Review by Scalu Location: Kitchener, ON, Canada Cost: $42 per month Install: about 18 days No Cap Fast downloads, good value. pre-install requirements given too late. 3 botched install dates so far. Some streaming issues with the VBox. 3 botched installs, they don't keep very good notes. Some service issues.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

--- Summary ---

- Given the run-around by Acanac in getting our service terminated for a week, causing us to miss our initial install date.

- One the second install date, the Bell technicians didn't do their jobs and closed the ticket as completed.

- Was frustrated with one of the sales reps at VMedia because he couldn't clearly tell me what happened to the initial request with Bell, and couldn't get me to someone who could. The other three people I have had contact with (including George) I have had no problems with.

- We've had no internet at home since Monday, December 9th, and are sad.

- Third install date, was told by VMedia to be home from 5PM to 8PM, Bell comes by around 2, and checking with Bell, they had us booked from 12 to 6PM. No response from VMedia so far on where they got 5PM to 8PM from.

- Finally got internet working. Some channel stuttering from time to time, and some channels seemed to be really bad, as well as Netflix suffering a lot. Could be on account of the massive ice storm. hopefully it will clear up. No streaming shows from ctv.ca anymore.

- Bought an HDTV, but still needed to adjust the picture size and positioning???, Netflix seems fine now.

Lessons learned so far:

- Don't try to cancel your account over email with you previous provider. They will drag it out as long as possible. Get on the phone and don't get off until you get your cancellation number.

- Bell has set up the most painful situation they could for getting your service set up (requiring a cancellation number from the previous provider, not doing their job properly, requiring that you wait for their call all day, and giving a time window of 8AM to 5PM, and missing even that), and are either incompetent, or purposefully malicious. Just be prepared with alternate access to the internet until you are set up.

--- original post on Friday, Dec 13th ---

I have been with another provider with a number of years and have never had much problem with it, but I have been looking to consolidate my tv and internet. I saw an add for VMedia on Canada Computers website, and liked their packages, so decided to get their basic package for TV and their 25/10 Mbs DSL service.

We ordered online, on Friday, Nov 29th (I think), and choose Monday, Dec 9th as our install date. On the 30th, I received an email saying

"This email is to let you know we were unable to process your VMedia order for internet service. The reason provided indicates that your previous Bell internet service has not been properly cancelled.

Could you kindly call Bell and confirm that your internet service has been cancelled. And please send us the cancellation # and cancellation date as soon as possible so that we can hold your preferred installation dates."

Okay, this information was not provided to us at any time when we ordered the service, and certainly should have been beforehand. Since we were with another ISP, we figured they meant a cancellation number from them. So I contacted them on Monday, one week before our install date, and was told to email the billing dept with my request. I do that, using very clear and direct terms... and get the run-around for a week.

In the meantime, we have been on the phone with vmedia throughout the week, and they keep telling us that they would need to cancel our date without that number. On friday or saturday, they tell us that they cancelled our appointment and will reschedule. We are not happy. My wife gets on the phone with our previous ISP on Monday and refuses to get off until we get the cancellation number. This was with Acanac, who I will warn people away from where before I was happy with them. On tuesday the 10th, VMedia gave us a new install date of friday the 13th, between 8am and 5pm.

Friday comes around, and a bit after 5pm, the technician arrives. He checks that the modem is connected properly, puts a new filter on it. And says it looks like Bell didn't switch the line over. He says he will go outside to check and call us back to let us know what is going on. 15 minutes later, we go to check and he is long gone. We call VMedia around 6pm, and they say that it could be as late as 8pm for the Bell technician to do their part.

We call them again at 8:30pm, we get a lot of platitudes, we are told that Bell doesn't work on weekends and that they will have to put in a new request with Bell on Monday for them to get out here sometime that week. I argue that they already have a request with Bell that should still be pending and they had better get to it on Monday. I ask to speak with the manager, but he got off at 7pm. They open monday at 10am, and the phone rep promises to get back to me before 12. He also assured me that we wouldn't be billed for the days that we don't have the service.

Well, that's were it's sitting at right now. I'll post an update on Monday, and rate the rest of their service when I finally get it. I really do hope that this is a rare occurance, and not indicative of problems to come.

--- update on Dec 16th ---

Okay, I spoke with the original technician this morning after calling (he did not call back before 12), and asked to speak with the manager, but he said the manager was busy and would call back in a couple of hours. I refused to hang up and said I would wait, and not long afterwards the line went silent, but the connection never closed. I was on my cellphone but had a strong signal at my location, so I suspect I was hung up on in some odd manner, but it could have easily been just a technical glitch with my cellphone, the phone network, or their phone system.

I called again, and got a new representative thankfully. He checked the system, and said that the original request with Bell was closed as completed. He said that someone would check into it and call me back. He also asked me if the modem was ever reset. Not even the technician who showed up on Friday tried that, and he told me that the DSL light should just come on when the line was connected, so I never bothered to try (I did try it today though, and still no luck). Okay, now I am satisfied that I at least have an idea of what is going on. Shouldn't their be some sort of check that everything is set up as it should be? Like a sign-off sheet or something saying that we are happy with our connection?

I just saw George's reply below as well, and got back to him. Hopefully I will hear back soon.

--- Update on Dec 17th ---

I heard back from VMedia last night, and George also followed up with me (although I didn't see it until this morning). They are getting Bell to come back out to my place to fix/finish the installation asap. Our schedule is tight this week, and we are off on vacation next week, so I'm worried that it will be difficult to be home at the right time for the technicians to be there. Hopefully it will work out. I am also adding a summary at the top of this listing.

--- Update on Dec 18th ---

I heard back from VMedia yesterday afternoon, and they have scheduled Bell to come over tonight to redo the installation. I am crossing my fingers that Bell gets it right this time. They also offered to give me my first month of TV service free, which I gratefully accepted. Thank you VMedia for your diligence. And I apologize for being irate. I will post an update tomorrow, or later tonight from my home network.

--- Update 2 for Dec 18th ---

>8( Yesterday, VMedia told us that Bell would be by between 5PM and 8PM. Today, we had no one home from 1PM to 2:30PM, and don't you know, there's a note from Bell saying that we missed them and to make another appointment. Oh, and the best part, our residential line is now down. No one can call us anymore.

My wife nabs a random Bell tech of the street and lets them know. He passes it on to his manager who can hopefully get the tech to come out again today. And he called me and let me know. Nothing from them since then.

I also called VMedia and let them know what happened. They say they will look into it and get back to me. An hour comes and goes, so I call Bell myself, and basically find out that they had the appointment listed as being from 1PM to 6PM. I call VMedia back, and get the same guy I got earlier. He checks the Bell order himself, and says that it just says 6PM. He tells me that they are still waiting to hear back, and the other tech that told me from 5PM to 8PM will get back to me. That was an hour ago. Since they don't seem to be doing anything about it, or are content to sit and wait while Bell gets back to them, I call Bell myself, and schedule an appointment for tomorrow afternoon to get the phone line fixed.

I am wondering where the 5PM to 8PM time came from. I think that VMedia messed up because that is a timeslot used by Rogers. We could have had someone here today if we knew the time was from 12 to 6, but since we were told 5PM to 8PM, I now have another afternoon of making sure someone is home for when Bell shows up, and that is for the phone line. Who know what VMedia will try to schedule for the Internet installation.

--- update 3 on Dec 18th ---

VMedia wasn't getting back to me, and the day is almost over, so I called Bell myself, and scheduled for a technician to come by and fix my phone line. I called VMedia, wait in queue for tech-support, and then get passed to an unitialized voicemail box.

I call again, and select sales this time, and wait in queue again. I spoke with a sales rep, irate that I've been told twice now that they would get back to me, and it not happening, and explained the situation with him. He has checking into something with me on hold, when he got back, he called my name twice, with me answering both times, and then hung up. I wait a minute hoping he'll just call me back on my cell phone number which I provided him, but no dice.

I call back again, sit in queue again, and get a different sales rep. I tell him that I was just speaking to sales-rep 1 and got disconnect. He puts me on hold and tries to get a hold of the first sales rep. He gets back, and tells me that I am scheduled from 5PM to 8PM tonight and should wait a bit longer for the Bell tech to arrive. So obviously he did not talk to the first guy, and either there are no notes in their system as to what is going on, or this guy didn't bother to read them. I ask to speak to the manager, and he said the manager left early today (at 6PM instead of 7PM). So he can't do anything at all to help, but get the manager to call me back on my cellphone tomorrow. My wife is on the phone with Bell again to see if she can get them to try the DSL install again tomorrow when the phone technician is here. I am pissed at VMedia right now.

--- update on January 2nd ---

On the 19th, the Bell technician came and got our phone working. Also, he called into the office, and it seemed like our line had not been switched to the 25/10 caps, so he got them to switch it.

After that we still didn't have internet. I called in to VMedia and they checked out a few things, but said everything is set up properly. They were going to get back to me to schedule another technician to come out. After hanging up, I tried a couple of things, and found that a phone-line extension I was using (worked with the previous DSL modem) was causing the problem. I moved the new modem to be closer to the wall jack, and internet is now working. I called VMedia and let them know.

After that, I set up the VBox. I had to call VMedia again since the login name and password had not been provided for the VBox service, and it was not the same as the DSL username/password. That could be improved.

Also, I had a non-widescreen television, and the UI is clearly for widescreen through and through. So the picture is distorted.

The Weather Network is a national feed and not a local one. So actually getting our local forecast is quite a pain.

The tv stations sometimes stutter for a fraction of a section. I set the buffer to the max of 5 seconds, and it's better, but still there from time to time, and annoying.

Netflix over the internet on my Wii used to play just fine, but it's been really bad since we switched, often timing out. This could be due to the recent storm, so it might clear up. Some channels on the VBox would also break up, but only certain channels, while others were fine.

The internet connection itself is much quicker than my old 6Mbs service.

We can no longer stream television episodes from ctv.ca, as it says our provider is not subscribed to the CTV Go service... We are looking into this.

That's it for now. I am looking at buying a HDTV as I can't really expect them to support an old CRT But hopefully we can get some of the other issues fixed.

--- update on January 31st ---

The quality of the connections seems a bit better now. Netflix doesn't have so many problems, and we don't get streaming issues on some of the channels so much.

I bought an HDTV and hooked it up. The picture still had to be adjusted to fit the screen properly. I thought those settings where just for CRT's...

Finally, they offered me a discount for the first month since I had so many problems. It didn't show up when the bill came in. I'll have to call them about that.

Well, the internet connection itself is nice. The VBox is decent, but it's not really what I was hoping for. At least we are not paying for cable from Rogers anymore. Being that VMedia is still relatively new, I hope they will keep working on the VBox and improve their services.

GeorgeBurger join:2011-12-30 GeorgeBurger Member 2013-Dec-15 10:53 am Hi Scalu, sorry about the delays getting you started. First of all thanks very much for joining us. I understand your frustration, and these issues do unfortunately come up when our new subcriber is dealing with both the wholesale provider and their previous ISP, there are truly too many moving parts.I would like to look into the problems you had Friday with getting hooked up(the technician I can only assume was from Bell, we normally do not send out technicians on installs), can you please PM me your details and I will follow up as best I can? Also you are absolutely right about not learning about the need for Bell to be involved in your cancellation, I will look into whether we can improve our messaging to further clarify what is frankly a pretty complicated process...but one well worthwhile in the long run. Best regards George. 2013-Dec-15 10:53 am: · hey mods ·

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