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I've cancelled my service to switch to B***, who offered me a slightly better price (albeit, only for 3 years). I've only been with VMedia a month but I'd like to share my experience for anyone currently with VMedia or looking to buy.
First of all, the concept is fantastic. I loved all of the features, I loved the VBox, I loved being able to choose each channel I wanted individually - the whole thing. I was generally happy with what I signed up for. The price was fantastic (and permanent). The upfront costs were about 350 bucks, but that pays itself off quickly in savings. Also, everyone from VMedia was helpful and nice.
I'm a computer system administrator, and although I certainly don't know everything, I know more than enough to tell when a service is working as expected or not. The downfall for me was that our service was so inconsistent. Be it the Internet itself, or the VBox service, I was calling VMedia or resetting my modem at least once a week. I'm in a brand new house, with brand new lines, and our signal is coming back excellent (so much so that I had to use an attenuator to lower it to reduce some noise).
As I gather, I joined in the middle of a huge changeover where VMedia is doing this TPIA stuff. Fantastic! I really hope this resolves some issues, because after my 3-year with Bell is up, I'm coming back and checking where things are at again with VMedia. The problem is that I don't care right now. I don't care that things are "going to get better"... I really don't. I pay per month for a service, and what I expect is reliability. Although it's technically not what I payed for in the Terms and Agreement, it's what I expect. So when I'm told "just reset your modem when this happens"... No. I'm not going to do that. The modem is 100% fine, and it is incredibly rare that a modem ever actually needs rebooting. Anyone who knows what's actually happening when something reboots knows that most devices rarely need a reboot, and if they do, then they have a problem (operating temperatures, memory leak, cache/log overflow, etc.).
The other thing I learned is that VMedia collects some of their channels through satellite and distributes it through IP stream. When it storms in Toronto... You're out of luck! I feel that this might get better now that they've got CRTC authorization to go nationwide, but that depends on them deploying satellite receivers in other locations and aggregating their collection at a centralized distribution point.
VMedia didn't leave me ignored though! Someone called and actually asked to make adjustments to my bill to convince me to stay. I don't care so much about the money, I just wanted steady service. But thank you VMedia for trying :-)
TLDR:
VMedia is amazing in theory, but lacking (though still moderately effective) in practice. If you're OK with rebooting your modem at least once a week for a cheaper price than their competitors, then keep going! If you need 100% reliable service at any hour of the day, you may want to be more cautious and don't invest too much into them until you've tested the service (buy 1 vbox and get the lowest TV/Internet packages for a month).
First of all, the concept is fantastic. I loved all of the features, I loved the VBox, I loved being able to choose each channel I wanted individually - the whole thing. I was generally happy with what I signed up for. The price was fantastic (and permanent). The upfront costs were about 350 bucks, but that pays itself off quickly in savings. Also, everyone from VMedia was helpful and nice.
I'm a computer system administrator, and although I certainly don't know everything, I know more than enough to tell when a service is working as expected or not. The downfall for me was that our service was so inconsistent. Be it the Internet itself, or the VBox service, I was calling VMedia or resetting my modem at least once a week. I'm in a brand new house, with brand new lines, and our signal is coming back excellent (so much so that I had to use an attenuator to lower it to reduce some noise).
As I gather, I joined in the middle of a huge changeover where VMedia is doing this TPIA stuff. Fantastic! I really hope this resolves some issues, because after my 3-year with Bell is up, I'm coming back and checking where things are at again with VMedia. The problem is that I don't care right now. I don't care that things are "going to get better"... I really don't. I pay per month for a service, and what I expect is reliability. Although it's technically not what I payed for in the Terms and Agreement, it's what I expect. So when I'm told "just reset your modem when this happens"... No. I'm not going to do that. The modem is 100% fine, and it is incredibly rare that a modem ever actually needs rebooting. Anyone who knows what's actually happening when something reboots knows that most devices rarely need a reboot, and if they do, then they have a problem (operating temperatures, memory leak, cache/log overflow, etc.).
The other thing I learned is that VMedia collects some of their channels through satellite and distributes it through IP stream. When it storms in Toronto... You're out of luck! I feel that this might get better now that they've got CRTC authorization to go nationwide, but that depends on them deploying satellite receivers in other locations and aggregating their collection at a centralized distribution point.
VMedia didn't leave me ignored though! Someone called and actually asked to make adjustments to my bill to convince me to stay. I don't care so much about the money, I just wanted steady service. But thank you VMedia for trying :-)
TLDR:
VMedia is amazing in theory, but lacking (though still moderately effective) in practice. If you're OK with rebooting your modem at least once a week for a cheaper price than their competitors, then keep going! If you need 100% reliable service at any hour of the day, you may want to be more cautious and don't invest too much into them until you've tested the service (buy 1 vbox and get the lowest TV/Internet packages for a month).
- I really dislike B**l .
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