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.