Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

Tommy Lagahan · 28-10-2020 8:09pm

rodge123 wrote: »

You may want to remove that tin foil hat.
I think it’s interfering with your ability to write any readable posts!

Ah now tinfoil can be handy, I used to use tinfoil to boost my Three modem from 1mbit to 2mbit! :pac:

fdiddy110 · 28-10-2020 9:52pm

Hi all,I've been following this thread for the last few weeks because my speed goes down to 1.5mb every evening.

I'm with imagine for the last 2 + years, and have found them extremely good during the day, yesterday had 90mb down but kept running speed tests every 30 mins from 5PM on. What I found was as follows, it was pretty strong until just after 7,ie Peak hours.then the hammer came down at about 1-2mb until after 11 which is began rising steadily again.

It looks pretty obvious to me that imagine are charged a lot more for these peak hours,therefore limiting the bandwidth so we cant use it much during these expensive hours.not sure can we do anything about this but that's my 2 cents worth on the subject.

_Puma_ · 29-10-2020 12:00am

fdiddy110 wrote: »

Hi all,I've been following this thread for the last few weeks because my speed goes down to 1.5mb every evening.

I'm with imagine for the last 2 + years, and have found them extremely good during the day, yesterday had 90mb down but kept running speed tests every 30 mins from 5PM on. What I found was as follows, it was pretty strong until just after 7,ie Peak hours.then the hammer came down at about 1-2mb until after 11 which is began rising steadily again.

It looks pretty obvious to me that imagine are charged a lot more for these peak hours,therefore limiting the bandwidth so we cant use it much during these expensive hours.not sure can we do anything about this but that's my 2 cents worth on the subject.

It would nice and easy to say its down to imagine been charged for peak hours or some such and cheaping out... But alas I think its a technical limitation of the LTE product.

Contention on a Masts numerous cell sectors during peak hours. Think of a pizza, each customer on a Mast is assigned a slice, loading their slice with lots of data but their is still just one cabinet on the Mast piping it out. When everyone is trying to get out at the same time you just wait in line and why we see it manifest in download speed nosediving and not necessarily connection drops.

Its been very acute on our Mast since the latest lockdown and the clocks went back. More people indoors streaming overloading thier sectors.

Real Estate on the Mast itself (more sectors) is not going to solve the bottlenecks at the Mast cabinet.

Why I think it completely wrong headed by imagine themselves imposing daily download limits underhandedly (detailed earlier in this thread),whatever about the monthly limits. Its not solving the problem. I know they try and limit the number of customers on a Mast but all our slices are getting bigger and more overloaded and the pipes off the Masts are still the same size since they launched this LTE product.

More capital into the Mast infrastructure is the solution but could be out of their hands as they just lease real estate on them. Likely no say on the cabinets off them.

FTTH can't come soon enough for the the majority. will even benefit people sticking with Imagine as the contention issues will ease for their remaining customers

jelem · 29-10-2020 12:24am

fdiddy110 wrote: »

Hi all,I've been following this thread for the last few weeks because my speed goes down to 1.5mb every evening.

I'm with imagine for the last 2 + years, and have found them extremely good during the day, yesterday had 90mb down but kept running speed tests every 30 mins from 5PM on. What I found was as follows, it was pretty strong until just after 7,ie Peak hours.then the hammer came down at about 1-2mb until after 11 which is began rising steadily again.

It looks pretty obvious to me that imagine are charged a lot more for these peak hours,therefore limiting the bandwidth so we cant use it much during these expensive hours.not sure can we do anything about this but that's my 2 cents worth on the subject.

yes they oversell what they have -
take as much money and hope all do not demand full use at same time.
government allow this theft by allowing "upto" words to con you.
if tied to "we supply 10 Mbits download" then on a "pipe" of 600 MBytes
they can only supply and when oversell they commit crime.
NB
watch for company-men whom try waffle with tech to hide the theft and
abuse the isps and resellers are allowed away with.
tech (625 allow for overhead).
want waffle try isps reply to why bandwidth reduced -"more subscribers".
well F__ Me reduce my price as you have sold to more and taken bandwidth from me.
government allows and citizen has no legal channel to pursue.

god's toy · 29-10-2020 11:36am

mossie wrote: »

Yes, working fine. Maybe reboot the router and see if that helps.

Thanks for the reply. Yea I have restarted it and reset it too but it hasn't fixed it.
.. hmmm...

fdiddy110 · 29-10-2020 1:16pm

_Puma_ wrote: »

It would nice and easy to say its down to imagine been charged for peak hours or some such and cheaping out... But alas I think its a technical limitation of the LTE product.

Contention on a Masts numerous cell sectors during peak hours. Think of a pizza, each customer on a Mast is assigned a slice, loading their slice with lots of data but their is still just one cabinet on the Mast piping it out. When everyone is trying to get out at the same time you just wait in line and why we see it manifest in download speed nosediving and not necessarily connection drops.

Its been very acute on our Mast since the latest lockdown and the clocks went back. More people indoors streaming overloading thier sectors.

Real Estate on the Mast itself (more sectors) is not going to solve the bottlenecks at the Mast cabinet.

Why I think it completely wrong headed by imagine themselves imposing daily download limits underhandedly (detailed earlier in this thread),whatever about the monthly limits. Its not solving the problem. I know they try and limit the number of customers on a Mast but all our slices are getting bigger and more overloaded and the pipes off the Masts are still the same size since they launched this LTE product.

More capital into the Mast infrastructure is the solution but could be out of their hands as they just lease real estate on them. Likely no say on the cabinets off them.

FTTH can't come soon enough for the the majority. will even benefit people sticking with Imagine as the contention issues will ease for their remaining customers

It is really suspicious that it drops all of a sudden - its not like every subscriber on the dot @7pm drops what they are doing and rush to stream Netflix from 7-11.

On a hunch here but something sinister is going on here to limit peak hours because its costing Imagine more to provide data at these peak hours.

deadl0ck · 29-10-2020 1:40pm

god's toy wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. Yea I have restarted it and reset it too but it hasn't fixed it.
.. hmmm...

Do you have the login for the router ? It should show you the connection status for the phone - like this:

_Puma_ · 29-10-2020 2:13pm

fdiddy110 wrote: »

It is really suspicious that it drops all of a sudden - its not like every subscriber on the dot @7pm drops what they are doing and rush to stream Netflix from 7-11.

On a hunch here but something sinister is going on here to limit peak hours because its costing Imagine more to provide data at these peak hours.

I used to think this also and of course not ruling it out but the fact, for my service anyway, it's starting to become an acute problem the past couple of weeks. Seemed to be very smooth during the summer months.

deadl0ck · 29-10-2020 2:49pm

_Puma_ wrote: »

I used to think this also and of course not ruling it out but the fact, for my service anyway, it's starting to become an acute problem the past couple of weeks. Seemed to be very smooth during the summer months.

Have you done a speedtest at that time with WiFi off and you the only person connected with a cable ?

Just to be sure it's nothing internally causing the issue (I had this with my work laptop kicking off a hard drive backup and took me ages to figure it out)

_Puma_ · 29-10-2020 3:01pm

deadl0ck wrote: »

Have you done a speedtest at that time with WiFi off and you the only person connected with a cable ?

Just to be sure it's nothing internally causing the issue (I had this with my work laptop kicking off a hard drive backup and took me ages to figure it out)

Yes ive wired Cat6 in my house, Only use Wifi for the phone(Noticed there too). Ive been working late evenings the past week or so and notice RDP connections at first, then Zoom meetings etc start to become unstable usually between 6-7 and start to nomalise again after 9 or so but no 2 days have been the same so far. Speeds Up & down usually degrade by about 90% with astronomical ping. Jitter seems to be fine so its not the signal.

G1032 · 29-10-2020 5:32pm

As good as down again. Mayo area. 0.5 Mbps. They won't answer the phone or reply to email

fish fingers · 29-10-2020 8:45pm

G1032 wrote: »

As good as down again. Mayo area. 0.5 Mbps. They won't answer the phone or reply to email

2.23 Mbps in Oranmore, Galway. Absolute jokers

SkepticQuark · 29-10-2020 9:04pm

Also gone slow again. I think we can safely say there's some bs happening at peak times with most of us?

rodge123 · 29-10-2020 9:11pm

SkepticQuark wrote: »

Also gone slow again. I think we can safely say there's some bs happening at peak times with most of us?

They rented extra spectrum from a number of mobile operators when the pandemic started earlier in the year and I think the deals are due to expire around now with slightly different times for different masts I think.
Just a thought.

SkepticQuark · 29-10-2020 9:31pm

TBH I'm also noticing GoMo connection has gone super slow too...

baileyborough · 29-10-2020 9:38pm

Lads for those of you with experience in this area, I'm at my wits end here.

Joined up with these criminals when I first moved into my estate as the fiber hadn't been laid and no other options. About 12 months into the 24 month contract, speeds dropped south of 1mbps.

For the past 6 months, I've averaged 2-5 download, and finally gave up with the endless emails and calls and tried Comreg. They def gave them a kick in the ass, as I had engineers round sharpish, but it's actually worse now since. It's not gone over 0.4mbps in the past 2 months or so.

I literally don't know what to do. Imagine just leave me on hold, or tell me I'll get a call back. I've asked Comreg, and all I get is "Imagine is looking into it". I've tried to ask comreg how long can they string me along like this, or if I'm entitled to not be paying them 60 quid while the service is as bad as this, but no answer.

Is there ANYTHING else I can do please? I'm literally heartbroken here, and I cannot afford to pay a second ISP to get fiber in till I'm free of this group of con artists.

The Cush · 29-10-2020 10:02pm

rodge123 wrote: »

They rented extra spectrum from a number of mobile operators when the pandemic started earlier in the year and I think the deals are due to expire around now with slightly different times for different masts I think.
Just a thought.

They still have on-going temporary spectrum leases until early next year

https://www.comreg.ie/publication-download/spectrum-lease-determination-proposed-lease-of-spectrum-rights-in-the-3-6-ghz-band-from-dense-air-limited-to-imagine-communications-ireland-limited
https://www.comreg.ie/publication-download/spectrum-lease-determination-proposed-leases-of-spectrum-rights-in-the-3-6-ghz-band-from-each-of-meteor-mobile-communications-limited-three-ireland-hutchinson-limited-and-vodafone-ireland-limited

Roryjohn1974 · 29-10-2020 10:28pm

What part of Mayo , im due to have it in installed from new ballyhaunis mast in a couple of weeks. I get more undecided about it the more posts I read

Roryjohn1974 · 29-10-2020 10:35pm

Cancel your direct debit payment , keep proof of all contact between you and them , they have failed to provide you with a service. You will win in long run .

baileyborough wrote: »

Lads for those of you with experience in this area, I'm at my wits end here.

Joined up with these criminals when I first moved into my estate as the fiber hadn't been laid and no other options. About 12 months into the 24 month contract, speeds dropped south of 1mbps.

For the past 6 months, I've averaged 2-5 download, and finally gave up with the endless emails and calls and tried Comreg. They def gave them a kick in the ass, as I had engineers round sharpish, but it's actually worse now since. It's not gone over 0.4mbps in the past 2 months or so.

I literally don't know what to do. Imagine just leave me on hold, or tell me I'll get a call back. I've asked Comreg, and all I get is "Imagine is looking into it". I've tried to ask comreg how long can they string me along like this, or if I'm entitled to not be paying them 60 quid while the service is as bad as this, but no answer.

Is there ANYTHING else I can do please? I'm literally heartbroken here, and I cannot afford to pay a second ISP to get fiber in till I'm free of this group of con artists.

baileyborough · 29-10-2020 11:46pm

Roryjohn1974 wrote: »

Cancel your direct debit payment , keep proof of all contact between you and them , they have failed to provide you with a service. You will win in long run .

Thanks for the advice. Turns out it's not a DD. They're just siphoning the money out of my account. Gets better and better.

oscarBravo · 30-10-2020 12:29am

baileyborough wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. Turns out it's not a DD. They're just siphoning the money out of my account. Gets better and better.

That shouldn't be possible without you having signed a direct debit mandate. If it's not DD, what is it?

d31b0y · 30-10-2020 4:18pm

Seems they have confirmed that they do indeed de-prioritise data usage over 20GB.

Hi There,

Please find below a reminder of our Fair Usage Policy (FUP) and Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP).

These policies exist to ensure that all customers on our network receive a fair and consistent uninterrupted experience whilst accessing the internet.

If you have received a high usage warning, Your high level of usage does not reflect the increased usage from people working from home or normal usage including increased streaming and entertainment. To avoid breaching the Fair Usage Policy of 1TB of monthly data usage allowance, you must slow down your data usage. Breaching the 1TB monthly allowance will result in your service being restricted for the remainder of the month.

Any customer whose heavy, excessive usage is deemed to be affecting the overall user experience of other customers on the network will have their service temporarily and permanently restricted.

Fair Usage Policy
We expect all of our customers to enjoy the benefit and experience of our high-speed broadband service.

In fact and reflecting the quality of the service we provide, our average customer data usage at 340Gb per month is the second highest in the market.

However, we recognise that there are a limited number of customers that will attempt to disproportionately use the service which in turn may have an adverse effect on the majority of customers. Both policies allow us to control the few customers that consistently use excessive data which if remained unchecked, could have a detrimental effect on the experience enjoyed by the majority of customers with normal and acceptable data usage.

Customers with excessive, high usage are continuously monitored and where appropriate and as required, are asked to slow down their data usage. The FUP is set at 1TB, a huge amount of data, representing some 3 times the normal customer average monthly data usage today. Various restrictions are imposed on excess users such as restricted slower speeds and lower data caps to ensure that excess data usage by the few does not disproportionately effect the majority of our customers that enjoy a seamless normal high-speed service.

Unrestricted Data Usage - Off Peak Data Usage
To help all our customers, we have changed 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.

Acceptable Usage Policy
This is the policy
The Network is designed to deliver a rich, superfast, low latency broadband experience to both home and small business Customers. It is both our intention and priority to ensure that all Customers on our network receive a fair and consistent uninterrupted experience whilst accessing the internet. We encourage the use of the service for all everyday activities such as gaming, streaming, catch-up, video chat, multi-screen and multi-device browsing and many other internet related activities.

We also recognise that there are a limited number of customers that will attempt to disproportionately use the service which in turn may have an adverse effect on the majority of Customers. To ensure that all Customers on our network receive a fair and consistent uninterrupted experience whilst accessing the internet, imagine reserves the right to apply restrictions on any Customer whose behaviour is deemed to be affecting the overall user experience of other Customers on the network. Such behaviour includes, but is not limited to, instances of running excessive concurrent internet sessions or regularly accessing excessive bandwidth intensive Peer-to-Peer applications, video streams, website hosting and large file downloads. Customers whom we deem to disproportionately use the service will be deprioritised which may reduce the download speed achievable at peak times.

This reduced priority does not limit the usage of the service or restrict the amount of data that can be consumed over time but is necessary to ensure fair and balanced access to network resources amongst all Customers and to ensure that excessive use of the service by certain Customers does not disproportionately impact the service available to others. If we notice continual, disproportionate or abnormal download or upload usage patterns we reserve the right to terminate the provision of your Service(s).

De-prioritising Heavy, Excessive Usage
To ensure that all customers on our network receive a fair and consistent uninterrupted experience whilst accessing the internet, imagine reserves the right to apply restrictions on any customer whose heavy, excessive usage is deemed to be affecting the overall user experience of other customers on the network.

Any user that consistently uses twice or above, the average customer usage will have their internet service de-prioritised. Whilst de-prioritising your service does not affect your normal daily usage and experience, an 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.

Consistent heavy usage where de-prioritising your service may occur is of particular relevance during peak times.

We fully understand that at this time with people working from home and schools closed that usage will increase. However, even in these exceptional times some customers continue to exceed the average and increase their usage significantly.

You enjoy the benefit and experience of the service because of the Fair Usage Policy and the Acceptable Usage Policy and we will continue to enforce these policies to deliver on our obligation and commitment to you and all of our customers. This is particularly important in the current circumstances.

Both our Fair Usage Policy and our Acceptable Usage Policy can be found here https://www.imagine.ie/acceptable-use-policy/

Things to check
Please check if something has changed in terms of your applications or services running in the background on your devices, which are causing high data usage, that you may not be aware of.

As a guide, here are some things that can seriously eat in to your data without you even knowing it is happening.

→ Auto Play - just keeps streaming when you're no longer watching. Seriously eats into your data allowance so switch off Auto Play options.

→ Backups - Google Drive, Dropbox, MS One Drive & Amazon etc can mean you're backing up massive data amounts - Backup new items/changes only.

→ Automatic Software Updates – usually set to automatic so they just keep updating. Set these to manual so you control when this happens.

→ Social Media Videos – Social Media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc default in-stream videos to 'auto play' – Set them to 'play on click'.

→ Switch to SD/HD Content – by default, most streaming services play in 4K when they can – Switch off the 4K default – it's 4x the data if you leave it on.

→ CCTV – streaming continuously at high definition will seriously increase and eat up your data. Set to 'standard definition' or even better to 'motion detection'.

→ Update your Anti-Virus Software – We strongly advise updating your anti-virus and computer security programs regularly keeps you protected online and stops potential security breaches that can cause high amounts of background data.

If you have any questions about this message or have any further queries on how to reduce data usage, please check out our support section here: https://www.imagine.ie/support.

You can also view your current month's data usage on your Imagine Portal at: https://lteportal.imagine.ie/portal/login/login.

We are very proud of the service and benefit we are bringing to homes and businesses across rural Ireland and especially at this time when people need it most.

Please bear in mind that, like other essential service companies our call centre staff are working remotely, and our engineers across the country are working hard in exceptional circumstances. Please consider and follow the advice given before contacting us so we can quickly deal with your query.

Be Safe,
Network Monitoring Team

So 340GB average user per month. If you use twice that, 680GB, you will be deprioritised. It doesn't say anything about it being a daily deprioritisation but this appears to be the case so if you go over an average of about 22.4GB, you will be deprioritised.

So, they are saying, "Here is a 1TB monthly FUP but don't go over 680GB per month / 22GB per day or you will be punished in the same fashion (or worse). And feel free to use the uncapped data usage time between 1am and 7am but it will count towards your deprioritisation."
OK, I am guessing at the last line but if it's not specifically mentioned with regards to the deprioritisation then you can be pretty sure it counts.
Bunch of money hungry charlatans.

SkepticQuark · 30-10-2020 4:34pm

"Whilst de-prioritising your service does not affect your normal daily usage and experience" that's kind of bull****? Also, the average using 340GB per month? Honestly would want to see the specifics on that not to mention I imagine in cases like mine, a family of 4, 3 of us play games the other watches a lot of YT, that our usage by default will be higher than average...

Like from what we can gather "de-prioritising" essentially in practice has meant unusable service for 2020.

lanod2407 · 30-10-2020 5:11pm

Finally got access to the Imagine portal the other day - whenever I hit 20MB usage I got choked. Speed down to 1,MB

They say the limit is 1TB per month but you get choked at 20MB per day. That's an effective monthly limit of 600MB per month.

Imagine are a joke - they're loading customers onto the network and then telling us that they're giving us less than 65% of the monthly limit they advertise.

WHERE IS MY FIBRE????

lanod2407 · 30-10-2020 5:16pm

baileyborough wrote: »

Lads for those of you with experience in this area, I'm at my wits end here.

Joined up with these criminals when I first moved into my estate as the fiber hadn't been laid and no other options. About 12 months into the 24 month contract, speeds dropped south of 1mbps.

For the past 6 months, I've averaged 2-5 download, and finally gave up with the endless emails and calls and tried Comreg. They def gave them a kick in the ass, as I had engineers round sharpish, but it's actually worse now since. It's not gone over 0.4mbps in the past 2 months or so.

I literally don't know what to do. Imagine just leave me on hold, or tell me I'll get a call back. I've asked Comreg, and all I get is "Imagine is looking into it". I've tried to ask comreg how long can they string me along like this, or if I'm entitled to not be paying them 60 quid while the service is as bad as this, but no answer.

Is there ANYTHING else I can do please? I'm literally heartbroken here, and I cannot afford to pay a second ISP to get fiber in till I'm free of this group of con artists.

You can get out for €100 if that would work. You should screenshot the speeds and argue they're not meeting their side of the contract.
I agree they're absolute shisters.

Ardent · 30-10-2020 5:48pm

I think it's quite clear from the above that usage between 1 and 7 AM will not be penalised. So anyone looking to download/update games, for example, needs to be conscious of this.

Agree that they are not offering what was originally advertised - but I think they are in a bad bad situation and trying to make the best of it. The network is junk. Throttling certain heavy users is far more acceptable than widespread network degradation and many disgruntled customers.

I'm glad they're taking these measures to be honest. We are a family with moderate usage here and our evenings are badly impacted by greedy, inconsiderate individuals on our mast.

As said, the sooner FTTH arrives the better.

micksey1969 · 30-10-2020 5:51pm

https://youtu.be/uLz-5byIiU0

d31b0y · 30-10-2020 7:40pm

Ardent wrote: »

I think it's quite clear from the above that usage between 1 and 7 AM will not be penalised. So anyone looking to download/update games, for example, needs to be conscious of this.

Agree that they are not offering what was originally advertised - but I think they are in a bad bad situation and trying to make the best of it. The network is junk. Throttling certain heavy users is far more acceptable than widespread network degradation and many disgruntled customers.

I'm glad they're taking these measures to be honest. We are a family with moderate usage here and our evenings are badly impacted by greedy, inconsiderate individuals on our mast.

As said, the sooner FTTH arrives the better.

People on here have had verbal confirmation that the usage between 1am and 7am does indeed count towards the deprioritisation and if that's the case you run the risk of getting deprioritised before your day even begins.

ARGINITE · 30-10-2020 9:17pm

Ardent wrote: »

I think it's quite clear from the above that usage between 1 and 7 AM will not be penalised. So anyone looking to download/update games, for example, needs to be conscious of this.

Agree that they are not offering what was originally advertised - but I think they are in a bad bad situation and trying to make the best of it. The network is junk. Throttling certain heavy users is far more acceptable than widespread network degradation and many disgruntled customers.

I'm glad they're taking these measures to be honest. We are a family with moderate usage here and our evenings are badly impacted by greedy, inconsiderate individuals on our mast.

As said, the sooner FTTH arrives the better.

If they hadn't over subscribed the network to begin with then they wouldn't be in a "bad situation". The only greedy people here are Imagine not the people paying them for a service they are failing to provide.

jelem · 30-10-2020 9:24pm

advertised on-line by "eir" 5 or more years ago and still not produce a connection
south county dublin and NO excuse.

jelem · 30-10-2020 9:33pm

if you read my previous posts you will see i have pointed out and it is fact.
comreg and competition authority etc . have purposefully been set up by
government with No power. along with they can and do insult the citizens
with disgusting email replies.

verizon · 31-10-2020 12:38am

Down again for me in North kilkenny. To be honest this is the last straw as a contractor stuck at home, this isn't feasible. For the amount they charge this is ridiculous.

mercurystorm · 31-10-2020 11:12am

I had a call with one of the escalation managers on Thursday (apparently he deals with the ComReg complaints) and he confirmed the following

- There is a FUP of 1tb per month and usage during 1 am-7 am does not count towards this FUP
- There is an AUP which is calculated daily and usage between 1 am-7 am DOES count towards to your AUP - If you go over the AUP you will be deprioritized until midnight as its a rolling 24-hour window
- He would not confirm if the AUP is 20gb or not and says it differs on a per mast basis, he would not give an answer on what the AUP is for my mast

He also claims the AUP is fully explained during the sales call and you agree to it before taking a contract out with Imagine - I have disputed this and said the FUP of 1tb is fully explained but nothing about an AUP and the daily usage being monitored and throttled to a point where the internet becomes unusable after hours (I have been deprioritized in the last 9 of 10 days according to him)

He is going to pull my call recordings from when I took the contract and get back to me on Monday, he also told me it doesn't matter if I complain to ComReg as he deals with those and he will just provide them with the exact same information that he provided me, that there is an AUP and I am breaching it

I am not sure how 20gb per day can be classified as abusive in 2020 (or even 2018..) as that could be consumed in a single 4k movie from Netflix - Instead of monitoring bandwidth they should be monitoring applications like Peer-to-Peer etc

I agreed with the FUP as I had no other options for internet, but the AUP is definitely not something I agreed to

mossie · 31-10-2020 11:31am

mercurystorm wrote: »

I had a call with one of the escalation managers on Thursday (apparently he deals with the ComReg complaints) and he confirmed the following

- There is a FUP of 1tb per month and usage during 1 am-7 am does not count towards this FUP
- There is an AUP which is calculated daily and usage between 1 am-7 am DOES count towards to your AUP - If you go over the AUP you will be deprioritized until midnight as its a rolling 24-hour window
- He would not confirm if the AUP is 20gb or not and says it differs on a per mast basis, he would not give an answer on what the AUP is for my mast

He also claims the AUP is fully explained during the sales call and you agree to it before taking a contract out with Imagine - I have disputed this and said the FUP of 1tb is fully explained but nothing about an AUP and the daily usage being monitored and throttled to a point where the internet becomes unusable after hours (I have been deprioritized in the last 9 of 10 days according to him)

He is going to pull my call recordings from when I took the contract and get back to me on Monday, he also told me it doesn't matter if I complain to ComReg as he deals with those and he will just provide them with the exact same information that he provided me, that there is an AUP and I am breaching it

I am not sure how 20gb per day can be classified as abusive in 2020 (or even 2018..) as that could be consumed in a single 4k movie from Netflix - Instead of monitoring bandwidth they should be monitoring applications like Peer-to-Peer etc

I agreed with the FUP as I had no other options for internet, but the AUP is definitely not something I agreed to

This was definitely not mentioned to me when I signed up either and, apart from reading it on here, the first I was told of it was when I got and email yesterday informing me of it.

Tommy Lagahan · 31-10-2020 12:32pm

Wasn't mentioned to me either. Only learned of it through this thread.

lanod2407 · 31-10-2020 12:38pm

Yep. FUP explained and not a word about AUP. The alleged AUP will choke you down to less than 600GB per month so the FUP can never be reached by a customer.

I'm seriously considering leaving and challenging them re their inability to provide me with access to the FUP volumes, while imposing an AUP that was not mentioned when I signed up.

deadl0ck · 31-10-2020 12:56pm

Hmmm - wasn't aware of that either
Here's their AUP: https://www.imagine.ie/downloads/imagine-acceptable_use_policy.pdf

The are very fuzzy here which is they bit they are using to throttle people:

Excessive Use
The Network is designed to deliver a rich, superfast, low latency broadband experience to both
home and small business Customers. It is both our intention and priority to ensure that all Customers
on our network receive a fair and consistent uninterrupted experience whilst accessing the internet.
We encourage the use of the service for all everyday activities such as gaming, streaming, catch-up,
video chat, multi-screen and multi-device browsing and many other internet related activities.
We also recognise that there are a limited number of customers that will attempt to disproportionately
use the service which in turn may have an adverse effect on the majority of Customers. To ensure that
all Customers on our network receive a fair and consistent uninterrupted experience whilst accessing
the internet, imagine reserves the right to apply restrictions on any Customer whose behaviour
is deemed to be affecting the overall user experience of other Customers on the network. Such
behaviour includes, but is not limited to, instances of running excessive concurrent internet sessions
or regularly accessing excessive bandwidth intensive Peer-to-Peer applications, video streams,
website hosting and large file downloads. Customer’s whom we deem to disproportionately use
the service will be deprioritised which may reduce the download speed achievable at peak times.
This reduced priority does not limit the usage of the service or restrict the amount of data that can
be consumed over time but is necessary to ensure fair and balanced access to network resources
amongst all Customers and to ensure that excessive use of the service by certain Customers does
not disproportionately impact the service available to others. If we notice continual, disproportionate
or abnormal download or upload usage patterns we reserve the right to terminate the provision of
your Service(s)

mossie · 31-10-2020 1:09pm

lanod2407 wrote: »

Yep. FUP explained and not a word about AUP. The alleged AUP will choke you down to less than 600GB per month so the FUP can never be reached by a customer.

I'm seriously considering leaving and challenging them re their inability to provide me with access to the FUP volumes, while imposing an AUP that was not mentioned when I signed up.

I'm definitely going to challenge them on the AUP as it wasn't included in what I agreed to. Unfortunately I don't have the option of leaving as their service is far better than what I can get over the phone line.

I don't use a huge amount of data anyway but I don't see why I should have to use a lower quality stream from Netflix because I have to work about imagines AUP.

Quin_Dub · 31-10-2020 2:40pm

I got a warning email from them yesterday evening.

Less than 48hrs before the close of the month , I had used ~450GB and they sent me the warning , despite being less than half the monthly allowance 2 days beforeit resets.

I have however used more than 20GB every day for the last 2 or 3 days , ranging from just over 20GB to just under 24GB on Tuesday

Didn't get throttled though.. just got the warning

ED E · 31-10-2020 3:07pm

ARGINITE wrote: »

If they hadn't over subscribed the network to begin with then they wouldn't be in a "bad situation". The only greedy people here are Imagine not the people paying them for a service they are failing to provide.

This was ALWAYS going to happen. Look at the first 20 or 30 pages of this thread.

Imagine had two options:
A) Charge 100-120€/mo and sell to very few users

Have a sh1t slow network.

No doubt they'll try suing the vendor again for the mess they made :rolleyes:

marklazarcovic · 31-10-2020 3:21pm

Christ,I am nearly signing up to these guys in mayo,after a what can only be described as criminal 3 weeks dealing with vodaphone/kn installers for ftth broadband.

Seriously,does any company tell the truth these days? Everything is ambiguous, borderline blatant lies.

prionnsias · 01-11-2020 11:25am

Does anyone have experience with moving the imagine antenna themselves. Do you think it would work if moved. It's been installed in a very inconvenient part of the house. The area I was thinking of moving it to should have the same signal I reckon so I can't see that being an issue. Looking at the antenna it looks like a simple enough setup I would just need to terminate the cat 5 or cat 6 cable once moved.

alec76 · 01-11-2020 11:41am

Make sure you have External , pure copper cable , not cheap CCA, there is Power Over Ethernet involved .

ARGINITE · 01-11-2020 4:42pm

ED E wrote: »

This was ALWAYS going to happen. Look at the first 20 or 30 pages of this thread.

Imagine had two options:
A) Charge 100-120€/mo and sell to very few users
Have a sh1t slow network.

No doubt they'll try suing the vendor again for the mess they made :rolleyes:

You're forgetting option C, have a business plan that doesn't involve screwing all your customers.

ED E · 02-11-2020 12:46am

ARGINITE wrote: »

You're forgetting option C, have a business plan that doesn't involve screwing all your customers.

With the spectrum they had a chance of a permanent hold on that was probably never possible.

god's toy · 02-11-2020 8:28am

deadl0ck wrote: »

Do you have the login for the router ? It should show you the connection status for the phone - like this:

Nope dont have that login. I take it the password is unique?
Thanks for your reply.

mossie · 02-11-2020 9:05am

My download speeds have dropped dramatically over the last two days. From an average of around 90Mb to around 25Mb. Since the outage last Saturday week it's been erratic but this is the worst it's ever been in the 12 months I've had it.

Asendor · 02-11-2020 9:18am

d31b0y wrote: »

People on here have had verbal confirmation that the usage between 1am and 7am does indeed count towards the deprioritisation and if that's the case you run the risk of getting deprioritised before your day even begins.

I have written confirmation that 1am to 7am DOES count towards deprioritisation, so whatever you do, do not download anything "large" (talking like 10GB or so) off peak or you risk blocking yourself for the rest of the day once you watched a Netflix show or something.

Quin_Dub · 02-11-2020 9:32am

Asendor wrote: »

I have written confirmation that 1am to 7am DOES count towards deprioritisation, so whatever you do, do not download anything "large" (talking like 10GB or so) off peak or you risk blocking yourself for the rest of the day once you watched a Netflix show or something.

So the 1GB "limit" for the month is a flat out lie as it's impossible to get within a mile of that without getting "deprioritised".

They can't have it both ways - either it's ~20Gb a day or it's 1TB a month , they can't tell us it's both.

Asendor · 02-11-2020 10:10am

Quin_Dub wrote: »

So the 1GB "limit" for the month is a flat out lie as it's impossible to get within a mile of that without getting "deprioritised".

They can't have it both ways - either it's ~20Gb a day or it's 1TB a month , they can't tell us it's both.

Yes, correct. But they do tell you its both. And I assume their refusal to provide numbers for their AUP is linked to that discrepancy between AUP and FUP. If they would confirm that their AUP numbers are way lower, people might have a handle on them, as they list the 1 TB everywhere and use it for advertising. Still waiting for feedback on my comreg complaint but I am not hopeful here.

On a side note: they are also very careful not to say that they slow you down to unusable/ cut you off if deprioritized. they will claim that you are just slowed down compared to others but its still usable which it clearly isn't (I get either max 1 mbit in speedtests or simply "---" as a result if I actually manage to even open a speed test page while deprioritised). Most of the time I am completely cut off. And if anyone thinks I am clearly abusing the service because I have so many issues: I use around 400-500GB per month, never in breach of FUP in several years. I typically get caught because, e.g. I forgot to turn off a pc and it updates something in the morning (looking at my sons fortnite install here just as an example, 10+ GB updates). And this is a major issue for me as I am working from home, so if I get caught mid-day I can call my manager/ take a half day holiday to avoid issues with work...

no alternatives for me, just checked again and no fibre and none planned, max possible speed via phone line is 3 Mbit/s, mobile bad reception and no unique external IP (which I require), satellite not possible because of latency (wont work with my job)

Imagine LTE Rural Broadband

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