Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

morgana

MrLucidLJ wrote: »

. I mean when you order online until the time the engineer comes how long roughly is that process from your own personal experience and from others on here?l

My own experience is probably not typical as I was an early adopter (Bweeng mast), they actually rang me (see my very first post of this thread) - I had exactly one week between agreeing the contract and the actual install.

MrLucidLJ

morgana wrote: »

My own experience is probably not typical as I was an early adopter (Bweeng mast), they actually rang me (see my very first post of this thread) - I had exactly one week between agreeing the contract and the actual install.

Thats pretty quick then a week from order until they come out. So you have never tested going over the 20 gigs to actually see if there is any throttling? Also is there a page on their site when you become a customer to track your data usage or as the customer do you have to do that yourself?

irishchris

MrLucidLJ wrote: »

And how big is the place you live in? I am in a small town in Cork around 3k. Hopefully you will get sorted soon and not messed around till the end of the year to sort this out. I have one other big question. Are imagine funding this whole thing or are they using other masts from 4G providers like Three & Vodafone or have they gone out and set up their own equipment? If they have set up there own fair plays because the initial costs would be huge. How good do you find their support to get back to you with updates about your area?

Fairly rural will dispersed population in my area but the hill which the mast will be seems to have a very large coverage catchment area. As far as I know it is all their own equipment but they use others existing infrastructure such as rte nl masts. Their technical support according to many on here is excellent but in terms of getting updates on new install i have found it to be pretty poor. They rang me several times initially but once i agreed to the contract and paid the 100€ I have not received any calls other than when I have rang them up to follow up. Initially it was supposed to be live start of June, then mid June then was told mid July but one agent last week told me the mast will be live end of the coming week so fingers crossed. In all my dealings with them though I have found them to be extremely courteous

morgana

No I have not. Had no reason to, lol. But big game downloads will come soon enough, lol.
I asked about that and there is none - the rep wasn't sure if there would be one either, again this dates back a few months.

If I remember it I'll check my own routers' data throughput record (Asus Nt-R66U - connected to their equipment's WAN port) - but that function is fairly limited and I'm not sure how accurate it is. Don't think i've gone over 15 gig yet :P

ED E

If you want precise data monitoring then SNMP is your man. Getting a router that advertises SNMP data will limit your options a bit in the SOHO bracket and you'll normally want an always on agent to do the recording. Networx is a nice bit of freeware for this.

Ruffty^

My mast was already live (Galway). I signed up start of this month and was told install team would be onto me within 14days, I was contacted 6 working days after that and it was installed the following day.

Like I said earlier, I downloaded 44gigs between ~00:00 and ~02:00 the other day and no issues. I have not tried big dl during the day so I cannot confirm throttling, but they have explained you will be throttled to 2 or 1 meg bandwidth.

In terms of monitoring your usage, they never mentioned any method of doing that to me. No mention of a website to view usage or past bills or anything like that. Would be handy.

Like Morgana, I have my own router I can check if I am concerned about my 20gig cap.

Gooser14

Ruffty^ wrote:

Like Morgana, I have my own router I can check if I am concerned about my 20gig cap.

Hi, What router are you using & why do you find it necessary to use your own router?

morgana

Asus RT-N66U (which I already had from my previous setup) - because the WiFi is much stronger and it has advanced features such as NAS (essential for my backup strategies), guest network etc.. Also you have full control over your own router.
It is my no means necessary to use your own router, just some of us prefer to for various reasons.

Ruffty^

I have a Netgear N300 (old+cheap at this stage) plugged into the Imagine wn-600, the only reason I'm using my router is for better wifi. I have the wifi on the wn-600 disabled.

SCOOP 64

Ruffty^ wrote: »

I have a Netgear N300 (old+cheap at this stage) plugged into the Imagine wn-600, the only reason I'm using my router is for better wifi. I have the wifi on the wn-600 disabled.

Is it that simple to do, so if the wifi is no good i can just buy another router and plug in it and use this for wifi, service to be installed Monday, so not tried yet.

Ruffty^

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Is it that simple to do, so if the wifi is no good i can just buy another router and plug in it and use this for wifi, service to be installed Monday, so not tried yet.

post 515
That post is what I did.

When you have it installed and are connected via wifi to the image wn-600, just open a command prompt and type in "ping 192.168.22.1 -t", that is typically what the imagine router is on. You should be seeing replies <10ms and almost 0 timeouts. I was getting high replies every now and again and also some timeouts (loss), this was while I was doing nothing on the network.. so I swapped it out and have been much better since.. almost always 2/3ms reply and extremely little loss, not to mention better range and speed.

You don't need to do this immediately, sure try the one they give you, you may find it good enough..
Maybe I got a particularly crap router from imagine, or I had put it in a stupid place in my house with hidden high voltage cables and steel beams all around it!!

irishchris

So no word back with update from imagine. Sent email on Thursday and Friday asking for updates but nothing. Starting to regret signing up 9 weeks ago

irishchris

irishchris wrote: »

So no word back with update from imagine. Sent email on Thursday and Friday asking for updates but nothing. Starting to regret signing up 9 weeks ago

Bizarre but just got a call there and getting it installed tomorrow morning. Will keep the thread updated on how it goes

ED E

irishchris wrote: »

Bizarre but just got a call there and getting it installed tomorrow morning. Will keep the thread updated on how it goes

MrLucidLJ

irishchris wrote: »

Bizarre but just got a call there and getting it installed tomorrow morning. Will keep the thread updated on how it goes

Hope you get it sorted and get it in tomorrow and if not by the end of the week. The very latest without taking the piss would be end of next month. I contacted them through Facebook chat and here are some of the messages they said:

"Hi Liam, Unfortunately you're not in coverage yet but the good news is now that you have registered online we will contact you when we have you covered,"

"I don't have dates yet but we have updates on Facebook all the time, so keep your eye out and because you've registered we will contact you to let you know."

"To be honest with you Im not sure of the exact number of how many people in each area would need to register but future site have already been earmarked, so the more interest we get in for those, the quicker we can get them up and running. New sites are also in the plan. We have 100's of people registering all over rural Ireland everyday and we want to get as much of rural Ireland covered as possible."

It seems it might be a while until I get it which is grand because I am in contract with another provider till next summer. Wonder do they have sales agents who go door to door in certain areas to try see if the interest is there and move ahead? Wonder would it be a good idea to do self promotion in my town and get people interested in it I know and then they can influence others to follow suite and get it into the area.

irishchris

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Got a call from imagine coming Monday to test signal and hopefully fit up, so will still have 10 days cooling of period left, pretty quick service, only draw back i will be at work ,wife will be in, I would like to ask a few questions and to test that everything works on all devices. what devices of my would they test ?
Do you have to have a passcode, that you have to put in when you connect to a device , or can you request not to have one, with Permanet i asked not to have one because if i remember there was a problem with i think Xbox and password so never had one, also when you have visitors they can just connect without asking for password.
(live out in sticks ,so no problem with neighbours getting free wifi).

Ps, hope they keep there word on the €50 weaver, because girl on phone didn't know what i was talking about and nothing on account about it.

Let us know how you get on today with this mate. Due to have mine installed tomorrow. Do you know which mast you are being connected to?

um7y1h83ge06nx

So i got a spiel from Imagine that there is a limit of 400 connections per mast when they got in touch with me after filling our their online form.

Is this correct or were they trying the hard sell to get me to jump in quickly?

ED E

Ahmed Narrow Beer wrote: »

So i got a spiel from Imagine that there is a limit of 400 connections per mast when they got in touch with me after filling our their online form.

Is this correct or were they trying the hard sell to get me to jump in quickly?

Thats been reported many times and hopefully is true. Any more than 400 per mast (assuming thats 130/sector) is into serious contention.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Ah okay, thanks. Guess I need to have a good think about it so, they said they would ring back on Wednesday.

Would they be able to get more masts up in the same location? The mast I would be using, Woodcock Hill between Limerick and Shannon would be in high demand if this takes off.

ED E

They've only got a certain number of band allocations, its not really possible to put 3 masts on the same hill and triple the bandwidth, instead you put a new one in between two existing sites and split the coverage areas in half. Another poster has reported they are exclusively using existing high site providers so they'll only be going where theres already infrastructure.

While Imagine support seem to be on the ball now I still have no faith in any telesales department, if they're at 10% or 90% capacity they'll still sell it as "nearly sold out" to make their own lives easier.

SCOOP 64

Well that was disappointing, imagine installer called today but could only get 15mb, so would not install. shame because that is still a lot better the 1/3mb with Permanet for €50 a month.

irishchris

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Well that was disappointing, imagine installer called today but could only get 15mb, so would not install. shame because that is still a lot better the 1/3mb with Permanet for €50 a month.

Whereabouts are you based? What mast? Do you have line of sight?

SCOOP 64

irishchris wrote: »

Whereabouts are you based? What mast? Do you have line of sight?

Im in Enniscorthy, base is forth mountain, wexford, Trees in way apparently but these are a good bit way, he say by law he couldn't install under 30mb, now if it were up to me i would take the 15mb and tell him to go ahead.

Nonoperational

That sounds mental. If you want it surely you can have it.

TireeTerror

Nonoperational wrote: »

That sounds mental. If you want it surely you can have it.

They clearly state they will offer 30Mb minimum and wont install if they cannot provide that speed. No doubt some ploy to secure lucrative contracts in the future with the national 30Mb conditions....

Still that doesnt help the users getting less than 30Mb, I will be gutted if it happens to me.

KOR101

ED E wrote: »

Another poster has reported they are exclusively using existing high site providers so they'll only be going where theres already infrastructure.

But if that's true, surely people would have already been able to 3G or enhanced 3G from the same mast? A lot of people have been saying they had been getting about 1mbit before Imagine came along.

MrLucidLJ

That is a bit mental that they cant provide you with 15mb at least which is a alot better then what you are on I guess they are trying to get the national standard up to 30mbps.

SCOOP 64

Yeah , it does seems silly, i am prepared to pay €60 a month for 15mb service,
you would think the choice would be the customer, they get a new customer for 18 months at €60 a month, i get more a much better broadband speed, who made that stupid rule?

ED E

Nonoperational wrote: »

That sounds mental. If you want it surely you can have it.

MrLucidLJ wrote: »

That is a bit mental that they cant provide you with 15mb at least which is a alot better then what you are on I guess they are trying to get the national standard up to 30mbps.

Not really, it makes sense. There's a feedback selection bias, a user stuck on 3Mb will complain to all their mates about how awful X are and they should be forced to fix it even though they live on a peninsula with the sheep where as the lad with 20Mb in a village wills shut up and chat about the footie. Thinking more towards 2020 if all their customers get a decent service then their reputation will be OK (unheard of for retail ISPs).

KOR101 wrote: »

But if that's true, surely people would have already been able to 3G or enhanced 3G from the same mast? A lot of people have been saying they had been getting about 1mbit before Imagine came along.

I'm not a cellular engineer (kinda wish I was) but there are a lot of factors here. Some may have HSDPA service now but its limited and probably slow. Remember a cell in the same place may have the same number of subs but at €20/mo instead of 60.

The others may not have coverage at all. From my experience travelling in Europe the Irish operators tend to place their kit at really low elevations. Could be planning, could be costs. Towers you see on hills can be for lots of things (FWA, Tetra, TV, ISP P2P, FM, Aviation) so and may be affordable for Imagine at €60/mo but not Vodafone at €20/mo.

irishchris

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Yeah , it does seems silly, i am prepared to pay €60 a month for 15mb service,
you would think the choice would be the customer, they get a new customer for 18 months at €60 a month, i get more a much better broadband speed, who made that stupid rule?

Sounds crazy alright but the fact they are tendering for the NBP and the minium requirement is 30mbs for customers is their reasoning. Feel for you mate as there is nothing worse than the crappy broadband most of us have to put up with. Hoping that tomorrow I don't end up in same boat. In fairness I can see the mast from my window so hopefully shouldn't be any issues as quite near it and good line of sight.
Although in saying that I didn't get any call today from the installer. Did you get a call from the office to setup appointment or when did the installer ring you for directions - on the day or prior?

morgana

No on the same day

SCOOP 64

The office rang Thursday to arrange date and time ,installer rang this morning saying he is on his way,
pretty quick service but to no avail.

rob808

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

The office rang Thursday to arrange date and time ,installer rang this morning saying he is on his way,
pretty quick service but to no avail.

well at least your still in NBP you might end up with FTTH which is miles better than LTE.The downside is the long wait.

SCOOP 64

rob808 wrote: »

well at least your still in NBP you might end up with FTTH which is miles better than LTE.The downside is the long wait.

Its sad though that ive been with Permanet for yrs with same service, 1/3mb, and still have no alternative.

rob808

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Its sad though that ive been with Permanet for yrs with same service, 1/3mb, and still have no alternative.

Im on 3mb myself it ok just downloading anything a pain but I'm use to it now.

MrLucidLJ

ED E wrote: »

Not really, it makes sense. There's a feedback selection bias, a user stuck on 3Mb will complain to all their mates about how awful X are and they should be forced to fix it even though they live on a peninsula with the sheep where as the lad with 20Mb in a village wills shut up and chat about the footie. Thinking more towards 2020 if all their customers get a decent service then their reputation will be OK (unheard of for retail ISPs).



I'm not a cellular engineer (kinda wish I was) but there are a lot of factors here. Some may have HSDPA service now but its limited and probably slow. Remember a cell in the same place may have the same number of subs but at €20/mo instead of 60.

The others may not have coverage at all. From my experience travelling in Europe the Irish operators tend to place their kit at really low elevations. Could be planning, could be costs. Towers you see on hills can be for lots of things (FWA, Tetra, TV, ISP P2P, FM, Aviation) so and may be affordable for Imagine at €60/mo but not Vodafone at €20/mo.

I guess its a good thing that they are not giving 15mbps even though this guy and others are in the same boat. They are striving to get up to the national standard of 30mbps but its annoying when a new fresh service who are looking for change are offering better but you still don't qualify. So Ireland when putting up masts and other Internet technologies equipment, are you saying they lean towards to cheap side of things initially until the new infrastructure has been fully established?

MrLucidLJ

rob808 wrote: »

well at least your still in NBP you might end up with FTTH which is miles better than LTE.The downside is the long wait.

Is it 2020 or 2022 they expect the full infrastructure for regular fibre and FTTH in?

rob808

MrLucidLJ wrote: »

Is it 2020 or 2022 they expect the full infrastructure for regular fibre and FTTH in?

It 2022 when it finish but some companies bidding on it like Eir said they could do it sooner than that but don't want to derail this thread since it about imagine LTE.

irishchris

Well lads showed up good and early this morning. Install took about two hours but only thing am not happy with the location of the router. They wanted to use nearest power point which is at opposite end of house to where I had routed all the cat 5 cables to rooms when I was building. I can't see there been much degradation in signal by adding couple metres to the connection but anyhow will have to feed some cable from where they have left it to where I need it and feed it into my existing router.
Haven't got much chance to use it yet but max speeds are nowhere near as high as morgana and max seems to be about 46mbs even on the installers laptop. I'm surprised as I'm very close to the new basest station with perfect line of sight and am first connection off it.

Will post some speedtest results and pictures of the units later.

MrLucidLJ

rob808 wrote: »

It 2022 when it finish but some companies bidding on it like Eir said they could do it sooner than that but don't want to derail this thread since it about imagine LTE.

I was just wondering. So for example a company like Imagine, what is their long term plan when do they hope to have most of the country covered by same kind of time frame?

MrLucidLJ

irishchris wrote: »

Well lads showed up good and early this morning. Install took about two hours but only thing am not happy with the location of the router. They wanted to use nearest power point which is at opposite end of house to where I had routed all the cat 5 cables to rooms when I was building. I can't see there been much degradation in signal by adding couple metres to the connection but anyhow will have to feed some cable from where they have left it to where I need it and feed it into my existing router.
Haven't got much chance to use it yet but max speeds are nowhere near as high as morgana and max seems to be about 46mbs even on the installers laptop. I'm surprised as I'm very close to the new basest station with perfect line of sight and am first connection off it.

Will post some speedtest results and pictures of the units later.

Delighted you got it in mate thats good they kept to their word finally. So if they had done a few changes what kind of speeds could you be looking at? Do they survey the area first and try see the best speeds. Also are there any modifications you can do to boost the speed and lastly what speeds were you hoping to get being so close to the mast?

Scruff

irishchris wrote: »

Well lads showed up good and early this morning. Install took about two hours but only thing am not happy with the location of the router. They wanted to use nearest power point which is at opposite end of house to where I had routed all the cat 5 cables to rooms when I was building. I can't see there been much degradation in signal by adding couple metres to the connection but anyhow will have to feed some cable from where they have left it to where I need it and feed it into my existing router.
Haven't got much chance to use it yet but max speeds are nowhere near as high as morgana and max seems to be about 46mbs even on the installers laptop. I'm surprised as I'm very close to the new basest station with perfect line of sight and am first connection off it.

Will post some speedtest results and pictures of the units later.

Methinks its not really a degradation issue, its a cost issue. more cable = more expensive install for them. Thats what the guy installing mine basically said.

TireeTerror

Scruff wrote: »

Methinks its not really a degradation issue, its a cost issue. more cable = more expensive install for them. Thats what the guy installing mine basically said.

You paid €150, they can afford a few metres of cable. They are just being tight.

ED E

Its not the cabling, its the manhours. It takes time to properly install a longer run.


If your house is prewired just backfeed it from the existing socket, its not really a huge issue. If you need access in its room too place your router with theirs and then put an 8/16 switch in your comms cab/whatever.

morgana

irishchris wrote: »

Haven't got much chance to use it yet but max speeds are nowhere near as high as morgana and max seems to be about 46mbs even on the installers laptop. I'm surprised as I'm very close to the new basest station with perfect line of sight and am first connection off it.

Glad you got finally installed. Just for laughs I located the Bweeng mast on Google maps and measured the distance to my house as the crow flies: 6.26 km. Much closer than I thought, lol. I had some of my trees trimmed last year because they started to interfere with the Ripplecom signal. And I can't even see the masts from my house as we are a bit too low down to have LoS from the ground.

MrLucidLJ

Scruff wrote: »

Methinks its not really a degradation issue, its a cost issue. more cable = more expensive install for them. Thats what the guy installing mine basically said.

Do you think once their is a more established infrastructure in place that is generating sufficient income that they will go back and reinvest back into their systems?

MrLucidLJ

ED E wrote: »

Its not the cabling, its the manhours. It takes time to properly install a longer run.


If your house is prewired just backfeed it from the existing socket, its not really a huge issue. If you need access in its room too place your router with theirs and then put an 8/16 switch in your comms cab/whatever.

Do you think the pre existing infrastructure is poor and if they were to have more man hours that they would have to charge more for the installs? Your suggestion would that increase the download and upload speeds?

irishchris

Only home again now but not impressed with some of the speedtest there
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/2029666551

Also to note there was nothing else connected/running whilst doing these speedtests

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/2029665285

Far short of standard expected. Off tomorrow so will have lot more time to test and contact them

irishchris

Here is some pictures of the setup as promised

Hococop

irishchris wrote: »

Only home again now but not impressed with some of the speedtest there
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/2029666551

Also to note there was nothing else connected/running whilst doing these speedtests

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/2029665285

Far short of standard expected. Off tomorrow so will have lot more time to test and contact them

You might have mentioned already in this thread but what were your speeds before this installations