Imagine lte usage warning

yvonne.joy.3

Okay so I have been on imagine lte since last June and have been receiving warnings that I am exceeding my usage limits. Where they then throttle my speeds until 12 that night.

My issue is I have installed my own router to monitor my usage as I received the messages numerous times on weekends when there was no one at all at home, and I am coming no where near my usage limits.

However when I contact them about it lately they are saying that my usage is 20.9GB per day, even tho my own router is showing 10GB.

Has anyone else had this issue with them and if so found any way around it? I have no issues with there actual broadband service speeds everything very good but am going to have to cancel if this keeps up.

ItHurtsWhenIP

Is your router measuring both upload and downloads? That's what they would be measuring.

What devices in your house might be connected at the weekends?

Could anybody have left a laptop on, downloading torrents, while everyone is out?

yvonne.joy.3

ItHurtsWhenIP wrote: »

Is your router measuring both upload and downloads? That's what they would be measuring.

What devices in your house might be connected at the weekends?

Could anybody have left a laptop on, downloading torrents, while everyone is out?

Yes the router is measuring the uploads and downloads, as well as each laptop and android device has monitoring software installed.

There is nothing downloaded, there is a dreambox, 3phones and an ipad.

Yesterday I received the email from them aswell stating that I had exceeded my daily usage, when all that was watched was 7 episodes on netflix.

DopeTech

What's your daily/monthly limit?

yvonne.joy.3

FrostyJim wrote: »

What's your daily/monthly limit?

There daily cap is 20GB after that they throttle the speeds to under 1GB per minute

The high horse brigade

yvonne.joy.3 wrote: »

Yes the router is measuring the uploads and downloads, as well as each laptop and android device has monitoring software installed.

There is nothing downloaded, there is a dreambox, 3phones and an ipad.

Yesterday I received the email from them aswell stating that I had exceeded my daily usage, when all that was watched was 7 episodes on netflix.

7 episodes on Netflix could easily hit your limit, HD uses 3GB per hour

yvonne.joy.3

The high horse brigade wrote: »

7 episodes on Netflix could easily hit your limit, HD uses 3GB per hour

Netflix is set to medium on all devices as the account is set to medium aswell. So that's 0.7GB per hour based on netflix own usage stats.

The device it was played on yesterday had a total wifi usage of 4GB for the 24hour period.

9726_9726

yvonne.joy.3 wrote: »

Netflix is set to medium on all devices as the account is set to medium aswell. So that's 0.7GB per hour based on netflix own usage stats.

The device it was played on yesterday had a total wifi usage of 4GB for the 24hour period.

It's probably not counting "ghost" traffic to be fair, but it may be that the counters are not resetting at midnight, particularly if their AAA servers are overloaded/undersized. If you add two days' usage next time it happens, see if that adds up to 20.

Grandslammer

This 20GB limit sucks. I started downloading a 41GB PS4 game just after midnight 24 hours ago. Imagine throttled my speed this morning, and the download has been going at an absolute crawl since...

Imagine sent me an email when my speed was limited to 1MB, and stated that it would be restored to normal speed at midnight tonight. It is now 00.30 and the speed is still only 1MB! WTF?!

I have been waiting 2 years to play this PS4 game ever since it was announced.

I would switch to Vodafone, Eir, or Virgin in a heartbeat if they were available in my area (probably even if it meant having to buy out my Imagine contract!)

Seems that everybody living in a rural area is being screwed over by broadband providers because they have no other choice!!

A game download can be over 50GB nowadays, and I don't want to buy discs as they are an old technology and I wish to own my games using an online account so I can download them again in future.

Gonzo

If you like to watch alot of Netflix and on Imagine, it is probably best to drop the quality to SD/576p as binge watching shows in HD will eat through that cap in no time and allowances have to be made for other data usage such as mobile wifi, browsing, emails etc.

Gonzo

Grandslammer wrote: »

This 20GB limit sucks. I started downloading a 41GB PS4 game just after midnight 24 hours ago. Imagine throttled my speed this morning, and the download has been going at an absolute crawl since...

Imagine sent me an email when my speed was limited to 1MB, and stated that it would be restored to normal speed at midnight tonight. It is now 00.30 and the speed is still only 1MB! WTF?!

I have been waiting 2 years to play this PS4 game ever since it was announced.

I would switch to Vodafone, Eir, or Virgin in a heartbeat if they were available in my area (probably even if it meant having to buy out my Imagine contract!)

Seems that everybody living in a rural area is being screwed over by broadband providers because they have no other choice!!

A game download can be over 50GB nowadays, and I don't want to buy discs as they are an old technology and I wish to own my games using an online account so I can download them again in future.

Imagine LTE makes no sense if your a gamer, games have to be downloaded over a 3 to 4 day period in order to get around the trottling. Imagine LTE really is only for light to moderate usage and makes no room for gamers or those who like to download large files. There isn't even an additional data addon service to allow you to download such files.

yvonne.joy.3

Grandslammer wrote: »

This 20GB limit sucks. I started downloading a 41GB PS4 game just after midnight 24 hours ago. Imagine throttled my speed this morning, and the download has been going at an absolute crawl since...

Imagine sent me an email when my speed was limited to 1MB, and stated that it would be restored to normal speed at midnight tonight. It is now 00.30 and the speed is still only 1MB! WTF?!

I have been waiting 2 years to play this PS4 game ever since it was announced.

I would switch to Vodafone, Eir, or Virgin in a heartbeat if they were available in my area (probably even if it meant having to buy out my Imagine contract!)

Seems that everybody living in a rural area is being screwed over by broadband providers because they have no other choice!!

A game download can be over 50GB nowadays, and I don't want to buy discs as they are an old technology and I wish to own my games using an online account so I can download them again in future.

I an the exact same have no other options in my area other than permaNet who I was with for years but there speeds were basically non existent.

They cut me off yesterday at 4pm saying I had used all my allowance for the day even tho I had been at work from 7am -3pm meaning I only got home about 3:30 with no one home prior to that and no devices left on. Challenged that on it and all I got was our system is 100% correct. They can't even tell me the ip address of what used my data or when it was used.
Complete joke at this stage and am looking for any other provider I can find

yvonne.joy.3

Gonzo wrote: »

If you like to watch alot of Netflix and on Imagine, it is probably best to drop the quality to SD/576p as binge watching shows in HD will eat through that cap in no time and allowances have to be made for other data usage such as mobile wifi, browsing, emails etc.

I have my netflix turned down to low in order to preserve some of the data cap. However when they cut me off yesterday I teetered my unlimited phone data to run my laptop and chromecast from 4pm there was 1 laptop 1 chromecast and 1 ipad connected to the phone both using netflix on low resolution and doing usual surfing of the Web and used 4gb in the day. So I don't know where they are getting there usage from.

Gonzo

yvonne.joy.3 wrote: »

I have my netflix turned down to low in order to preserve some of the data cap. However when they cut me off yesterday I teetered my unlimited phone data to run my laptop and chromecast from 4pm there was 1 laptop 1 chromecast and 1 ipad connected to the phone both using netflix on low resolution and doing usual surfing of the Web and used 4gb in the day. So I don't know where they are getting there usage from.

running Netflix on low in order to avoid trottling and keeping in with the daily limit just completely goes against having a 'true fiber experience' and the trouble you are going to with phone data. This is a perfect example why Imagine were excluded from the NBP, their product is not fit for purpose beyond the next 3 years. Hopefully most of you guys get on Eir blue line scheme before then. If Imagine could get rid of the daily cap and just have a monthly limit that would resolve the strict usage patterns to some degree.

OverRide

Yvonne are you sure you have all the information? Maybe someone is doing something and has the know how to bypass your counting

Reason I ask is I got my first ever usage warning Saturday night around 11 (in 6 months)

Given I'd only watched 1 episode of something,I asked my Sister who was visiting for the w/end did she watch any Netflix while I was out
Yeah she said 3 episodes of something,I forget the name of it she said

When I looked she was on episode 6...

@Gonzo the 20 gig limit is manageable
Most of the true fibre experience is getting things downloaded instantly
It's not all about the total
As I said before,you could do that but you'd have no time to play games at all if you watched the half of it
So it's all a bit moot

That said I myself would prefer 25 gigs so I could go mad and Veg in front of an hd box set for the day

fuzzy

Hi
I also receive warnings that I have exceeded 20Gb (not GB). 20Gb is 2.5GB which is very little. I've asked Imagine about this and have not had an answer yet. DOes anybody know if it's an error or really only 2.5GB?

Dero

My experience suggests that they throttle at 20GB (as opposed to 20Gb or 20GiB).

fuzzy

I've pasted teh email below. It is a strange error to mix Gb with GB.

Dear customer,

We recently sent you a usage message letting you know that you had reached 15Gb of your 20Gb daily usage.

You have now exceeded your 20Gb daily data usage allowance which means that your broadband speed will be now be slowed down until midnight where upon both your speed and your data usage allowance will be reset for the next 24 hour period.

Homer

OK so I am getting Imagine installed tomorrow morning and am concerned about their attitude to usage limits! I have worked out my usage of virgin media broadband over the last 3 months which shows an average of 189.54GB per month including uploads and downloads.. Thats 189.54/30 days should be under 7GB per day?! I watch A LOT of netflix (HD not 4K) and stream most of my TV and have a funny feeling that Imagine will try and tell me that I am going over my daily limit pretty quickly.. Could Virgin be getting my usage badly wrong?

Gonzo

Homer wrote: »

OK so I am getting Imagine installed tomorrow morning and am concerned about their attitude to usage limits! I have worked out my usage of virgin media broadband over the last 3 months which shows an average of 189.54GB per month including uploads and downloads.. Thats 189.54/30 days should be under 7GB per day?! I watch A LOT of netflix (HD not 4K) and stream most of my TV and have a funny feeling that Imagine will try and tell me that I am going over my daily limit pretty quickly.. Could Virgin be getting my usage badly wrong?

why are you moving from Virgin Media to Imagine? Imagine is really only for those who have no other broadband options available in their area.

fuzzy

I'm checking data usage in the household now and will see what's causing me to be frequently receiving these emails. Imagine responded to me clarifying that they mean 20 Gigibytes rether than Gigabits.

Homer

Gonzo wrote: »

why are you moving from Virgin Media to Imagine? Imagine is really only for those who have no other broadband options available in their area.

Unfortunately thats exactly why! Moving from Swords to 10 minutes away but a rural enough location and its either Imagine or Ripplecom who when I rang offered me 3mb broadband and were actually serious! :pac:

Grandslammer

I live in a rural area and the only options I have are Imagine or Permanet (Permanet's max speed is 10Mb).

Imagine are the worst company I have ever dealt with - for too many reasons to mention! Terrible customer service mainly...

I will be switching to Virgin, Eir, Vodafone, or Sky (even though I hate Sky as a company) as soon as any of them become available in my area - which will not be in the near future as far as I'm aware.

Gonzo

Homer wrote: »

Unfortunately thats exactly why! Moving from Swords to 10 minutes away but a rural enough location and its either Imagine or Ripplecom who when I rang offered me 3mb broadband and were actually serious! :pac:

ahh, have you checked to see if your along an Eir rural fibre route? Check map below to see if there any plans for your area/new home to have Eir FTTH between now and 2018/2019.

http://fibrerollout.ie/rollout-map/

micajones

I would strongly advise anyone looking at Imagine LTE to only use them as a last resort, literally only if there are no other options including hotspots from a phone.

I've been with them for 15 months and have had a very poor experience. I would be a heavy user and it is totally unsuitable for my needs. If all you want is super basic internet use and a bit of basic streaming then maybe consider them, if you also don't mind paying over the odds for broadband.

I've had issues with streaming to devices on my home network, hitting caps when I sholdn't be. They are also very "secretive" about things. Dropping speed to 0.5mbs from 40mbs when you hit a cap is ridiculous. You cannot log in to see your stats (like the old 192.168.2.154 on eir). They don't tell you about the speed drop at all, which to me is a key piece of information.

I've created an account and this is my first post here, such is the strength of feeling I have on this issue!!!

Marlow

yvonne.joy.3 wrote: »

They can't even tell me the ip address of what used my data or when it was used.

That's not the way bandwidth accounting works.

If they were collecting flow data (data usage from and to what ip address), it would blow their database completely out proportions. Also, ISPs don't like to store that kind of data long term. Why would an ISP store data, that they don't need for billing ? Especially, if the existance of said data could be abused by some government agency at a later point, if they figured out, it existed.

Also, on your side of the connection, they only see your (one !!) public ip. They can't differentiate between the devices behind the firewall of the router.

So .. all an ISP stores is the daily counters from the auth session (PPP, PPPoE, IPoE, DHCP or whatever) associated with the user account, time, date and public ip-address that was associated.

That's all an ISP needs to be legally complient and able to do their billing.

Any more data than that should get you worrying.

Some ISPs then have the ability to look at real-time flows, but they rarely give customers access to these.

Either way, which router are you using to check the data usage ? If you want to be 100% sure, I'd disable the wireless in the imagine router and hang my own device behind that (with the capability of proper traffic accounting) and make sure that ALL connection have to go through that to get the full picture.

/M