The Imagine Wimax Challenge

JoePie

Despite everything on Boards, the court case coming to light, and just all the genreal negativity, I went ahead and made the call to Imagine last night. There's no phone line in my apartment, a dongle from any of the mobile networks won't cut it, and UPC aren't in the area. So on paper, this is the best option available.

I'm sick of having absolutely no broad/midband of any kind in my apartment, save for tethering my phone, and thats just murdering my data plan. Also, I couldn't find any unsecured networks to leech off of.

I made sure to let them know I'd be returning the equipment within 7 days if it's rubbish, and that I explicitly told them I did not want the €4 internet security charge. The saleswoman wouldn't tell me anything about latency or realistic speeds, but I'm not an idiot, and I know what I would expect. She also tells me there is a new hub in Landsdowne House, and as I'm only a 2 minute walk down the road, I should only have the highest expectations.

So I'm getting a call at 12pm today to confirm sending the gear out to me and to get my laser card details for the €100 for the gear, and confirmation of a 7MB line for €35 a month. She claims that she will personally make sure the stuff is delivered to me by Friday. We'll see.

Unless this thread gets closed or something, check back for updates on this wacky adventure.

Biggins

Good luck LOL

P.S. They would tell you there was a new hub next door if they thought they could get your card details off you, I have found repeatedly.

As I type, I'm on their "hold" phone queue system for the 46th call to them since signed up to them.
As for being put on hold, you cab double that number for the amount of times that I've been forced to be kept waiting yet again.

JoePie

Well, when I was ringing around companies in November, they told me a new point had gone in in Lansdowne. And again last night. At least they're consistent.

UPDATE

Got the the call from the lovely Ann there. €100 paid up front for an indoor hub, first 3 months free and the first bill will be for the first and last month. So now I'm expecting the gear to arrive at my office by the end of the week. She insists that she'll rush it through.

JoePie

PIN number received by both text and email. How efficient. I must tell the security lad in my office I'm expecting a package.

UPDATE
My account has also been debited. And efficient was not the right word to use there. Unnecessary would be better.

Biggins

Keep us further posted how you get on.

JoePie

So, ordered on Tuesday evening, confirmed on Wednesday afternoon and delivered to my office today. I sepcifically told the courier to go to the East building every time he rang me, and he dropped it off in the West building, so I had to go for a walk. I'm a busy man.

I'll be hooking it up later around 7pm, so expect screenshots of me playing with it and sad or happy faces based on the condition of everything. Speed and ping tests will also be posted.

edanto

Similarily, I've taken the WiMax plunge and so far so good.

There is a mast about 1km from me and the strength of the signal is generally about 21db (not sure what units it's measured in).

I've only had one major hiccup, when the speed dropped to about 3MB. Looking inside the receiver (they won't give you the password), I saw that it was connected to a mast that was further away than the closest one. A power cycle fixed it, it reconnected to the correct mast.

I can only assume that the nearest mast dropped off the network for a while and the receiver connected to the next nearest tower. Stupidly, the firmware didn't connect to the stronger signal mast when it came back online.

That's a Motorola failing and not Imagine, but I'd expect better.

That explanation might explain the persistent problems that Biggins is having, but I doubt it. Just wanted to drop it into this thread in case it affects you.

Interested to know how your service works out. I went for Wimax purely because I didn't want to have anything to do with eircom, even briefly while getting a phone line. And of course the catchy jingle.

JoePie

So I've arrived home in the last half hour to a welcome pack that came in the post with yet another copy of my PIN number, and my bank details printed in the letter. I'm glad the postman didn't get robbed or something.

Hooked it straight up and stuck it on the windowsill. No problems. Connected it straight up, and went straight to speedtest and pingtest.





As you can expect, I'm quite surprised at the speed, considering the time it is, and the fact that it's a 7MB line. The ping could be a little lower, but I'm not going to complain. I'll post another speedtest and pingtest tomorrow around the same time, for consistencies sake.

I'm still plugged in via ethernet, so I'm going to set up the wireless now and hopefully there isn't too much of a drop in speed.

Biggins

Looks good so far.

Prezatch

Do you have xbox live or anything? Tried it out for gaming? I'm in a similar situation in ashtown - no phone line and no upc available

JoePie

Wireless was a bit of a pain to set up. And for some reason, on the router control panel, there are a whole bunch of 'radio buttons' which are just images. Also, the default 'motorola' password didn't work. Ran a speedtest over the wireless which I forgot to post. It was roughly the same as when plugged in through the ethernet.

JoeyD, we had two laptops, an Android device and my Xbox 360 all going perfectly last night. Absolutely no lag in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, except for one instance, but when the gae came back around, I had full connection bars as oppossed to three quarters so it was worth it.

It's definitely a location dependant technology though. There is every chance that as more people come onto the network and contention rates increase, that my speed and service will drop.

Going to try out some downloading tonight.

Offy

I had Imagine for a while, it didnt work at the start so I cancelled within the seven day period, no problems so far. I got a phone call a few weeks later telling me ALL problems were resolved and asking if I would like to try again so I did. It worked great for about three months and then it stopped working! It hasnt worked since and that was over a month ago. I went back to Eircom I hope you have more luck with them.

JoePie

A few days later over the wireless:



I'll keep it.

Biggins

Lucky you. Mine is still at its dire and desperate state.
1.62

smelly sock

Wow,

Someone with a good experience of this terrible product. I suppose law of averages comes into.

I have not renewed the contract.

raymix

hi. Could You tell me, how did you test your gaming, latency and speed? Using hub's wireless or connected cable to it? I read that you shouldn't use wireless as it gives incorrect information about connection. Could you please confirm that you hooked cable to hub before testing at speedtest? Thanks

JoePie

I tested my gaming by plugging in my Xbox and playing a game of Modern Warfare 2 to see if it would crap out. It didn't. I pull host regularly. Also, my Xbox is plugged in through an ethernet.

My first speedtest and pingtest are over an ethernet connection. The second one clearly says I checked it over the wireless.

People need to read posts.

roy16_1977

I got wimax installed 2 weeks ago and it's brillant, far better than eircom for me, I think people need to stop making generalisations, might not be good in your area but is great in my area. So basically research for yourself and don't be put off my posts here.

MagicMarker

roy16_1977 wrote: »

I got wimax installed 2 weeks ago and it's brillant, far better than eircom for me, I think people need to stop making generalisations, might not be good in your area but is great in my area. So basically research for yourself and don't be put off my posts here.

Are you speaking for everyone in your area, or are you generalising?

roy16_1977

did I not say 'research yourself'

MagicMarker

roy16_1977 wrote: »

did I not say 'research yourself'

Did I not ask a question?

roy16_1977

you want me to repeat answer again

MagicMarker

You didn't provide an answer, are you speaking for everyone in your area, or are you doing what you're telling everyone else not to, generalising? It's really quite a simple question.

roy16_1977

think I said few times now RESEARCH YOURSELF, meaning everybody looks into it themselves i.e research. Enough time wasting now please.

MagicMarker

roy16_1977 wrote: »

think I said few times now RESEARCH YOURSELF, meaning everybody looks into it themselves i.e research. Enough time wasting now please.

You're answering a question I didn't ask, and making yourself look like an idiot in the process. Congratulations.

watty

roy16_1977 wrote: »

I got wimax installed 2 weeks ago and it's brillant, far better than eircom for me, I think people need to stop making generalisations, might not be good in your area but is great in my area. So basically research for yourself and don't be put off my posts here.

What we need is sound Engineering, Logic, Physics and Mathematics. Not anecdotal evidence.

It may be "Brilliant" for you today, but what about when more customers join in your area?

From a Factual point of view, the "Imagine WiMax" will give good performance where a mast sector is little used and at the other end of performance little better than Dialup. So there will be "good" and "bad" Anecdotal evidence.

The FACTS are that

• It's a Mobile/Nomadic system on a band only suitable for Fixed Outdoor aerials exclusively. (3.6GHz).
• ANY Mobile / Nomadic system, or ANY system using ANY indoor aerials has about 1/8th of the capacity of an Equivalent 100% Fixed Aerials only system.
• No Mobile System can economically provide Broadband, unless every street has its own Mast/Base Station.
• You don't actually need to build and test a rollout of a system to prove it will be rubbish for Broadband. "Imagine WiMax" is inherently a poor solution.
• Contention can't be properly defined or set on "Imagine WiMax".
• Just because a Solution isn't Dialup, doesn't make it Broadband. LTE, 3G/HPSPA, Satellite and "Imagine WiMax" are all Internet Access. None are Broadband.
• Broadband isn't just a particular Speed. http://www.techtir.ie/forums/internet-faq
• "Imagine WiMax" is really a Mobile system that is useless at being Mobile compared to 3G/HSPA (which here is compared to Broadband http://www.techtir.ie/comms/mobile-vs-fixed )

watty

roy16_1977 wrote: »

think I said few times now RESEARCH YOURSELF, meaning everybody looks into it themselves i.e research. Enough time wasting now please.

How many people are Communications Engineers?

Wcool

What i wonder is: why did Imagine implement a Mobile Wimax system for a fixed wireless problem i.e. their customers are not roaming, so why did Imagine not roll out fixed wireless Wimax?

Is that a cost reason? Or did they hope future phones would be Wimax capable (that would be awesome: you could get your BB on your phone then, well whereever Imagine has its network coverage) and they gambled on the wrong horse as it seems LTE is winning on the Mobile front?

Anyone care to speculate? I just don't get it.

roy16_1977

MagicMarker wrote: »

You're answering a question I didn't ask, and making yourself look like an idiot in the process. Congratulations.

You ask if was speaking for everyone, I said more than once for people to research for themselves, so I hope most people would understand from that, I'm not speaking for everyone, the only idiot is you who doesn't understand 'research yourself'

PogMoThoin

Wcool wrote: »

What i wonder is: why did Imagine implement a Mobile Wimax system for a fixed wireless problem i.e. their customers are not roaming, so why did Imagine not roll out fixed wireless Wimax?

Is that a cost reason? Or did they hope future phones would be Wimax capable (that would be awesome: you could get your BB on your phone then, well whereever Imagine has its network coverage) and they gambled on the wrong horse as it seems LTE is winning on the Mobile front?

Anyone care to speculate? I just don't get it.

They got funding from Intel, Intel are only interested in mobile WiMax

edanto

I'm by no means an expert on this, but the WiMax system I have at home is not mobile - there is a receiver fixed to the wall outside my house.

I know that other WiMAx customers, for example those in the city, have a box that they can bring about with them, and plug in anywhere, but my imagine system is not one of those.

From my reading of the techtir page, the wiMax system I have at home is broadband. The speeds are typically, 7Mb down and 512kb up on speedtest.net and pings are about 60ms. I have a Fixed Outdoor aerial.

I'm not trying to be tricky here, just maybe to say that perhaps WiMAx has improved a bit. Certainly for the few months we've had it, it's been relatively troublefree. Only one glitch in service because of a firmware problem which was really the fault of motorola, and a power cycle fixed it.

MagicMarker

roy16_1977 wrote: »

You ask if was speaking for everyone, I said more than once for people to research for themselves, so I hope most people would understand from that, I'm not speaking for everyone, the only idiot is you who doesn't understand 'research yourself'

So you're not speaking for everyone, now that wasn't hard to answer was it?

So how do you know your area is great? Just because you think it's great doesn't mean there aren't 20 other people in your area who think it's crap. See, what you're doing is generalising. You shouldn't do that.

edanto

I'm by no means an expert on this, but the WiMax system I have at home is not mobile - there is a receiver fixed to the wall outside my house.

I know that other WiMAx customers, for example those in the city, have a box that they can bring about with them, and plug in anywhere, but my imagine system is not one of those.

From my reading of the techtir page, the wiMax system I have at home is broadband. The speeds are typically, 7Mb down and 512kb up on speedtest.net and pings are about 60ms. I have a Fixed Outdoor aerial.

I'm not trying to be tricky here, just maybe to say that perhaps WiMAx has improved a bit. Certainly for the few months we've had it, it's been relatively troublefree. Only one glitch in service because of a firmware problem which was really the fault of motorola, and a power cycle fixed it.

Oh - and this tip from faceman about changing the beacon interval to 5ms at 192.168.15.1:2000 so that the router can communicate properly with apple ipad/iphone is very valuable as well!

Wcool

PogMoThoin wrote: »

They got funding from Intel, Intel are only interested in mobile WiMax

I would have expected that Intel would not care if it is fixed or mobile, as long as they can sell the chipset. But maybe Intel had hopes to sell the chips for the next generation of cellphones and they didn't pull it off.

Btw I thought Motorola was behind the hardware for Imagine. Again, I don't know, just what I read.

watty

PogMoThoin wrote: »

They got funding from Intel, Intel are only interested in mobile WiMax

Used to be only interested in Mobile WiMax (Chips in every Laptop etc). Fixed WiMax doesn't use Laptop/Netbook chips.

They have given up on putting Mobile WiMax in all laptops etc and now promote LTE, and have bought an LTE chip company and IP. Mobile WiMax is now on life support. Only Clearwire in USA as a major Customer.

watty

edanto wrote: »

I'm by no means an expert on this, but the WiMax system I have at home is not mobile - there is a receiver fixed to the wall outside my house.

I know that other WiMAx customers, for example those in the city, have a box that they can bring about with them, and plug in anywhere, but my imagine system is not one of those.

From my reading of the techtir page, the wiMax system I have at home is broadband. The speeds are typically, 7Mb down and 512kb up on speedtest.net and pings are about 60ms. I have a Fixed Outdoor aerial.

There are Fixed WiMax.

But if your aerial is part of "Imagine WiMax" it's just like eircom's rural wireless phone, which is actually a GSM box on outside of house, or like 3's NBS "booster" boxes, which are just boxes on the Mobile 3G phone system. A Fixed aerial doesn't make "Imagine WiMax" be a Fixed Broadband service unless EVERY connection is like that.

But maybe you have some other WiMax service. If it's simply the "outdoor aerial option" on "Imagine WiMax" for longer range or poor signal, then you service will be rubbish if more customers join near mast.

watty

Wcool wrote: »

What i wonder is: why did Imagine implement a Mobile Wimax system for a fixed wireless problem i.e. their customers are not roaming, so why did Imagine not roll out fixed wireless Wimax?

Is that a cost reason? Or did they hope future phones would be Wimax capable (that would be awesome: you could get your BB on your phone then, well whereever Imagine has its network coverage) and they gambled on the wrong horse as it seems LTE is winning on the Mobile front?

Anyone care to speculate? I just don't get it.

Facts, not Speculation.

• No expensive team of Installers
• Lower cost Modems
• Easy switch over of existing 3.6Ghz Ripwave
• Faster rollout in new areas
• Rollout more areas simultaneously. (Breeze and Metro had to be area by area to reduce costs).
• Lower rollout cost
• Intel in those days wanted world wide Mobile WiMax, rather than LTE or Fixed WiMax.

But wrong decision.

Anyway they only had 3.6GHz, and NO mobile or nomadic system works properly on that.

edanto

Thanks, very interesting to know.

My service is just the outdoor aerial option that you mention. I do hope that other customers don't join nearer the mast degrading my signal. In fact, hopefully the complaints on boards about it will put people off!

By the way, have you ever considered starting your own ISP, you seem to know a great deal about the market!

watty

Give me €1.5Billion and I will will give everyone real Broadband.

1st thing I would do is hire someone good to run it.

Running a successful business is maybe...
50% having the money to start it
about 30% hard work and management expertise
About 10% Knowing the stuff (after all you could hire me)
About 10% having a good idea. (Lots of boring everyday stuff is easier to make money at than clever ideas).

Avoid Food or Clothes related. Most of those go bust in 1st year.

Nollog

roy16_1977 wrote: »

think I said few times now RESEARCH YOURSELF, meaning everybody looks into it themselves i.e research. Enough time wasting now please.

He's an atheist, he has to get you to re-word your post to make himself feel better.
(This is a joke which links to something in the a&a forum).

I have a friend in Mallow area on wimax (non-fixed) who says it's great.

YourNameForMe

I was laughing when I saw JoePie's speed test results because it was exactly what happened to me. I signed up with a low expectation of what I was going to get. I plugged it in and did a speed test. Wow, I'm getting 5Mb when I signed up for 3Mb. Then, once the trial period was over the speeds dropped to under 1Mb.
I am positive this has nothing to do with contention and more to do with QoS parameters. I know this is quite an accusation but this is happening to a lot of people, amazing speeds for the first week and then a steep decline from there on.

I disagree somewhat that Imagine WiMax is equivalent to a 3g solution without the mobility. Imagine WiMax gives greater data rates and is more reliable than 3g. When I use a 3g dongle in my Apartment the signal goes dead every 20 minutes, presumably because of contention causing the cell radius to shrink. Obviously this *may* be a particularly extreme scenario but it happens.

IMHO, the only people happy with Imagine WiMax are people who for whatever reason can't get a decent fixed line connection and have been using crappy 3g dongles for their primary internet connection. I think reliability is key and WiMax gives more reliability than 3g which is why it seems so much better. It definitely is lacking as a proper broadband solution but for many of us its the best we can get at the current time. Also, we're better off with a quick roll out of mobile WiMax than waiting years for fixed WiMax. Seriously, how long more can people without the option of DSL or cable wait for a reasonable internet connection? Madness

JoePie

Well, it's nearly a month later and we're still tearing along. I'll post up another Speedtest when I get home.

watty

It's as they add new customers. Not Shaping.
The capacity isn't much better than 3G/HSPA.

JoePie

Depressing. Twenty minutes ago on my housemate's laptop, it was business as usual. I believe I'll be keeping my eye on this.

JoePie

Would've made more sense to post last night, but whatever.

I was getting different results from Speedtest.net and the speedtest on Magnet's website. The Magnet one was more in line with what I was originally posting up. Also, I was able to play over Xbox Live with no issues last night, pulling host in several games last night. I can only put the discrepancies down to Magnet rigging their speedtest or busy periods for the network in the area.

watty

Xbox live doesn't need a huge speed, it needs good latency.

Biggins

watty wrote: »

Xbox live doesn't need a huge speed, it needs good latency.

True and the latency with this service sucks big time.

lucernarian

What would the differences in outcomes be when a fixed wimax 802.16 service is provided in an area versus a mobile 802.16 wimax service provided in an area where all the receivers are in static locations?

Are there specific protocol differences between the two variants or suchlike?

watty

Yes, there are major protocol differences.

You would not use Mobile WiMax infrastructure with all Fixed Outdoor aerials as it would be a waste of money. Mobile has extra servers and processing to handle client handovers between masts or sectors on a mast. You might get about x8 performance or x8 Capacity (not both) by using all external directional roof top aerials on a Mobile Base station with ZERO self install indoor/nomadic/Mobile. But it would need re-engineering the base stations too. Mobile uses BOTH polarisations, at -45 and +45 for diversity as the client polarisation isn't known. Fixed on 3.6GHz can use one polarisation, 0 or 90, and then use alternate polarisations on same channels on different masts to help reduce intercell interference. This allows extra capacity on Fixed systems that are Near LOS or LOS (which 3GHz and up increasingly is). In fact the "Imagine WiMax" is using licence for FIXED Wireless, and a band totally unsuitable for Indoor / self install/Mobile/Nomadic but only suitable for Fixed Near Line of Sight to Line of Sight.

The virtually unused 2.3GHz band that Eircom camps on is compatible with LTE and Mobile WiMax and is far more suitable for Indoor than current 3.6GHz used. (3G /HSPA is 2.1GHz).

The GSM 1800 is virtually unused and in UK is already used for 3G. It's much much larger than GSM 900 and better than 3G band for Indoor. 3G, LT or Mobile WiMax will work indoors on it.

But Mobile WiMax is dead. Intel has switched to LTE for built in 4G Modem strategy for Notebooks and gadgets. There is unlikely to be any more Mobile WiMax rollouts anywhere. Imagine will have helped convince operators to stick to 2.6GHz and lower (1.8GHz and 2.3GHz good for Cell Size. 800MHz and 900MHz cells too big to have much capacity for Mobile Data) and only roll out LTE for Mobile, and real Fixed Solutions for Fixed Users. The 2.6GHz only good for small dense cells of LTE replacing Public WiFi.

lucernarian

watty wrote:

You would not use Mobile WiMax infrastructure with all Fixed Outdoor aerials as it would be a waste of money. Mobile has extra servers and processing to handle client handovers between masts or sectors on a mast. You might get about x8 performance or x8 Capacity (not both) by using all external directional roof top aerials on a Mobile Base station with ZERO self install indoor/nomadic/Mobile. But it would need re-engineering the base stations too. Mobile uses BOTH polarisations, at -45 and +45 for diversity as the client polarisation isn't known. Fixed on 3.6GHz can use one polarisation, 0 or 90, and then use alternate polarisations on same channels on different masts to help reduce intercell interference. This allows extra capacity on Fixed systems that are Near LOS or LOS (which 3GHz and up increasingly is). In fact the "Imagine WiMax" is using licence for FIXED Wireless, and a band totally unsuitable for Indoor / self install/Mobile/Nomadic but only suitable for Fixed Near Line of Sight to Line of Sight.

I'm just going to quote this bit as the rest of the post was supplementary to that opening paragraph. Could you clarify that this "x8 performance or x8 Capacity (not both) by using all external directional roof top aerials on a Mobile Base station with ZERO self install indoor/nomadic/Mobile" is a comparison to a fixed system with nomadic terminals or a comparison to a mobile wimax network with mobile terminals?

Also, could you clarify why the self-installed are lumped in with the nomadic/mobile terminals in that sentence? This is strictly in relation to the effect on network capacity/performance and not individual user experience.

Is it a foregone conclusion/factually certain at this stage to say that Imagine's wimax network is using only the fixed part of the 802.16 standard?

watty

A system with ANY indoor (i.e. Self Install), Nomadic or Mobile Modems (terminals) is about x8 less capacity/Speed than a purely Roof Top Directional Aerial Fixed Wireless system. It's to do with intercell interference and the fact that self install (i.e. Nomadic/Mobile/Indoor) are essentially low gain omnidirection aerials of unknown polarisation.

"Imagine WiMax" would appear to be pure Mobile WiMax, but on a totally unsuitable band (3.6GHz) and using only per location "FWALA 3.5" licences (These are licences for a fixed area to give Fixed Wireless Point to Multipoint as alternative to DSL).

They have NO mobile licence and no National licence. It's not illegal what they are doing, but's wasteful of the spectrum, doesn't deliver Broadband (no Mobile system can unless there is a Mast in every street, as Contention is uncontrolled) and is essentially to make the rollout fast and cheap at expense of long term performance and Infrastructure.

You can use a "Dongle" modem with built in aerial on any mast. "Imagine WiMax" is definately not a "Fixed WiMax". Many ISPs in Ireland have Fixed WiMax. It's solely roof top/outdoor aerials.

This compares Fixed Wireless mostly with Mobile 3G/HSPA. http://www.radioway.info/comparewireless/ The "Imagine WiMax" is similar to Mobile LTE, except the band it's on is too high (3.6GHz), so unlike 3G there is not the dramatic cell breathing. Other aspects are the same, except actual Mobility is rubbish compared to 3G or any proposed LTE as there are too few masts and the Frequency "Imagine WiMax" uses is far too high (3.6GHz, rather than 1.8GHz, 2.1GHz(existing 3G) or 2.3GHz LTE and Mobile WiMax elsewhere).

"Self install" = Nomadic, which is usually Mobile system with too few masts for usuable Mobile coverage. Means mostly indoor modem/terminal/dongle with mostly low gain omni-directional Aerial. Fixed, Directional or Outdoor units only deployed to improve signal at black spots or edge of coverage, exactly as Three does on 3G/HSPA and Eircom do with Rural phone Terminals (outdoor GSM / 3G boxes with indoor phone socket).

Putting some or many outdoor aerials doesn't make a Mobile system have fixed system capacity.

See also http://www.techtir.ie/comms/fixed-wireless-broadband-better

The two signal strength plots at the end are not well explained.

When National Broadband arrives, they will only be able to sell this product at about €9 a month. It's neither real Broadband, nor proper national mobility as 3G has. Really given the far better coverage and real mobility you are better getting 3G/HSPA than "Imagine WiMax" unless you can get real Broadband.