Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

Wing126

Pious14 wrote: »

Anybody get this message. Called them and they are sending an engineer but I am now sceptical about it

URGENT BROADBAND MESSAGE - Hi, due to significant increases in internet usage country wide, we need to make some adjustments to your outdoor broadband unit.
This is a critical upgrade to free up much needed broadband capacity both locally for you and to our national broadband network. Please call us on 01 481 8406 now so we can make these changes quickly.

Haven't received that text. Also can't find anything linking that number to Imagine online, only one I can see is the 1800 938 100 number and this one for customer care (01) 437 5000.



If you're skeptical, maybe call CC using either of those numbers and clarify?

Pious14

Got a call from an engineer and they are moving me to a supposed less congested mast which is closer assuming there is a signal

The Cush

Imagine are proposing to lease some 3.6 GHz spectrum from the three MNOs for the duration of the temporary Covid situation at some locations around the country for up to 6 months


https://www.comreg.ie/publication/spectrum-lease-notification-proposed-lease-of-spectrum-rights-in-the-3-6-ghz-band-from-each-of-meteor-mobile-communications-limited-three-ireland-hutchison-limited-and-vodafone-ireland-limited-to

Marlow

The Cush wrote: »

Imagine are proposing to lease some 3.6 GHz spectrum from the three MNOs for the duration of the temporary Covid situation at some locations around the country for up to 6 months

I can't see any will nor goodwill from the MNOs nor Comreg to give them any of said spectrum, because they overstayed their "visit" the last time , not freeing it up, when requested by Comreg. That hole they dug for themselves.

/M

The Cush

Marlow wrote: »

I can't see any will nor goodwill from the MNOs nor Comreg to give them any of said spectrum, because they overstayed their "visit" the last time , not freeing it up, when requested by Comreg. That hole they dug for themselves.

This wouldn't be happening if the MNOs and Imagine hadn't already agreed to the short term lease of the spectrum.

Comreg are only seeking responses to determine whether or not a proposed lease would distort competition.

This quote from that information notice.

6. Four respondents to Document 20/21 submitted views in support of the leasing spectrum rights in the 3.6 GHz band. In summary:

• Imagine submitted that its network and customer premises equipment are readily capable of making full use of any assignments in the 3.6 GHz Band that are unused by MNOs;
  
• 3IRL submitted that, for the duration of the Temporary Situation, it will pause its rollout in the 3.6 GHz Band where it would require a cessation of existing services to customers from other providers, and that it is open to sub-leasing some of its 3.6 GHz spectrum rights of use to fixed wireless providers on a temporary basis;
  
• Eir submitted that it has suspended 3.6 GHz transition activities in cases where this is requested by an existing FWALA operator and states that it is willing to consider leasing unused 3.6 GHz spectrum in rural areas; and
  
• Vodafone stated that it is happy to cooperate with leasing proposals and that it had been approached by Imagine in this regard.

7. In the response to consultation and decision (Document 20/27), ComReg welcomed the positive views of respondents to provide solutions to improve the services for consumers during the Temporary Situation and in relation to potential leasing of spectrum rights in the 3.6 GHz band.

Marlow

The Cush wrote: »

This wouldn't be happening if the MNOs and Imagine hadn't already agreed to the short term lease of the spectrum.

The issue is simple: a short term lease is short sighted. If you need it, that means that you already have contended your network to the maximum or beyond that.

If you have done that and you increase sales based on said short term lease: how are you going to cope when the short term lease expires ? cut customers off ?

/M

The Cush

Marlow wrote: »

The issue is simple: a short term lease is short sighted. If you need it, that means that you already have contended your network to the maximum or beyond that.

These are short term licences to get over the Covid hump, just as they did with 700 MHz and 2100 MHz bands. Once the requirement for the temporary licences come to an end the spectrum reverts.

Marlow

The Cush wrote: »

These are short term licences to get over the Covid hump, just as they did with 700 MHz and 2100 MHz bands. Once the requirement for the temporary licences come to an end the spectrum reverts.

Yes. But you're not getting the core message, of what I am saying: if you didn't calculate with enough spare capacity for a situation, that we have right now, then you're operating on a shoe-string network and budget to begin with.

Meaning, contention is the norm. Not the exception.

Any outage will lead to similar issues outside of the current circumstances. And that is not how it should be.

/M

The Cush

Marlow wrote: »

Meaning, contention is the norm. Not the exception.

Hasn't that been the norm for them anyway since they lost most of the spectrum at the last auction.

Dero

The Cush wrote: »

Hasn't that been the norm for them anyway since they lost most of the spectrum at the last auction.

It has in my experience for sure.

Fatal Except1on

I'm absolutely sure that the Minch Norton/Athy mast has everyone capped at 1mbps now after around 7pm.

It's been like that for about 3 weeks. Every night, 7pm to midnight or so is <1mbps

Dero

Fatal Except1on wrote: »

I'm absolutely sure that the Minch Norton/Athy mast has everyone capped at 1mbps now after around 7pm.

It's been like that for about 3 weeks. Every night, 7pm to midnight or so is <1mbps

If you look through the Comreg PDF The Cush posted above, Minch Norton is one of the locations that they're leasing extra spectrum. Hopefully that may ease the pain somewhat.

rodge123

Dero wrote: »

If you look through the Comreg PDF The Cush posted above, Minch Norton is one of the locations that they're leasing extra spectrum. Hopefully that may ease the pain somewhat.

And it all becomes clear why my speeds have improved dramatically in evenings over last month.
I see my mast (Cappagh North Kildare) on list with extra spectrum since 01 April.

Wing126

rodge123 wrote: »

And it all becomes clear why my speeds have improved dramatically in evenings over last month.
I see my mast (Cappagh North Kildare) on list with extra spectrum since 01 April.

Hmm, my mast is on that list too, but I haven't had any improvement. If anything my signal has been a little disrupted in the last few days. Got in touch with them and someone is monitoring it atm.

morgana

So, they replaced my equipment (router & antenna) to deal with the outages which seems to have fixed that. However, performance-wise it is a mere shadow of what I got when the old equipment was working; even during off-peak I struggle to get up to 20 Mbps, I don't dare to run a test at peak hours cause it knocks out everything. Upload is the real worry as it is getting towards 0, even sending a normal mail without attachments is not instant but feel like a throw-back to dial-up times.
Imagine's response is, like for so many, dire. I have reported this in mails, webchat and calls and nothing. Mails get ignored, webchat abandoned and calls to 1st level support promise call-backs which never happen. Allegedly ticket was opened two weeks ago and nothing happened either. Calling them is now part of my morning routine, lol.
It can get so bad at night that even two devices playing MMO's (pretty low-level throughput) causes massive lags, concurrent streaming Netflix and gaming can be affected too making having so-called broadband a ****ing joke.
My theory is that the installer configured the antenna to be pointed to a different way more overloaded sector resulting in the poor results. On install, he did a test and got about 60 Mbps, my own testing showed barely 20 MBps. I pointed it out to him and he was pretty unwilling to even check; he did just a reboot and my values recovered somewhat but not for long. Now even a reboot (which takes about 3 to 4 times as long as with the previous (albeit identical) equipment) does not change anything.
I'd rather have the outages back and the downloads/uploads (80+/2.5 - 5) I used to get then this crap.
So yeah, I'm pissed off.
NBI is a long way off unfortunately, they are not even in Cork yet and out area is probably amongst the last to be surveyed.

user1842

morgana wrote: »

So, they replaced my equipment (router & antenna) to deal with the outages which seems to have fixed that. However, performance-wise it is a mere shadow of what I got when the old equipment was working; even during off-peak I struggle to get up to 20 Mbps, I don't dare to run a test at peak hours cause it knocks out everything. Upload is the real worry as it is getting towards 0, even sending a normal mail without attachments is not instant but feel like a throw-back to dial-up times.
Imagine's response is, like for so many, dire. I have reported this in mails, webchat and calls and nothing. Mails get ignored, webchat abandoned and calls to 1st level support promise call-backs which never happen. Allegedly ticket was opened two weeks ago and nothing happened either. Calling them is now part of my morning routine, lol.
It can get so bad at night that even two devices playing MMO's (pretty low-level throughput) causes massive lags, concurrent streaming Netflix and gaming can be affected too making having so-called broadband a ****ing joke.
My theory is that the installer configured the antenna to be pointed to a different way more overloaded sector resulting in the poor results. On install, he did a test and got about 60 Mbps, my own testing showed barely 20 MBps. I pointed it out to him and he was pretty unwilling to even check; he did just a reboot and my values recovered somewhat but not for long. Now even a reboot (which takes about 3 to 4 times as long as with the previous (albeit identical) equipment) does not change anything.
I'd rather have the outages back and the downloads/uploads (80+/2.5 - 5) I used to get then this crap.
So yeah, I'm pissed off.
NBI is a long way off unfortunately, they are not even in Cork yet and out area is probably amongst the last to be surveyed.

The exact same thing happened to my parents. Now the connection is unusable and no response from Imagine. Direct Debit was cancelled and my parents are now using a Three dongle that gives them about 2mb on 3G

Wing126

user1842 wrote: »

The exact same thing happened to my parents. Now the connection is unusable and no response from Imagine. Direct Debit was cancelled and my parents are now using a Three dongle that gives them about 2mb on 3G

morgana wrote: »

So, they replaced my equipment (router & antenna) to deal with the outages which seems to have fixed that. However, performance-wise it is a mere shadow of what I got when the old equipment was working; even during off-peak I struggle to get up to 20 Mbps, I don't dare to run a test at peak hours cause it knocks out everything. Upload is the real worry as it is getting towards 0, even sending a normal mail without attachments is not instant but feel like a throw-back to dial-up times.
Imagine's response is, like for so many, dire. I have reported this in mails, webchat and calls and nothing. Mails get ignored, webchat abandoned and calls to 1st level support promise call-backs which never happen. Allegedly ticket was opened two weeks ago and nothing happened either. Calling them is now part of my morning routine, lol.
It can get so bad at night that even two devices playing MMO's (pretty low-level throughput) causes massive lags, concurrent streaming Netflix and gaming can be affected too making having so-called broadband a ****ing joke.
My theory is that the installer configured the antenna to be pointed to a different way more overloaded sector resulting in the poor results. On install, he did a test and got about 60 Mbps, my own testing showed barely 20 MBps. I pointed it out to him and he was pretty unwilling to even check; he did just a reboot and my values recovered somewhat but not for long. Now even a reboot (which takes about 3 to 4 times as long as with the previous (albeit identical) equipment) does not change anything.
I'd rather have the outages back and the downloads/uploads (80+/2.5 - 5) I used to get then this crap.
So yeah, I'm pissed off.
NBI is a long way off unfortunately, they are not even in Cork yet and out area is probably amongst the last to be surveyed.

With the earlier post about leasing the 3G spectrum, I wonder have you been put onto a 3G mast?

The Cush

Wing126 wrote: »

With the earlier post about leasing the 3G spectrum, I wonder have you been put onto a 3G mast?

The spectrum being leased is 4G/5G.

The Towercom Bweeng site in Cork is one of the proposed spectrum leases between Imagine and Vodafone.

Ultimanemo

Marlow wrote: »

If you have done that and you increase sales based on said short term lease: how are you going to cope when the short term lease expires ? cut customers off ?/M

Imagine are genius and they will come up with a solution; they will take as many more customers as they could and then they will keep an eye on the trouble makers "the ones who excced 1TB once or twice" and throttle them down to 1mb.

Mortelaro

morgana wrote: »

So, they replaced my equipment (router & antenna) to deal with the outages which seems to have fixed that. However, performance-wise it is a mere shadow of what I got when the old equipment was working; even during off-peak I struggle to get up to 20 Mbps, I don't dare to run a test at peak hours cause it knocks out everything. Upload is the real worry as it is getting towards 0, even sending a normal mail without attachments is not instant but feel like a throw-back to dial-up times.
Imagine's response is, like for so many, dire. I have reported this in mails, webchat and calls and nothing. Mails get ignored, webchat abandoned and calls to 1st level support promise call-backs which never happen. Allegedly ticket was opened two weeks ago and nothing happened either. Calling them is now part of my morning routine, lol.
It can get so bad at night that even two devices playing MMO's (pretty low-level throughput) causes massive lags, concurrent streaming Netflix and gaming can be affected too making having so-called broadband a ****ing joke.
My theory is that the installer configured the antenna to be pointed to a different way more overloaded sector resulting in the poor results. On install, he did a test and got about 60 Mbps, my own testing showed barely 20 MBps. I pointed it out to him and he was pretty unwilling to even check; he did just a reboot and my values recovered somewhat but not for long. Now even a reboot (which takes about 3 to 4 times as long as with the previous (albeit identical) equipment) does not change anything.
I'd rather have the outages back and the downloads/uploads (80+/2.5 - 5) I used to get then this crap.
So yeah, I'm pissed off.
NBI is a long way off unfortunately, they are not even in Cork yet and out area is probably amongst the last to be surveyed.

Can you do a point to point yourself to a house that has Ftth,maybe a relation and go halves on their internet
That's what I'm planning

2 of these
Works up to 15kms line of sight

https://www.eurieka.ie/tp-link-cpe605-network-antenna-23-dbi-directional-antenna.html

https://youtu.be/1n7YbNcMcww

user1842

user1842 wrote: »

The exact same thing happened to my parents. Now the connection is unusable and no response from Imagine. Direct Debit was cancelled and my parents are now using a Three dongle that gives them about 2mb on 3G

If their signal isn't the best, maybe try one of these.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Antenna-LowcostMobile-LMR200-Connector-Huawei/dp/B01E7CWNSI/ref=sr_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=4g+booster+antenna&qid=1589565465&sr=8-10

I got something similar and I'm on 3 as well and went from 2 bars to full bars and the difference in speed was night and day and it allowed me pick up 4G+

Will need one of the modems that the antennas can connect to, a stik won't work with this type of antenna.

listermint

[Deleted User] wrote: »

If their signal isn't the best, maybe try one of these.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Antenna-LowcostMobile-LMR200-Connector-Huawei/dp/B01E7CWNSI/ref=sr_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=4g+booster+antenna&qid=1589565465&sr=8-10

I got something similar and I'm on 3 as well and went from 2 bars to full bars and the difference in speed was night and day and it allowed me pick up 4G+

Will need one of the modems that the antennas can connect to, a stik won't work with this type of antenna.

Are the directional ones not better than the plate style ones

listermint

listermint wrote: »

Are the directional ones not better than the plate style ones

No Idea worked perfectly for me.

morgana

Update:
Credit where credit is due, finally someone not 1st level support took ownership of the issue with several call backs and he booked a service call yesterday morning. Got a call a bit later yesterday that they had a free spot for today (!).
Lads arrived and spent 3 hours troubleshooting and basically doing a fresh install using a different antenna (at a higher spot) and router unit. Apparently the antenna unit originally installed was meant for poorer connections and was too sensitive for my fairly strong signal weakening it due to interference.
So far so good, speeds are up to what they were (65 - 120 Mbps down, 1.5 to 2.5 up) and ping is lower too. We shall see tonight but frankly I do not anticipate problems.
I can only commend the two lads they really tried everything, bringing out an antenna unit mounted on a large pole to check the signal.
They also put the supplied router (a white unit that is capable of that, the original black box was not) into bridge mode so my router can handle everything.

So far, a happy camper again.

Dero

Excellent Morgana. It's also great to know that they will bridge the CPE for people now without jumping through hoops.

Speaking of updates, I have one too.

It seems that my official complaint actually worked (or maybe it was the possibility of Comreg getting involved, who knows). In any event, I got a call from someone last Thursday saying that he was raising my complaint with management and did I want to proceed or cancel. I said go ahead, so he did.

While he was on, I did raise another oddity that I had noticed. Since my connection was restricted, I disconnected the CPE physically from my network and worked off 3 mobile data. However, my account was still showing ~8-9GB data used per day on the Imagine portal. This was clearly wrong so he said "Hmmm" and went off to check.

On Friday then he called back to say I would be unrestricted with immediate effect, but to stick to the 1TB per month (peak hours).

So, basically, I'm going to stay with Imagine for now, probably until the NBP rolls around. At least it (mostly) works and I am not in a contract.

A few thoughts on the whole thing...

• If my account was showing a phantom ~9GB per day, that's almost 300GB per month. That would account for a lot of our unusually high usage
• I now know that 3 mobile data is a perfectly good back up here, so I now have my router configured to fail-over automatically (via this) if Imagine goes down. The peace of mind is well worth keeping the credit topped up.
• Other ISPs are not an option realistically. I had Regional Broadband out, but they couldn't get a signal. It's pure luck that I have line of sight to the mast Imagine use.
• It is always worth submitting a formal complaint in these situations.
• The NBP can't come soon enough.

Quin_Dub

morgana wrote: »

Update:
Credit where credit is due, finally someone not 1st level support took ownership of the issue with several call backs and he booked a service call yesterday morning. Got a call a bit later yesterday that they had a free spot for today (!).
Lads arrived and spent 3 hours troubleshooting and basically doing a fresh install using a different antenna (at a higher spot) and router unit. Apparently the antenna unit originally installed was meant for poorer connections and was too sensitive for my fairly strong signal weakening it due to interference.
So far so good, speeds are up to what they were (65 - 120 Mbps down, 1.5 to 2.5 up) and ping is lower too. We shall see tonight but frankly I do not anticipate problems.
I can only commend the two lads they really tried everything, bringing out an antenna unit mounted on a large pole to check the signal.
They also put the supplied router (a white unit that is capable of that, the original black box was not) into bridge mode so my router can handle everything.

So far, a happy camper again.

Now that is interesting , I was under the impression that you couldn't do that with the Imagine setup - I'd much prefer to be able to use the full features of my own Router and jut have the imagine box in "modem" mode.

I must give them a call - Although now you can't actually speak to tech support any more - you only get to talk to a receptionist who takes your details for a call back several days later.

morgana

Dero wrote: »

Excellent Morgana. It's also great to know that they will bridge the CPE for people now without jumping through hoops.

Great that you got sorted too, Dero. it does take a lot of perseverance alright.
The way I understood it bridge mode needs a certain unit (white in my case) that has software capable of bridging. The black box I had before is apparently not capable of acting just as a modem.
Still running a test occasionally just to make its still working (yup, 120/2.5) xD

Wing126

morgana wrote: »

So far, a happy camper again.

Delighted to hear it! Just a question though, are you still in a termed contract or is your contract finished?

I'm in a similar position and I'm wondering if I can get them to test my connection with another mast that's closer to me, but I don't want to go back into a full termed contract at the moment.

morgana

I am long out of contract - I was one of the first to get connected when Imagine set up shop as LTE broadband provider.

Quin_Dub

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Now that is interesting , I was under the impression that you couldn't do that with the Imagine setup - I'd much prefer to be able to use the full features of my own Router and jut have the imagine box in "modem" mode.

I must give them a call - Although now you can't actually speak to tech support any more - you only get to talk to a receptionist who takes your details for a call back several days later.

Just rang them there about Bridge mode - They are arranging a call back to go through the steps.. No push back so far..