of the possibility of “catastrophic” broadband blackouts across large swathes of the country if a leading supplier withdraws before the National Broadband Plan (NBI) rollout is completed.

Despite being plagued by delays, National Broadband Ireland has stated that it is confident that all areas will be completed by the beginning of 2028, said Independent TD Michael Lowry.

As a result, existing commercial suppliers of broadband, like ‘Imagine’, have an immediate and serious financial viability problem, he said.

“They are now closely examining their immediate future in the market and the outlook for them is bleak without Government support,” Deputy Lowry told the Taoiseach during Leaders Questions on Tuesday. “Imagine currently have 47,000 customers across every county in Ireland with 2,400 of these in Tipperary.

“These are predominantly rural connections. If Imagine is forced to wind down in the coming months without a planned transition to NBI there will be a broadband blackout for an unsuspecting 47,000 customers,” he said.

“The impact of this would be catastrophic. Allowing the unplanned wind-down of this commercial provider would set the impacted regions across the country back years.

The actual discussion between Michael Lowry and the Taoiseach in the Dáil yesterday https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2024-04-30/speech/31/

The Indo published an article on their financial problems back in February

What's their turnover, can't be more that 30 million per year with the current (shrinking) subscriptions base.

There is zero chance this company will survive the next 4 years, that Canadian investment company have lost their shirt on this one

Finally free of Imagine, gave notice yesterday.

Enjoying lightning speeds and fantastic pings with NBI fibre. Probably the biggest relief is not having to worry about a monthly cap while updating games or downloading content.

I can't complain about them too much, they provided a passable service when there was nothing else available.

Took their equipment down today. Will put it in a box for when they come to collect (which I doubt they will).

So we finally went live on NBI and now have 1Gb FTTH up and running, so I rang Imagine yesterday to cancel my service. I've been a customer since 2016, so long since out of contract.

I clearly remember getting (three) calls last year trying to get me in to a new contract. So much so that I even posted it here. Imagine my surprise then when they told me that I am in a contract and have been since last November. I told them I had explicitly declined to enter a contract and had not signed anything. They said I didn't have to - it's all done verbally! That seems mad (and ripe for abuse). It's most likely a mistake, as I received no mails or other notification, and definitely have not received the discount they were touting. I have asked them to review the call recordings and clarify and they said they will, but of course that will take time.

The Imagine agent said I'm showing as in-contract on the billing system, but there is no corresponding notes on my account. Even if it is just a mistake or system glitch, it just complicates the cancellation process and further sours a relationship that entered the irreconcilable differences phase many years ago…

So basically, if you got one of these calls and believe you are not in contract, it might be a good idea to double check with them.

It's always always not investment.

Absolute drain and dregs these funds