Imagine launch Midband Ripwave Replacement - WiMAX

IrishTonyO

It is still hard to believe there is so little feedback for Imagine! Do they have any customers at all??

still none? :eek::eek: well i was told its a garenteed speed and a latency of average 100ms from Imagine thats all i have being able to find out

bublehead

luckat wrote: »

sip.blueface.ie

Hi luckat,
My parents use blueface (voip) over a breeze aerial and don't have any issues. The quality of breeze they have is excellent, but it wasn't always like that. Initially after signing up years ago their connection was hopeless and dropped out all the time. Their support was quite good though, and engineer came out and realigned aerial to different mast. Problem was due to tree blowing in wind in way of the mast, as these aerials rely on line of sight.
A quick look at the pings you included suggests a lot of jitter on the connection. Dare I suggest you check out the blueface troubleshooting page and maybe download the network connection tester which will give a very good picture of your current connection, if even just to send screenshot to IBB to show how poor connection is. They do free accounts which would suit for testing also.
Interested in WiMax myself, but wouldn’t be making jump myself until see what others are experiencing

iMax

Got the weeks trial this morning, getting average 7mb wich is double my normal (wired) speed. Call quality is the same.

Down to price for me now. need to work out the best option.

Only downside (apart from the €50 activation fee, since I'm already active on trial) is there's only one network connection so I have to figure out how to use my current BT router as a network hub

machalla

Not very encouraging that their website is still quoting the vat rate at 21.5%

Under Legal Jargon

http://www.imagine.ie/wimax-splash/imagine-wimax-broadband.html

iMax

iMax wrote: »

Got the weeks trial this morning, getting average 7mb wich is double my normal (wired) speed. Call quality is the same.

Down to price for me now. need to work out the best option.

Only downside (apart from the €50 activation fee, since I'm already active on trial) is there's only one network connection so I have to figure out how to use my current BT router as a network hub

whats the ping rate like over a period of a few days?

iMax

iMax wrote: »

Got the weeks trial this morning, getting average 7mb wich is double my normal (wired) speed. Call quality is the same.

Down to price for me now. need to work out the best option.

Only downside (apart from the €50 activation fee, since I'm already active on trial) is there's only one network connection so I have to figure out how to use my current BT router as a network hub

How far are you located from the base station?

Are you using the interior or exterior hub?

warlikedave

warlikedave wrote: »

whats the ping rate like over a period of a few days?

I cancelled it 2 days ago because the service was crap!!

Average ping times were 130-150ms.

Speedtests I uploaded here:
Speedtest Num 1. Time 12:45 GMT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwe45X4-_FM

Speedtest Num 2. Time 19:00 GMT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kPhJBd8qGE

cheers mate for the info

it seems to be no better than a mobile 3g connection - shame - utter lies on behalf of Imagine then

I have Irish BB breeze 2mb which works perfectly for gaming and so on... there's a story to follow but here are my current speed tests:


Now to the story, I was called last week by Imagine who own Irish BB or are partners or whatever and told me I can get a Wimax 3mb upgrade, I initially agreed but after doing some research I called up and declined, the install was meant to be tomorrow and I really hope for their sakes they do not show up despite my cancellation. I'm convinced based on other peoples speed and ping tests on Wimax that i won't be able to game as I do now (Xbox live FPS).
Luckily for me the guy whom I phoned the second time round agreed to cancel the installation also conceded that Wimax would not be suitable for gaming as I do and if the engineers show up to install I have the right to turn them away. If only all customer support staff were this helpful.

iMax

I'm about half a kilometer from the mast (on Donaghmede shopping center), it's not line of sight. Using the interior hub

Having second thoughts now. The ping rate isn't below 120 every time I've done a speed test (not that I understand this, but my impression is the lower the better). During the day the speed is great, I'm getting over 7MB, this morning it was 9.3 & I was pretty impressed at the speed I could browse, download & open quicktime high defs at.

However last night during the wild wind & rain, it was 1.3mb. I put it down to the bad weather. Tonight however, no bad weather & currently registering 1.6. I'm getting 3mb on my landline consistently so despite having to pay line rental I'm probably gonna stick with that & wait for UPC to get their finger out & be able to provide BB & phone in this area (It's been coming shortly for about four years now), not entering into a 12 month contract for sub standard service.


C'MON UPC - YOU'RE KILLING ME HERE !!!

So your saying you have Wimax? *edit, I see you have UPC, I misread.
Also, the lower the ping the better so you're correct in your original assumption. It's measured in ms(milliseconds) so the lower the ping, the faster the RTT(round trip time). This is essential for gaming. You can see from my connection that I only have a 2mb, but this is enough for FPS gaming as my ping is under 80ms, though apparently under 100ms will do. I consider a broadband service to be acceptable if I can game relatively well at any time. I don't think I should have to plan my gaming to be at peak times, that's just not how it should be IMHO. My internet service has actually improved over the years, so I'm quite happy if they leave me be.

iMax

No I have wimax sacramento, I *want* UPC.

I'm not into gaming but the max my landline will do it 3mb & it seems very slow (download a LOT!!)

I see, well alot of ISP's enact "fair usage" in their T&C's. Which means that if you are constantly taking up a large amount of bandwidth with a large number of incoming/outgoing connections (which Utorrent does) then they can limit your bandwidth to serve their other customers effectively. I'm not saying all ISP's do, but many do.

at least we have cleared that up but i am just wondering how wimax is supposed to be superior to the breeze system in place at the moment - i just dont understand how Imagine think as such since it seems that its worse pingwise and with the exception of the odd occasion that download speeds are not at the levels marketed

- did they not trial it properly before it was released?

Looks like the wimax developers conned Imagine as well - lol

I think it appeals to companies due to its ease of set-up, low cost maintenance and general ability to get the basics to the customer. For someone unlike me who does not game then it may work out for them, but it appears that they have to increase their network capabilities to allow for peak time speeds to be anywhere near the quoted speed on the connection.
Ireland is unfortunate due to it's low population density that it does not appeal to broadband companies to supply the best to as many as possible at the highest quality. The amount of customers they get in some areas would be unlikely to cover the cost of upgrading an area to say fibre optics.
Eircom however probably should do this in the Dublin area, but when you own all the copper wire and everyone else just rents it from you, where's the competition to push them to upgrade their service? Hence why Wimax will probably be popping up everywhere.

still its just not good enough in this day and age - people good money for this - the least they can do is to be a bit more honest about their product but that will never happen

Pot Noodle =

Is it any good then

iMax

I'm undecided. The initial sheen has gone & I'm analyzing it properly. I turned off my BT router last week & have just been using the wimax device. My trial is up today but when they call I'm going to list the issues I have & ask for another week to evaluate to see if they can do anything about it.

I have achieved 9MBs on one occasion (which surprised me because it's supposed to be "up to" 7MBs. It's been averaging about 3MBs. When we had the bad rain at night last week I barely had 1.2MBs. Pings are about 130/150, although it has been about 90 a couple of times. But twice I had pings of over 1300. Right now it's a ping of 218 with a download of 1.97MBs & upload of 0.47Mbs.

My landline can do "Up To" 3MBs, but I consistently achieve 2 - 2.5MBs, it very rarely drops below 2MBs. The ping is also usually about 110/120.

Although I wouldn't pay the line rental with this device I'm not sure the trade off in speed being all over the place would be worth it.

I'd gladly pay more (preferably to UPC) for a better more consistent service. UNdortunately they're not servicing my area and are unlikely to for about three years

culturedkevin

jor el wrote: »

Other than 15 times faster, there was no mention of what this will do.

The usual guff about Irish people choosing mobile broadband came up too. People here don't choose mobile midband, there is often no choice.

The award for most annoying website ever has to go to Imagine with their marketing gimp spouting nonsense, with absolutely no technical information available. Just check it out... or not (recommended).

Thats a classic. He went to the Fair City school of acting for sure.

IrishTonyO

Anyone else have any more feedback on Imagine?

IrishTonyO

IrishTonyO wrote: »

Anyone else have any more feedback on Imagine?

Have a look here me and 1 other person posted feekback.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=118081615786&topic=12286

BCawley

Just wondering has anyone else been having problems?

I know of two friends, 1 xbox, 1 playstation, that have very flaky connections.

Or has anyone got any solutions?

Thanks

// Edit - 100th post and its a tech support question lol

TheKBizzle

I got mine installed on friday and utorrent has stopped working.

Its cracking me up

Finally some other people to show thats it wasn't just me who had a crap connection.


This is how the sales slogan should read:

Imagine Wimax - Faster (than Dial Up), Better (than Dial Up), Cheaper (But still expensive!!), Useless for gaming

iMax

Just been onto them to arrange collection of the equipment. He asked me how I got on & I replied that I wasn't that impressed, speeds were nothing like advertised. & in bad weather were worse than the low speeds I was getting. Heard a sharp intake of breath & he said well when can we pick it up, I said on Friday & he replied well the guys are picking it up tomorrow, & I said that they'll have to call on Friday for it as there's no-one available until then & got another sharp intake of breath & agreement.

No effort to persuade me to stay or to try to explain the speed issues to me... seems like someone may be about to lose a fortune on this...

channelsurfer2

wow... thank god I read this thread. i was chomping at the bit to get imagine wi-max when it does come to offaly... now i will stick to eircom or vodafone landline... i think the rule of thumb is landline broadband always better than midband/mobile broadband??? i cant get upc.

DublineqPL

Hi all.
I've been following topic from start, and finally decided to give it a go and test for few days... I was little unsure about the service, couse, from posts here, it seemed to be like Clearwire, Breeze etc - crap.
Just had a "technician" an hour ago and... everything is running fine so far.
I'm In Donnybrook, around 800-900m from the mast(is somewhere beside RTE). Ground floor, receiver is standing on the window and I have 4 out of 4 ligths. When I use it indoor, than it drops to 2 lights. Anyway I'll try it for next couple of days -I have been told there's no speed drops as I'm being given my own stream so it shouldn't be shared. Will see when the weather will go worst.Attached my results.

Gregor

PogMoThoin

104ms ping is still shíte, not much good for gaming/voip

DublineqPL

I am not gaming at all...
I'll check with skype and let you know...