Slow broadband during peak hours

shane1337

Hi, I live in the countryside and I have recently ‘upgraded’ to imagine.ie’s wireless 5G broadband network ‘up to 150mb’ offer from my previous 4G network with Three which was very poor to say the least.

I mainly use my internet for gaming and watching Netflix which require decent speeds to run smoothly.

I have previously looked into getting a fibre connection into my home but I have been told that it is not.going to be possible as I live 300-400m from the road which would A) require a lot of digging to get a cable underground or B) a lot of cutting trees if it were to go through the phone line.

After realising that this was not going to be an option, I decided the next best thing would be to go with Imagine. Although the speeds are great in the morning and afternoon (when I’m not home and can’t use it). Sometimes speeds can reach over 200Mb/s in the early hours of the morning and slowing down to around 100Mb/s in the afternoon (1-3pm). This is all well and good but I’m rarely home at these hours so it’s quite pointless in my opinion.

When I get home from work and want to relax and play some games or watch Netflix, this soon becomes near impossible as speeds can drop as low as 3Mb/s at 7-10pm which is extremely frustrating to deal with. If there are other people in my house using the WiFi, there isn’t a hope anything will run at this time. I am aware this is due to network congestion which as far as I know little can be done about it. (Imagine states that they limit a certain number of people in each area to their network to maximise speeds) which I highly doubt.

If anyone has any feedback or suggestions or has similar issues living in rural areas that would be great. Bare in mind this offer is €55 per month!! Which is expensive but I would be willing to pay it if the speeds were consistent and didn’t drop down at peak hours. At the moment it’s not looking good in terms of value for money during them peak hours.

ED E

Imagines product is a bit of a joke. Cancel IMHO. They were squatting others spectrum and that allowed them some capacity but since that was taken back by its rightful owners they're trying to serve M50 levels of traffic with an a Kerry R road. It can only really get worse too.

(Imagine states that they limit a certain number of people in each area to their network to maximise speeds) which I highly doubt.

They don't.

If they did say have 100 customers per sector - theyd go out of business

If they don't - you end up sharing 400Mb between a 30km area. Whereas say Three/VF/Eir have 1500Mb in a much smaller 5-10k area, each.

NIMAN

They did the hard sell round here (another rural area) last summer.

They promised the world, saying that I would get 150meg all the time. I had a debate with their sales guy, and asked what would I get at peak times when everyone else on my mast was on. He maintained I'd still get 150meg.

I told him I was no expert, but if say 48 users (he actually told me how many users I would be sharing my bandwidth with, can't quite remember exact figure now) are all using Netflix or YouTube at 8pm, we can't all get 150meg. He said we would. At that point I knew he was talking sh1t so I lost interest.

I have spoke to some local folk who got it, and they are still happy with it ok. They do get very fast speeds and are still getting decent speeds at peak times too, but from reading about the company, I fear this won't last.

Only time will tell I suppose.

Edit: it was reading the Imagine thread below that also made my mind up. Some of the comments about them as a company are pretty damning.

alec76

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058235429/slow-broadband-during-peak-hours

have previously looked into getting a fibre connection into my home but I have been told that it is not.going to be possible as I live 300-400m from the road which would A) require a lot of digging to get a cable underground or B) a lot of cutting trees if it were to go through the phone line.

I kinda surprised you gave up so quickly.

Did you do any survey ? Surely it won't cost more than new iPhone ?

Ah-Watch

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118720597#Comment_118720597

Agreed here. It would be significantly better than Imagine, you'd have the benefit of promo pricing in year 1 (Approx 420e in Y1 vs Imagnies 660e) to offset some of the costs of digging and laying a duct for it from house back to the road. I'd be interested in what the survey findings were too- I'd be laying ducting myself so they couldn't say 200m/300m was too far away

The Cush

I wonder if the house is in the NBP intervention area?

alec76

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725472#Comment_118725472

Don't forget €150 installation fee for Imagine.