Imagine launch Midband Ripwave Replacement - WiMAX

watty

The cell breathing will be gone, but the Imagine WiMax will slow as ripwave, breeze and clearwire + new customers added.

MrVestek

Same backhaul + new Motorola wimax transmistter. If anything it'll be worse than ripwave.

MrVestek

Transmitter. stupid phone.

daffy_duc

Achilles wrote: »

Same backhaul + new Motorola wimax transmistter. If anything it'll be worse than ripwave.

Come now, as an ex-IBB employee you would know that they keep a very close eye on backhaul capacity. If anything, the contention is on the access part of the network. Which they can "fix" by increasing cell density now that they've freed up the spectrum that Ripwave was using. At least... thats what I'd do if I were Imagine.

Rattlehead_ie

That sounds like a reasonable plan for any company to follow.
When freeing up a resource (RF Freq in this care) why not deploy it somewhere else that will, in turn, help increase revenue or quality of service of their product.

watty

They don't have enough spectrum for their illchosen rollout that should have used Fixed only CPEs to give Broadband performance. Also using ANY indoor or mobile units on the 3.6GHz mitigates against it. They have no method other than their "unlimited" 30Gbyte cap of controlling congestion due to too high Contention.

alanfa

watty wrote: »

They don't have enough spectrum for their illchosen rollout that should have used Fixed only CPEs to give Broadband performance. Also using ANY indoor or mobile units on the 3.6GHz mitigates against it. They have no method other than their "unlimited" 30Gbyte cap of controlling congestion due to too high Contention.

thats very technical , nut basically they are just a **** company that anyone who is considering dealing with , should be discouraged from doing so

OVERTONE69

alanfa wrote: »

then why are they not stating this on their advertising , why when you question the speeds you people in Imagine dispute this

what do you mean "you people in imagine" as if im some sort of higher management douche?

im a computer science student at itt. i just done some research on wimax technolgies and asked around.

You hardly think they would advertise that their speeds are going to get better later on so sign up now?!

in regards to the speeds, just take a look at what packages their offering.
1b, 3mb, and 7mb. the same as eircom. Their trying to win over their customers.

Their frequency spectrum for wireless could allow them to go as high as 100mb. but why do that?

The main focus of all ISPS at the moment seems to be to dethrone eircom.
upc on one side. imagine on the other. and eircom in the middle getting torn apart (with magnet occasionally butting in to kick some ass)

once eircom is no more, upc will fight to offer more availability
(imagine are nearly nationwide and upc haven even covered dublin)

and imagine wil fight for speed( each wimax highsite has 4 sectors. if theres even one ripwave unit in the area, then one of the sectors has to be allocated to all ripwaves, effectively cutting the speed of the highsite by 25%.)


Just let me take a step back for a moment and say this. i like imagine, i dont believe for one second they deserve all the bad press their getting. But i am aware (as with every ISP in the world) its going to have problems.

Ill reserve my opinions of sean bolger, and the idea that their spreading their reach as far as they can before setting up stability.

But ive had experiences with them, good and bad.
what ive learned is the following.

all isps are gonna have teething problems when they start out.

1: if someone is getting 1mb consistently and their paying for a 7mb, then something is definitely wrong! The wimax units dont allow you to setup your connection unless you "CAN" actually achieve 7mbs.

as far as i know, its 3 lights on the box for a 7mb. if you have 2 lights setting up, then it wont let you install because the service cant be provided.

2: if your connected to the wimax hub via wifi, YOUR SPEEDTEST IS NOT ACCURATE! ethernet cable plugged into the computer is the only accurate way to get a proper speedtest. and only check the speeds on these two sites

http://speedtest.magnet.ie/
http://www.imagine.ie/speedtest.html

3: ring tech support!!! im amazed the amount of people who complain about problems, cancel, complaine about the cancellation fee and never tried tech support. If the lines busy and the queue is massive, call back again. If you dont understand or like the tech agent. ask to be transfered to another. If your running out of credit, get them to call you back NOW!

if your angry and you tell them to call you back, they will! because they dont want you ringing in even angrier.


final opinion: Imagine are NOt a bad company!, that said they are not a GREAT company either. even though they have the potential to be. ive talked to their tech, ive talked to their cust service. and ive had good and bad experiences with both. some will have a genuine conversation with you, others will be a blank robot.

I like them. i have their 7mb service up here, and upc in the basement address ( lucky it actually counts as two houses) and im happy with both.

It is down to luck about how your situation is handled but my feelings of tis whole post are that they dont deserve nearly the amount of bad press they are getting! (only some for selling to places out of coverage. im aware they dont charge cancellation fees in this situation, but its still a waste of someones time).

Take my opinion as right or wrong, either way is fine. but if your going to comment, at least follow the three lessons I learnt.

alanfa

OVERTONE69 wrote: »

what do you mean "you people in imagine" as if im some sort of higher management douche?

im a computer science student at itt. i just done some research on wimax technolgies and asked around.

You hardly think they would advertise that their speeds are going to get better later on so sign up now?!

in regards to the speeds, just take a look at what packages their offering.
1b, 3mb, and 7mb. the same as eircom. Their trying to win over their customers.

Their frequency spectrum for wireless could allow them to go as high as 100mb. but why do that?

The main focus of all ISPS at the moment seems to be to dethrone eircom.
upc on one side. imagine on the other. and eircom in the middle getting torn apart (with magnet occasionally butting in to kick some ass)

once eircom is no more, upc will fight to offer more availability
(imagine are nearly nationwide and upc haven even covered dublin)

and imagine wil fight for speed( each wimax highsite has 4 sectors. if theres even one ripwave unit in the area, then one of the sectors has to be allocated to all ripwaves, effectively cutting the speed of the highsite by 25%.)


Just let me take a step back for a moment and say this. i like imagine, i dont believe for one second they deserve all the bad press their getting. But i am aware (as with every ISP in the world) its going to have problems.

Ill reserve my opinions of sean bolger, and the idea that their spreading their reach as far as they can before setting up stability.

But ive had experiences with them, good and bad.
what ive learned is the following.

all isps are gonna have teething problems when they start out.

1: if someone is getting 1mb consistently and their paying for a 7mb, then something is definitely wrong! The wimax units dont allow you to setup your connection unless you "CAN" actually achieve 7mbs.

as far as i know, its 3 lights on the box for a 7mb. if you have 2 lights setting up, then it wont let you install because the service cant be provided.

2: if your connected to the wimax hub via wifi, YOUR SPEEDTEST IS NOT ACCURATE! ethernet cable plugged into the computer is the only accurate way to get a proper speedtest. and only check the speeds on these two sites

http://speedtest.magnet.ie/
http://www.imagine.ie/speedtest.html

3: ring tech support!!! im amazed the amount of people who complain about problems, cancel, complaine about the cancellation fee and never tried tech support. If the lines busy and the queue is massive, call back again. If you dont understand or like the tech agent. ask to be transfered to another. If your running out of credit, get them to call you back NOW!

if your angry and you tell them to call you back, they will! because they dont want you ringing in even angrier.


final opinion: Imagine are NOt a bad company!, that said they are not a GREAT company either. even though they have the potential to be. ive talked to their tech, ive talked to their cust service. and ive had good and bad experiences with both. some will have a genuine conversation with you, others will be a blank robot.

I like them. i have their 7mb service up here, and upc in the basement address ( lucky it actually counts as two houses) and im happy with both.

It is down to luck about how your situation is handled but my feelings of tis whole post are that they dont deserve nearly the amount of bad press they are getting! (only some for selling to places out of coverage. im aware they dont charge cancellation fees in this situation, but its still a waste of someones time).

Take my opinion as right or wrong, either way is fine. but if your going to comment, at least follow the three lessons I learnt.

If you spend your spare time defending and Internet Provider that you are not affiliated with and have compiled such detailed knowledge of it .. well your sicker than I thought ..

If you are an Imagine worker posing as an impartial/ objective contributor to this thread ( as is probably the case ) your beyond treatment .

Nobody's buyin it

OVERTONE69

alanfa wrote: »

If you spend your spare time defending and Internet Provider that you are not affiliated with and have compiled such detailed knowledge of it .. well your sicker than I thought ..

If you are an Imagine worker posing as an impartial/ objective contributor to this thread ( as is probably the case ) your beyond treatment .

Nobody's buyin it

So its ok for someone to badmouth a isp they've an experience with but if they say anything good then they're sick in the head.

Someone has an good opinion of a company and you automatically assume theyre an undercover agent sent by imagine to change opinion on forums.

Your exactly the kind of stupidity i post that thread for.

alanfa

OVERTONE69 wrote: »

So its ok for someone to badmouth a isp they've an experience with but if they say anything good then they're sick in the head.

Someone has an good opinion of a company and you automatically assume theyre an undercover agent sent by imagine to change opinion on forums.

Your exactly the kind of stupidity i post that thread for.

You can post all the threads you want dumbo , but Ive been dealing with your company for the past 4 months and my experience is typical of the others who have contributed to this thread ... As for conspiracy theories I ask anyone following this thread to examine the motives an individual would have to make contributions of such a glowing nature ,while also in possession of such detailed knowledge of I magine's technology and systems

OVERTONE69

alanfa wrote: »

You can post all the threads you want dumbo , but Ive been dealing with your company for the past 4 months and my experience is typical of the others who have contributed to this thread ... As for conspiracy theories I ask anyone following this thread to examine the motives an individual would have to make contributions of such a glowing nature ,while also in possession of such detailed knowledge of I magine's technology and systems

Gonna say it once more. They are not "MY" company!

motives for posting: ive a three hour lunch and im bored outta my mind. I found this thread by chance, and a lot of bad opinions had almost no information. so i posted my two cents.

glowing nature: I think not. im talking about the facts i know about the service and my experience overall, and my take on everyones post who doesnt provide any info on their experience other than "imagine are crap".

technical knowledge: im a computer science student in my final year. Networking was one of my favourite subjects. so i understand wimax as a technology. not just imagines version. everything else i know i learned from reading the manuals and setting up the broadband in the first place.

You had a bad experience, fine.

you handled the situation by? petty namecalling on a forum at someone who has a good opinion of Imagine.

alanfa wrote: »

I ask anyone following this thread to examine the motives an individual would have to make contributions of such a glowing nature

I ask anyone reading to look over the reasons wy i had a good service and how i handled it versus how you responded by calling me dumbo, an agent of imagine and sick in the head.
real mature.

Sponge Bob

OVERTONE69 wrote: »

(imagine are nearly nationwide)

:eek:

Cryos

Overtone, there is a majority that appriciate your information.

However there has been several threads on the WiMax technology, so while you may think looking through this thread that the audience may be uninformed there are a number of people who are subject matter experts (watty for example).

The crux of imagine's wimax is that it is good in area's of low penetration, in areas of higher penetration it is different on a case by case basis (this is the nature of most wireless technology).

What you also have to concider is that not everyone is consumed with what speed they are getting or what their ping rate is; The reality is that as long as joe public can open their RTE news page, download some email and maybe do some skype calling to family then they are happy.

Its this audience that is mainly keeping the product afloat, if it was a truely diabolical product imagine would be on its way into administration.

Giving my own 2c, i think it's an honorable effort for imagine to try get the technology out there and consolodate their aquisitions, but i feel stratigically long term the money should of been spent implementing a fixed system at the cost of a slower rollout (has done UPC no harm).

And to both of you, this isnt a play ground and neither of you are doing your credibility any good so cut it out.

alanfa

OVERTONE69 wrote: »

Gonna say it once more. They are not "MY" company!

motives for posting: ive a three hour lunch and im bored outta my mind. I found this thread by chance, and a lot of bad opinions had almost no information. so i posted my two cents.

glowing nature: I think not. im talking about the facts i know about the service and my experience overall, and my take on everyones post who doesnt provide any info on their experience other than "imagine are crap".

technical knowledge: im a computer science student in my final year. Networking was one of my favourite subjects. so i understand wimax as a technology. not just imagines version. everything else i know i learned from reading the manuals and setting up the broadband in the first place.

You had a bad experience, fine.

you handled the situation by? petty namecalling on a forum at someone who has a good opinion of Imagine.




I ask anyone reading to look over the reasons wy i had a good service and how i handled it versus how you responded by calling me dumbo, an agent of imagine and sick in the head.
real mature.

I see you've tried to silence me by complaining that I was calling you names , well you wont silence me! as for how I'm actually dealing with your Company, well I've referred the matter to Com Reg and they are dealing with it , I'm also considering calling Liveline and I 'd be happy to debate the issue with you on air

Cryos

alanfa wrote: »

I see you've tried to silence me by complaining that I was calling you names , well you wont silence me! as for how I'm actually dealing with your Company, well I've referred the matter to Com Reg and they are dealing with it , I'm also considering calling Liveline and I 'd be happy to debate the issue with you on air

Give it a rest he doesnt work for imagine, if you suspect he does stop being childish and pm one of the mods

alanfa

Cryos wrote: »

Give it a rest he doesnt work for imagine, if you suspect he does stop being childish and pm one of the mods

Just who do you think you are ?

Cryos

alanfa wrote: »

Just who do you think you are ?

Im a regular poster of this forum; Be civil; Talk to the mods if you feel unjust towards.

alanfa

Cryos wrote: »

Im a regular poster of this forum; Be civil; Talk to the mods if you feel unjust towards.

Well I am a regular one too and I joined this thread to give an account of "my experience of dealing with Imagine over the past 4 months" Only 25% of my issue wit this Company refers to the technical side of their service , if it was simply a case of slow internet I'd get over it . This company without doubt has the worst Customer Service Department possible , I have found them to be aggressive , unhelpful , untruthful and manipulative . It is my intention to highlight my experience of dealing with Imagine to all who is interested.

Cabaal

Lads give it a rest or I'll start banning people,

If you have a problem with a post then report it, DO NOT take it upon yourself to post such childish posts as "Just who do you think you are ? "

OVERTONE69

alanfa wrote: »

I see you've tried to silence me by complaining that I was calling you names , well you wont silence me! as for how I'm actually dealing with your Company, well I've referred the matter to Com Reg and they are dealing with it , I'm also considering calling Liveline and I 'd be happy to debate the issue with you on air

ive made my point. and i don't feel like talking to you.
good luck on liveline and try be fair.

Cryos wrote: »

Overtone, there is a majority that appriciate your information.

However there has been several threads on the WiMax technology, so while you may think looking through this thread that the audience may be uninformed there are a number of people who are subject matter experts (watty for example).

The crux of imagine's wimax is that it is good in area's of low penetration, in areas of higher penetration it is different on a case by case basis (this is the nature of most wireless technology).

What you also have to concider is that not everyone is consumed with what speed they are getting or what their ping rate is; The reality is that as long as joe public can open their RTE news page, download some email and maybe do some skype calling to family then they are happy.

Its this audience that is mainly keeping the product afloat, if it was a truely diabolical product imagine would be on its way into administration.

Giving my own 2c, i think it's an honorable effort for imagine to try get the technology out there and consolodate their aquisitions, but i feel stratigically long term the money should of been spent implementing a fixed system at the cost of a slower rollout (has done UPC no harm).

And to both of you, this isnt a play ground and neither of you are doing your credibility any good so cut it out.

fair point. and I suppose your right about the more stable service should have been a bigger focus instead of the amount of houses they can get too.
quality over quantity.
So for that i'm not gonna dispute.

I'd argue that im making my point about imagine fairly but i don't wanna get banned so ill drop it.

alanfa

ve made my point. and i don't feel like talking to you.
good luck on liveline and try be fair.


That feeling is mutual , good luck in your career with Imagine

thebman

My WiMax connection has been fine for the past 4-5 months or so. Have not any issues. It slow down sometimes but not to an unusable level.

If it does, I will switch provider, coming to end of contract for it anyway I think.

Only thing I've had problems with is torrents and youtube streaming issues that don't seem to occur on other network connections but could just be a coincidence. Basically when watching one video, if you move to another using the Flash player, it has massive problems buffering it for some reason.

moorzy

thebman wrote: »

My WiMax connection has been fine for the past 4-5 months or so. Have not any issues. It slow down sometimes but not to an unusable level.

If it does, I will switch provider, coming to end of contract for it anyway I think.

Only thing I've had problems with is torrents and youtube streaming issues that don't seem to occur on other network connections but could just be a coincidence. Basically when watching one video, if you move to another using the Flash player, it has massive problems buffering it for some reason.

friend of mine had a similar problem.
honestly, if your running torrents on anything its gonna slow down every part of your computer.

as for youtube buffering and stuff, it sounds more like your computer causing problems.

if the video loads and its just nto playing right then its definitely your pc.

if its not loading properly, (as my friends wasnt) turns out he had wireless interference from a nearby phone socket. he rang tech and they changed the chanell it operated on. no more interference after that.

your problem sounds more like your comp though.

smelly sock

The service which Imagine advertise and would have you believe you are purchasing is totally different than the package you get. I have the 7mb pack. Now browsing etc is fine but trying to stream videos and download is next or near impossible at times. This is the purpose I got the 7mb package. If all I wanted to do was browse and shop then I'd have got a 3mb package.

Imagines excuse for the poor speeds I am receiving is contention. Now why would they over subscribe the product so much?

The reason is the do not care about the customers experiences and they are in the wimax for a quick book. I'm at the end of my contract and plan to pay the extra few euro to get a proper connection.

Wimax would be a decent enough solution if you can't get fixed line but if you can get upc or eircom packages then it's a waste of time.

With the way they treat customers and cleary advertise a product but sell something totally different their wimax venture will die a death.

smelly sock

thebman wrote: »

My WiMax connection has been fine for the past 4-5 months or so. Have not any issues. It slow down sometimes but not to an unusable level.

If it does, I will switch provider, coming to end of contract for it anyway I think.

Only thing I've had problems with is torrents and youtube streaming issues that don't seem to occur on other network connections but could just be a coincidence. Basically when watching one video, if you move to another using the Flash player, it has massive problems buffering it for some reason.

Imagine use traffic shaping software to throttle torrents.

OVERTONE69

OVERTONE69 wrote: »

ive made my point. and i don't feel like talking to you.
good luck on liveline and try be fair.



fair point. and I suppose your right about the more stable service should have been a bigger focus instead of the amount of houses they can get too.
quality over quantity.
So for that i'm not gonna dispute.

I'd argue that im making my point about imagine fairly but i don't wanna get banned so ill drop it.

You spoke your mind and that is fair - and so did the other dude - but there are limits to the manner in portraying a point for both argument and that goes for the technology too....its limited.

I have good 3g only because my cell is rural and i get 5 bars...it seems that wimax seems to operate on a similar grounds in terms of conjestion (wimax cells dont shrink with high user numbers tho i think). A very valid point has being made really in this....its not about providing quality conncetions to dethrone eircom. it seems that companies for the most part are happy to provide a similarly inadaquate service based on quantity rather than qualityand it has being a massive failure on the part of the regulator in regards to lax enforcement and the government for equally inept legislation governing marketing abd broadband guality in this country

broadband in other nations are at a lavel far superior in latency and speed while so many resources have being squandered by private and public departments and companies....shocking

if ye have access to UPC - use it seem to be the only service that has any future potential and a base of quality - they have used the right business model and porvided an quality infrastructure and developed it accordingly - the same cant be said for any other provider with exception to the breeze product really

all this is my humble opinion by the way so dont shoot me :P :P :P

Irwin R. Schyster

Been meaning to post a bit of a review on this thread for months but have never gotten around to it.
Before I start I will mention that I have had UPC in 2 houses previous and found them to be absolutely awful, the worst company I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with.
They were very lax on download limits which was great but the service regularly went out - (in both houses, city centre ones also I might add) and they had the worst customer service I've ever had to deal with.

Now on to imagine...

Have been a customer for years, having switched from UPC and found their customer service to be excellent throughout all that time, until the switch to Wimax.

I decided to upgrade the service and get rid of the added cost of using the phone line.
Living in the south east, decided to get the 7mb package with the 150 euro cost of having the aerial equipped outside the house beside the sky dish.

The service itself has been excellent and exactly as advertised. every speed test I've done has given me over 7mb everytime.
Bills have gone down and it's been well worth it switching over. Looking back I think I may have been blessed paying extra and getting the outer aerial instead of the inside router I'd guess the majority of people get.
Some of the horror stories on here regarding the service has been the opposite of the speed I get.

The problems lie elsewhere, it appears as though they have fired all their old employees and hired UPC's customer service team.
They recently launched a new portal for their website to check your bills, statistics etc without giving me a new username/password.
Getting this information from them took about a month and a half, almost 10 calls to them (with at least 3 promises of callbacks within 24 hours that never happened obviously)
Numerous arguements with customer service staff who have no idea how to handle customers or keep them happy.

They also have extra services included in their pack which are billed after getting 2 free months - FSecure it's called.
Apparently this also take about 2 months to be removed from your bill after request.
In fairness I have been reimbursed this month for months I was charged for (after requesting it's removal) but I spent a lot of time arguing with customer service about being charged for something I had requested be removed from bill.
Instead of informing me I would be reimbursed they wasted my time by arguing, offering no apology and somehow trying to make out I was in the wrong.

Finally on to their fair usage policy. It's been mentioned in this thread that they cap torrents.
I believe this may be true but only to a degree.
If I try download a tv show that aired the night previously in America that has a lot of seeds at any time throughout the day it will get downloaded very quickly.

If however I have a queue of 10 items in utorrent and have it constantly full, the torrents are most certainly throttled during the day and left back to normal (to go at great speeds) from about 11pm to 11am.

What has prompted me to make this thread however and has rather irked me a bit has the pop up screen that just appeared on my screen moments ago.
I have download about 40-50gb this month so far which is a bit excessive for my norm but anyway I am sure there are many people out there that download a lot more than me.

The pop up basically informed me of their fair usage policy and that I need to keep it mind etc or I will receive a warning (a warning before a warning perhaps). Has anyone else in this thread mentioned this?


So overall, service is excellent if you want/need your internet to be reliable, customer service is awful and for now I'm left seriously wondering if this fair usage policy of theirs is going to be a dealbreaker in the long run....

PogMoThoin

OVERTONE69 wrote: »

technical knowledge: im a computer science student in my final year. Networking was one of my favourite subjects. so i understand wimax as a technology. not just imagines version. everything else i know i learned from reading the manuals and setting up the broadband in the first place.

You may understand WiMax and the way it works, but what You may not understand is that real fixed WiMax (not this mobile self install Imagine stuff) on 3.5Ghz with a proper external reciever does not work very well without perfect line of sight. That is the problem here, some customers very close to the mast people get great signals, others get weak signals making the base station work harder, bandwidth isn't the problem, its latency

watty

The Mobile stuff (Imagine WiMax) works even LESS well. 3.6GHz IMO is a Near Line Of Sight frequency. Should only be used with outdoor aerials. Further away you need bigger aerial on taller poll. You can't beat physics.

Even the lower 2.6GHz MMDS has a hard time without near LOS.

Imagine are using a system designed for 700MHz to 2.6GHz on 3.6GHz. Even above 1.8 GHz things get poorer. That's why the phone people want to run their 2.1GHz 3G on 900MHz. (0.9GHz).

I'm over 12km from a mast. Latency is 20ms to 30ms, speed 7.5Mbps to 8Mbps on an 8Mbps package. 10.6GHz. LOS. If they don't get a rain proof signal, they don't install.

The problem isn't WiMax, the problem is the wrong kind of rollout on the wrong band. Mobile WiMax has features that Imagine can't even use with their lack of National licence and a frequency that allows true mobility. It's just going to give them and the technology a bad name.

Well I see Intel is now investing in LTE, so in a few years Mobile WiMax will be dead. Only the Fixed WiMax will survive as the mobile version can't compete with LTE or 3G/HSPA.