Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

Oweran · 28-09-2020 9:23pm

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Thanks guys.

Any idea on how long the de-prioritisation lasts? - The rest of the day , the rest of the billing cycle??

The rest of the day yeah. So at midnight it goes back to 0. It's 20gb per 24 hours basically, that would be the threshold. Off-peak usage counts.

Asendor · 29-09-2020 8:13am

Oweran wrote: »

The rest of the day yeah. So at midnight it goes back to 0. It's 20gb per 24 hours basically, that would be the threshold. Off-peak usage counts.

Just going though this with them and honestly, at this stage, I don't think they know their own system. Just as some background: I am an average user and I have not once gone over the 1 TB monthly limit in the last 2 years. I do download a game here and there, Steam, Netflix - typical use really. After I moved my downloads, updates off-peak earlier this year (they send an email to all customers asking to move larger downloads off peak)) I suddenly started having issues during the day. Basically 1s pings with 1 Mbit downloads (if the speed test sites even load up). Internet basically dead. That caused quite a bit of issues as I am working from home - VPN disconnects, calls not connecting etc.

When I contacted their tech support I was eventually (after several calls and extensive trouble shooting and various "changes" to my line) advised that I am being deprioritized. This only happened after the case was escalated to their second level support. They confirmed that off peak traffic counts into the daily allowance but not the monthly limit and the daily limit resets at 0:00. They refused however to provide any numbers to me. I was advised that the daily limit is based on the usage on a mast and therefore dynamic. They refused to provide any more information which eventually lead me to leave a review on Trustpilot accordingly. On there they asked me to contact them on an email address, which I did. Sufficient to say that I never got a reply, despite several reminder emails. So eventually (2 months later) I contacted them again via chat. to summarize: they refused to answer, opened a case, someone will contact me or I can call a number and disconnected the chat. (no, I was not abusive or anything - I just asked what is the daily limit so I can plan accordingly?)

When no one contacted me I called their support as advised and they told me I would need to go to their technical support team (back to square one..). They did confirm however that the daily allowance is 8 GB per day, which they CURRENTLY, in a "gesture of good will", double for every customer before restrictions kick in. According to yesterdays call with them 16GB per day is the current limit and starts the deprioritization, once you hit 20GB it fully kicks in.

Currently waiting for a call back from their tech support department (because apparently it should not "turn your internet off" which it effectively does). I don't think this will go anywhere to be honest.. and I don't really have any alternative options (backroad in the middle of nowhere.. no fiber or other alternatives.)

ARGINITE · 29-09-2020 9:01am

Asendor wrote: »

Currently waiting for a call back from their tech support department (because apparently it should not "turn your internet off" which it effectively does)

The more you read about this the more you realize they have no idea how they have configured their network coupled with rubbish tech support makes for an awful experience.

Oweran · 29-09-2020 9:29am

Asendor wrote: »

Just going though this with them and honestly, at this stage, I don't think they know their own system. Just as some background: I am an average user and I have not once gone over the 1 TB monthly limit in the last 2 years. I do download a game here and there, Steam, Netflix - typical use really. After I moved my downloads, updates off-peak earlier this year (they send an email to all customers asking to move larger downloads off peak)) I suddenly started having issues during the day. Basically 1s pings with 1 Mbit downloads (if the speed test sites even load up). Internet basically dead. That caused quite a bit of issues as I am working from home - VPN disconnects, calls not connecting etc.

When I contacted their tech support I was eventually (after several calls and extensive trouble shooting and various "changes" to my line) advised that I am being deprioritized. This only happened after the case was escalated to their second level support. They confirmed that off peak traffic counts into the daily allowance but not the monthly limit and the daily limit resets at 0:00. They refused however to provide any numbers to me. I was advised that the daily limit is based on the usage on a mast and therefore dynamic. They refused to provide any more information which eventually lead me to leave a review on Trustpilot accordingly. On there they asked me to contact them on an email address, which I did. Sufficient to say that I never got a reply, despite several reminder emails. So eventually (2 months later) I contacted them again via chat. to summarize: they refused to answer, opened a case, someone will contact me or I can call a number and disconnected the chat. (no, I was not abusive or anything - I just asked what is the daily limit so I can plan accordingly?)

When no one contacted me I called their support as advised and they told me I would need to go to their technical support team (back to square one..). They did confirm however that the daily allowance is 8 GB per day, which they CURRENTLY, in a "gesture of good will", double for every customer before restrictions kick in. According to yesterdays call with them 16GB per day is the current limit and starts the deprioritization, once you hit 20GB it fully kicks in.

Currently waiting for a call back from their tech support department (because apparently it should not "turn your internet off" which it effectively does). I don't think this will go anywhere to be honest.. and I don't really have any alternative options (backroad in the middle of nowhere.. no fiber or other alternatives.)

Thanks for that! Actually looks worse than what I thought but makes perfect sense with what I experienced. The 20GB figure I threw around was actually not confirmed by the advisor I had on the phone who said it was "around that figure but couldn't provide me a clear number".

I'm in the same boat with them not answering to any of my emails. The advisor also "applied a fix" to my router which, of course, did nothing. 16GB a day is really a joke. If the monthly limit is 1TB then we should logically be looking at a daily limit of 30GB.

16GB is really nothing in this day and age. I'm not even greedy I'd be OK with having 15 Mbps once the daily limit is hit. Even 10 I can manage. But the 1 or Mpbs I'm getting is just not on. Not sure what the next step is to be honest.

Quin_Dub · 29-09-2020 9:32am

So - 8GB/16GB a day before they start to throttle you?

Less than a quarter or currently les than half what they say is the allowance for the month??

8GB is only a little bit more than you'd use for 1hr of Netflix at 4k resolution?

How are they actually able to do that legally?

Asendor · 29-09-2020 11:03am

Quin_Dub wrote: »

So - 8GB/16GB a day before they start to throttle you?

Less than a quarter or currently les than half what they say is the allowance for the month??

8GB is only a little bit more than you'd use for 1hr of Netflix at 4k resolution?

How are they actually able to do that legally?

Correct, this is what I was told. 8GB is what they think is acceptable and average use per day, 16GB is what they give you out of good will, once you hit 16 GB they start throttling and at 20GB you get the full slow down. And yes, its ridiculous in this day and age. As an example, I cant even update my sons games without experiencing slow downs. Watching Netflix for a few hours? forget about it. Updating Windows? that's it for the day.

They do list something about "right to throttle" in their fair use policy however there are no numbers. Even when I asked for numbers it took 2 months to get an answer - which is an abysmal level of support. They guard the numbers like a state secret, obviously because no one would really sign up once this widely known.

There is a major difference between the daily limits and what they advertise as monthly allowance, I am not sure though if this is anything you could use against them from a consumer rights point of view.

Quin_Dub · 29-09-2020 11:18am

Asendor wrote: »

Correct, this is what I was told. 8GB is what they think is acceptable and average use per day, 16GB is what they give you out of good will, once you hit 16 GB they start throttling and at 20GB you get the full slow down. And yes, its ridiculous in this day and age. As an example, I cant even update my sons games without experiencing slow downs. Watching Netflix for a few hours? forget about it. Updating Windows? that's it for the day.

They do list something about "right to throttle" in their fair use policy however there are no numbers. Even when I asked for numbers it took 2 months to get an answer - which is an abysmal level of support. They guard the numbers like a state secret, obviously because no one would really sign up once this widely known.

There is a major difference between the daily limits and what they advertise as monthly allowance, I am not sure though if this is anything you could use against them from a consumer rights point of view.

There surely has to be - It's not like usage of between 8GB and 16GB is even remotely excessive.

It's a couple of hours of Netflix from a single device or as you mention, a single game update for an Xbox/PS system.

So basically , unless you barely use the functionality they provide they reserve the right to throttle your connection because they have rampantly oversold capacity on their network.

Fundamentally I sincerely doubt that there are many (if any really) people who are using Imagine by choice.

Almost all of us are essentially captives to their Service as we don't have alternatives.

Gonzo · 29-09-2020 1:07pm

so Imagine have reverted back to the 20 gig per day allowance over a 24 hour period?

anyone with Imagine who is planning to get the new consoles (PS5, Xbox) in November is going to have quite a time downloading game files in access of 100 gigs, how are they meant to do this? Download a game in chunks over a week so that they don't get throttled every single day?

Imagine are cowboys, always have been always will be. Having said that their network was grinding to a halt with the 1 tb per month allowance so putting it back to 20 gigs per days probably makes sense to relief the strain on their completely oversubscribed network. A making of Imagine's own greed in selling the service to far too many people for maximum profit.

Asendor · 29-09-2020 1:47pm

Gonzo wrote: »

so Imagine have reverted back to the 20 gig per day allowance over a 24 hour period?

anyone with Imagine who is planning to get the new consoles (PS5, Xbox) in November is going to have quite a time downloading game files in access of 100 gigs, how are they meant to do this? Download a game in chunks over a week so that they don't get throttled every single day?

Imagine are cowboys, always have been always will be. Having said that their network was grinding to a halt with the 1 tb per month allowance so putting it back to 20 gigs per days probably makes sense to relief the strain on their completely oversubscribed network. A making of Imagine's own greed in selling the service to far too many people for maximum profit.

It is both actually - 1 TB per month(only peak time traffic counted) and 16-20GB per day (full day counted, no matter if peak or off-peak). What makes it so bad is that they asked customers to move their downloads to off peak.

To quote from the email they sent out:

"We understand and expect that occasionally users require to upload and download large data files, including large image files and games and back up data. However doing this during busy times, when the internet is at its busiest, the services you are using are in high demand and everyone at home is on line, this takes longer, reduces available speed and degrades the service and user experience for you and everyone else in your home sharing the same Wi-Fi connection and uses your data allowance.

You can avoid this by doing this activity in non-busy times. Many of these activities can be easily timed to automatically work in off peak hours during the night. If you choose to do this, you will greatly improve your service experience during busy times.

So, to help everyone, we are changing our Fair Usage Policy. Until further notice, ALL data usage between 1am and 7am will NOT be counted as part of your monthly data usage."

So if you are nice and do what they ask (like me...), you start downloading AFTER their counter for the day reset.

In the past, if I downloaded something in the evening, I did not notice any major issues the next day because the counter resets at 0:00. After I changed over to off peak, all traffic counts into the current day, i.e. I get throttled down.

Quin_Dub · 29-09-2020 1:59pm

Asendor wrote: »

It is both actually - 1 TB per month(only peak time traffic counted) and 16-20GB per day (full day counted, no matter if peak or off-peak). What makes it so bad is that they asked customers to move their downloads to off peak.

To quote from the email they sent out:

"We understand and expect that occasionally users require to upload and download large data files, including large image files and games and back up data. However doing this during busy times, when the internet is at its busiest, the services you are using are in high demand and everyone at home is on line, this takes longer, reduces available speed and degrades the service and user experience for you and everyone else in your home sharing the same Wi-Fi connection and uses your data allowance.

You can avoid this by doing this activity in non-busy times. Many of these activities can be easily timed to automatically work in off peak hours during the night. If you choose to do this, you will greatly improve your service experience during busy times.

So, to help everyone, we are changing our Fair Usage Policy. Until further notice, ALL data usage between 1am and 7am will NOT be counted as part of your monthly data usage."

So if you are nice and do what they ask (like me...), you start downloading AFTER their counter for the day reset.

In the past, if I downloaded something in the evening, I did not notice any major issues the next day because the counter resets at 0:00. After I changed over to off peak, all traffic counts into the current day, i.e. I get throttled down.

Back to starting your downloads at about 9pm so...

deadl0ck · 29-09-2020 2:19pm

Is it based on how busy your mast is?

I've not experienced any throttling and here's my last few weeks usage:

Quin_Dub · 29-09-2020 2:29pm

deadl0ck wrote: »

Is it based on how busy your mast is?

I've not experienced any throttling and here's my last few weeks usage:

I think it might be..

I've definitely seen throttling , but now that I know about it I can tie it back to days when I had very large downloads (my son updating his Xbox usually) in the order of 40Gb+ in the day , albeit during off-peak

I'd have been above 20Gb/Day at least 50% of the days this month , but I reckon I've only been throttled once or twice this month.

Dero · 29-09-2020 2:37pm

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Back to starting your downloads at about 9pm so...

That's exactly the behaviour that this will drive, and it's exactly the opposite of what Imagine need. It's such a myopic and counter-productive policy.

I think they need to be made clarify this in writing with actual figures. On a busy mast, de-prioritisation is throttling by another name. It's worse though, because they do it silently. That and the fact that they won't state a specific limit makes it impossible for the customer to control.

I haven't noticed this happening to our connection lately, but that is mainly because I went out and got another connection (3 mobile BB) specifically for the games consoles. I think it's madness that such a move could even be considered, but I had such grief from them previously and I just don't want that again...

However, for anyone who is suffering from this, I would recommend a formal complaint. I contacted Comreg with my issue, and the below is the first advice the gave me for submitting a complaint to Imagine:

N.B. Don't say you've been advised by Comreg unless you actually have been. In my case they told me to say this because I contacted them for help in the first place.

Comreg wrote:

1. Contact your service provider’s customer care department by telephone/on-line complaint form/email or letter

Phone: 1800 938 100
Email: complaints@imagine.ie
Letter: Escalations team | Imagine, Unit 6 Sandyford Business Centre, Blackthorn Road, Dublin 18.

2. State that you have been advised by ComReg to lodge a complaint
3. Request details of a unique reference number to identify and track the individual complaint
4. Give the full details of your complaint

Please be advised that your service provider must acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and provide a time frame for response, resolution and any other escalation steps in the process.

If your service provider does not respond to your complaint within 10 working days or you feel your service provider has not adequately addressed the issues you have raised you can contact ComReg with the complaint reference number (if this has been supplied to you). We will review your complaint and refer the matter to your service provider if appropriate.

Oweran · 29-09-2020 9:02pm

deadl0ck wrote: »

Is it based on how busy your mast is?

I've not experienced any throttling and here's my last few weeks usage:

Out of curiosity, what speed do you have, at peak times? I have 30 Mpbs when I'm not "deprioritise" and that translates to 5 Mpbs at most (but usually 2) when I went above the daily quota. I would imagine that if you have, let's say, 80 Mpbs peak time without being deprioritised then it would still be usable (maybe 30) when you are above the daily quota.

deadl0ck · 29-09-2020 9:56pm

Usually over 50

MarkoF · 05-10-2020 11:38am

I wonder if anyone else is seeing a lot of issues with the connection to the Carrigaline mast in the last few days?

irishfeen · 05-10-2020 9:17pm

MarkoF wrote: »

I wonder if anyone else is seeing a lot of issues with the connection to the Carrigaline mast in the last few days?

Bweeng mast in north Cork gone unusable now at peak times... less then 0.5mb download last evening with tonight losing complete connection every few minutes.

It’s scandalous!

RonTon · 07-10-2020 5:07pm

irishfeen wrote: »

Bweeng mast in north Cork gone unusable now at peak times... less then 0.5mb download last evening with tonight losing complete connection every few minutes.

It’s scandalous!

I think I’m on Bween mast, very hit and miss for connection lately ,dropping every couple of hours ,frustrating.....
I’ve been with imagine for around 10 years and up to now its been relatively stable ,last month terrible service .

morgana · 07-10-2020 5:12pm

Agreed it's certainly way more unstable - I've had short and longer outages for the last 2 weeks or so, but they can occur at any time. The last couple of nights though yea short drop outs while watching Netflix. It often stabilises again after 10, 15 minutes. Last time I was onto Support I got disconnected and couldn't bring myself to try again facing 20 to 30 minutes in queue and then "Hmm I can see your speeds are poor, but your antenna is at 100%, let me talk to 2nd level support and I call you back". Yea, that never happens, right.

Asendor · 08-10-2020 8:58am

So a quick update. I contacted them on the complaint email address and received an email and callback within a day from someone in Tech support. First of all, the person I spoke to was actually very professional and knowledgeable, credit where credit is due.

They acknowledged the different issues and that there is nothing they can do right now on this. takeaway points in short: the deprioritization is based on mast traffic, so, as a very simplified example: person A downloads a 3 GB file at 06:00AM and then starts another at 02:00 PM, Person B starts downloading a file at 02:00 pm as well. Person A will be deprioritized against person B because B has no traffic so far on the day. (now on my question on why deprioritization means going from 120Mbit/s to 1mbit/s the information was "high traffic volumes due to Corona"). Based on the information I received on the call, this is dynamic, so e.g. if Person B now gets a higher download volume than person A the whole thing turns around and B is deprioritized against A.

Another interesting bit the slipped out: most masts have "nodes", which are limited to 50(?) customers, so a mast with 4 nodes might serve 200 people. Now an interesting piece here was "not our masts" and "150GB total allocated per node and day" and "there were plans to increase capacity which are delayed due to Corona". I cant elaborate on this because that's all I got and I don't want to speculate here.

Now I don't wont to bore everyone by going through every detail but I raised all points from my previous posts. I am supposed to hear back today.

now the fun part: I also received a separate email reply to my complaint later yesterday, which is, to say the least, a perfect display of ignorance and disrespect for customers. Note this was after 2 months and various follow ups from my side which wasn't even acknowledged. Anyways, just the important bits straight out of the email:

"1. Monthly fair use policy is 1 TB
- This is a monthly limit and you can use as much as you want everyday of the month once the total amount does not go over 1TB , if it does the speeds will reduce to 1mbps for the remainder of the month.

2. Off peak downloads (between 1 am and 7 am do not count against the monthly fair use policy
- The off peek hours do not count to the Fair usage policy but will count to the acceptable usage policy.

3. Daily traffic allotment is 8GB (!!!), which is generously doubled to 16 GB traffic per day
- There is no daily usage limit

4. There is a daily limitation in place which resets at 00:00, based on the 16 GB
- The acceptable usage policy will reset at 00.00 every night and this is not based on any any amount of data used

5. My connection will start to be throttled once I hit the 16 GB and basically fully slowed at 20 GB
- No your speeds may be reduced / de-prioritised at any point of day if the usage is deemed excessive, heavy usage outside of the network average will result in your data being de-prioritised to protect the experience of the majority of normal users on the network. De-prioritising your service lasts until midnight and then is reset for the next 24-hours"

This would be funny if it wouldn't be so sad. They are quite literally splitting hairs here to cover their own ...

Now the best example for how they value their customers can be seen in the last sentence of the following paragraph:

"We expect all of our customers to enjoy the benefit and experience of our high-speed broadband service. In fact, reflecting the quality of the service we provide, our average customer data usage at 270Gb per month is the second highest in the market. Clearly given your usage you benefit from this."

Fancy way of saying: How dare you complain about the abysmal service we are providing.

Now my guess is only way forward is Comreg, I will raise this with them today. I cant believe I am paying for this.. but unfortunately I am very limited in options where I live. I last checked a few months back and none of the alternatives were viable.

PS. Just to put this into perspective for anyone planning on signing up with Imagine: My total usage last month was something in the 300-400 GB range, i.e. around 10 GB per day

longvacation · 10-10-2020 8:12pm

Useless in Carrickmacross after 6.00pm. Throttles down to 0.5mb.

WestWicklow1 · 10-10-2020 8:26pm

I am in the intervention area for NBI and expect to have ftth by this time next year.

A few months ago I considered moving to Imagine but due to the great feedback and comments on this thread I held off and at this stage I'm delighted that I did.

Thank you everyone for contributing to this thread, I guess you saved me a lot of heartache.

chelseavera · 11-10-2020 8:04pm

This may be answered elsewhere ...has anyone replaced Imagine router with one of the Mesh routers? Am happy with my speeds - would just like to extend the coverage to my new patio (immediately outside house) which currently gets barely any signal....
Is it straightforward? TIA

longvacation · 11-10-2020 8:28pm

In fairness, relatively good speed of 6 mb tonight.

deadl0ck · 11-10-2020 8:34pm

chelseavera wrote: »

This may be answered elsewhere ...has anyone replaced Imagine router with one of the Mesh routers? Am happy with my speeds - would just like to extend the coverage to my new patio (immediately outside house) which currently gets barely any signal....
Is it straightforward? TIA

You can get Imagine to put their router into bridge mode and then you can then connect it directly into another router which looks after all the local routing AFAIK - some here have done the bridge mode thing

chelseavera · 11-10-2020 8:44pm

Thanks Deadl0ck!

Quin_Dub · 12-10-2020 10:37am

chelseavera wrote: »

This may be answered elsewhere ...has anyone replaced Imagine router with one of the Mesh routers? Am happy with my speeds - would just like to extend the coverage to my new patio (immediately outside house) which currently gets barely any signal....
Is it straightforward? TIA

deadl0ck wrote: »

You can get Imagine to put their router into bridge mode and then you can then connect it directly into another router which looks after all the local routing AFAIK - some here have done the bridge mode thing

Yes , you can.

You might need a new router from Imagine though , some of the older kit doesn't support Bridge mode.

I had to change my Imagine Router to allow me to put it into Bridge mode.

Now using a Netgear Orbi setup in the house.

xxyyzz · 13-10-2020 1:28pm

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Yes , you can.

You might need a new router from Imagine though , some of the older kit doesn't support Bridge mode.

I had to change my Imagine Router to allow me to put it into Bridge mode.

Now using a Netgear Orbi setup in the house.

Can you explain what you mean by bridge mode? I just ran a cable from the LAN port of my imagine router to the WAN/Internet port of my TP Link Deco mesh router. The TP Link mesh system now handles all the wifi in the house. I didn't have to change anything on the Imagine router although the WIFI is still turned on for it.

Quin_Dub · 13-10-2020 2:24pm

xxyyzz wrote: »

Can you explain what you mean by bridge mode? I just ran a cable from the LAN port of my imagine router to the WAN/Internet port of my TP Link Deco mesh router. The TP Link mesh system now handles all the wifi in the house. I didn't have to change anything on the Imagine router although the WIFI is still turned on for it.

You have two options.

You can set it up as you have , with the Mesh system only managing the WIFI component , but often that means that you don't get access to a lot of the other features you get with a new modern Mesh router - Like Firewalls and other security/control items (parental controls for example).

Bridge mode basically turns the Imagine box into just a Modem and moves all of the "router" functions like IP address management (NAT & DHCP etc.) and any other bells & whistles over to your new Router.

Either way is fine , if you are not missing out on features in the Mesh router that you'd like to have then as you have it is fine , although you should absolutely disable the WIFI on the Imagine box.

alec76 · 13-10-2020 2:36pm

xxyyzz wrote: »

I just ran a cable from the LAN port of my imagine router to the WAN/Internet port of my TP Link Deco mesh router. The TP Link mesh system now handles all the wifi in the house. I didn't have to change anything on the Imagine router although the WIFI is still turned on for it.

Does you Deco setup as Access Point or Router ? If second, you behind double NAT , which is bad .
Either way you could not control Pord Forwarding and some other features
ps. Disable Imagine WIFI btw.

Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

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