O Canada! → Canadian → Canadian Broadband > VMedia - Real-World experiences?

Re: VMedia - Real-World experiences?

It's the VPN. It Speedtest.net doesn't report upload correctly for a VPN. I normally test 25.2/7.4. Here's using a VPN:

Thanks for the clarification. This explains the high upload speeds when I'm on my VPN (although I was getting them through sFTP on VPN as well). The 68Mbps down was just on the standard connection though.

Just tested without the VPN, 44.42/3.71Mbps. Pretty much exactly what it should be.

»www.speedtest.net/result/2955864255.png

just ... about 4 mbit missing from your upload, as you stated before ... lol

If you would have bothered to read the other replies, you might have noticed that lleader already explained where the high upload speeds were coming from. I use a VPN for work, and that accounted for the discrepancy. The Speedtest posted was without the VPN. Using the VPN now is giving 12Mbps up, but download speeds have dropped to 21Mbsp.

Rather than snark, lleader offered a constructive comment and explained what could be causing the high value.

LoL, sounds good DR!

...and here you go 19.6 down, 13.68 up.

»www.speedtest.net/result/2956131025.png

... for you ... too

That Start quality.

I went to Canada Computers in Waterloo yesterday to check out the quality at the Vmedia booth and I have to say I was a little underwhelmed. Perhaps they didn't have it set up properly but all the stations I checked seemed much lower quality than you'd expect, even for SD. HD channels were no better and certainly not what I'd call true "HD". That's kind of thrown a wrench in the works because I was seriously thinking of giving IPTV a go. Now I'm not so sure.

Those who get IPTV through Vmedia, how would you say the quality compares to Rogers or Bell? Or is this simply a case of getting what you pay for?

WARNING: DON'T choose VMedia! They are crooks...! We have been without Internet and TV due to a problem with Rogers for 13 days straight. They have a very faulty system/service and blame EVERYTHING on Rogers and take little, to no, accountability.

On a side note - if you have found VMedia to be shady like us, you can contact their CEO, Alexei Tchernobrivets directly!

Alexei Tchernobrivets
(removed- tmpchaos )
CEO
VMedia Inc
5255 Yonge Street, Suite 1210
Toronto, ON M2N 6P4
Tel/Fax: 1-800-939-2808 ext 708 OR 701
(removed- tmpchaos
»www.VMedia.ca

Here is a timeline on what me and my husband have experienced since joining Aug 13, 2013.

* We contacted VMedia at the beginning of August to set up service, under the assumption of having the first month of TV free as advertised.

* The install appointment was booked for August 10; however, it was delayed and not completed until August 13. My wife left work early to accommodate this appointment, after we kept the days of August 10-12 free for the install.

* We lost Internet service which obviously effected the TV service at 7am on Friday, August 30 (so in total, we only had 17 days of Internet & TV service and now are going on 13 days without but you will see what we mean as you continue reading). We called Friday, Aug 30 at night and were informed that because of the long weekend, we would have to wait for Rogers to get back to VMedia. Great...

* On a side note - we were also led to believe that to have VMedia's TV we had to have their internet service as well. This was later proved false by Harry, one of VMedia's support representatives, who said that as long as we could find an open wifi network, we would connect our TV service to that and it would work... This all happened when we were troubleshooting our initial outage that Friday night SO, now Vmedia is REALLY starting to sound fraudulent to us... but we had already invested.

* On Sunday, September 1, we were billed for September services. WOW! We only got 17 days of Internet and TV services with no service for Sept as they were aware and yet - they already billed us!

* On Tuesday, September 3 we were informed that the internet was fixed; however, it was not. We spoke with Pavel (another unhelpful Vmedia rep) that night, but he could not help us as he did not know how to troubleshoot using a Mac computer and said a more experienced tech support rep would contact us later that evening. This did not happen. SHOCKER!?

* On Wednesday, September 4, WE called back and there was no record of our call from the night before and we were told the internet should be working. Again, it was not. We were informed that they were opening our now SECOND ticket with Rogers about the issue and we would hear back about a resolution. *crickets*

* Starting Friday, September 6 through Monday, September 9, we received no resolution call from VMedia and we had to make daily inquiries ourselves, only to be told there was no resolution from Rogers (a company with 24-7 tech support).

* After an email inquiry by my wife, we were told late yesterday afternoon a Rogers technician would come to our home on September 17... THIS WOULD BRING US TO 19 days after our initial outage?!?! WOW!

* Yesterday we called Alexi the CEO to see what sort of answers he could give us as and frankly, we've had enough waiting. We were happy with our chat with him and his verbal resolution to this problem. What he promised us was:

* 2 months free Internet service
* 3 months free Premium Basic TV service
* A Rogers Stick that would give us internet service through the extended period where we were going without service.

Here's the shocker - he then emails us retracting that verbal offer claiming he never made such resolution. WOW! Even the CEO can't keep it together. Needless to say, WE WILL NEVER use any service provided by VMEDIA or ViaNetTV (which is actually VMedia) again... »www.vianettv.com/support/contact.aspx

While we understand the role of the independent ISP, however, the independent ISP needs to understand the role of the customer. We shouldn't have to deal with poor service, inconsistent claims and unfair "solutions". For the record, we left TekSavvy to support VMedia. We was with them for 3 years with not 1 outage or issue. I will be going back to them or looking into Acanac's solutions. We are all expanding the broadband space so it's not being dominated by the Big Companies but we will not accept questionable treatment.

Because the CEO went back on his word, we will not be using VMedia any further and are are seeking a full refund as we will not pay or support them anymore. We are looking for other customers who've had problems with Vmedia so we can chat about a strategy/approach on how we can make their shenanigans known to the media/CRTC/etc.

Please email us at ilovecpstyle@gmail.com

BrianMiranda, I really think you have too much time on your hands.

Due to possible obligations regarding customer privacy we will refrain from a detailed response until either (a) you give us permission to reprint our email chain, or (b) we get advice from our counsel that given your own disclosure of our contact information, you are no longer entitled to any privacy protection regarding your communications with us.

Given your propensity for self-promotion, I am sure you will not have a problem providing your permission. If you do so, please ensure you include your proper names, address and order number and an express authorization to allow us to publish that email thread.

For what its worth, Alexei took your call and responded to your complaints in good faith, and for that you have chosen to out him and disclose information that he chooses to keep confidential. This is regrettable.

I am sure in your mind you think you are being a revolutionary, but in fact you are being a bully, issuing threats and taking advantage of VMedia's good will to exact extraordinary free services for ordinary course service issues which we have tried in good faith to remedy.

Since we did not give in to your threats, you have gone ahead and carried out what you think is a justifiable vendetta, providing a less than accurate version of events.

For what it is worth, you are not "seeking a full refund". We offered you a full refund if you were not happy with what we considered to be generous compensation for your inconvenience. You were not willing to accept our offer. So you accepted our offer for a refund.

As for your threat to take this to the media, by all means please do so. The publicity will actually be great for us, especially once we set the record straight.

Thank you.

I tested had 25/2 rebooted and had 45/4
So you tell me what I did wrong?

Hi George,

Who pays your salary? Is it (dare I say) VMedia? Therefore, I couldn't expect a different response... Your loyalty is honourable.

The story isn't on "us" to set any record straight - it's on you. OH and for what it's worth, I'm currently using my neighbour's BELL Internet to send this reply as my VMEDIA service is STILL down! Check your records...

I just entertained my 3rd call from your staff who have no idea I cancelled my services with VMEDIA. This is the kind of piss poor operations at VMedia that has lead to this "situation"...

I have spent all the energy I will towards this. I look forward to my full refund from VMedia and erasing it from my mind and never speaking your company name again.

I would say it is still a work in progress, beta. I am testing it through their free month of cable. It has a lot of potential, but these are the issues I suffer from.

1. Connection, you basically need direct ethernet cable to have a strong connection. I wouldn't even bother with wireless, powerline adaptor is tolerable, sort of.
2. Audio synch issues. Overtime, sometimes the audio goes out of synch with the video.
3. Schedule reliability. I put in the correct timezone/time. Not sure why, but the schedule claims a show is on but the channel is showing something else. That is really annoying.
4. Not all channels work right away. Sometimes you have to refresh or reboot altogether.
5. Some HD channels worked great. Some channels that were not HD did not fill up the entire screen.

Overall, I am not going to keep using it. Their monthly prices are good, the full cable package is the same price as Rogers Basic cable for me. However you have to buy their Vbox in order to watch (every tv needs a Vbox)...in the end maybe the price is not so good. I still have a couple weeks of testing, but the rest of my family has already given up on the Vmedia IPTV. I also find their Vbox weak in hardware. There is a ton of potential, but too much hassle at the moment.

Vmedia's internet is great, but I guess that isn't what you asked so I won't blab on.

It has 1 HDMI, 1 power, 1 A/V, 1 ethernet and 2 USB ports.

You should (in theory) be able to take the HDMI outputs of two of those VBox, and run each one into a dedicated 1x4 splitter. Then you can feed each TV with two HDMI feeds. If the HDMI feeds are long, then use Baluns like these (I've used those with great success) or even these and run cheaper CAT5e in between.

The only issues...which are big, are controlling the different VBox...most likely share the same IR signalling, and then strategically understand everyones viewing habits, and figuring out who gets to watch what on what TV....wait...

Oh well, may be less of a headache (and less expensive) to just pickup a box per TV, if your not limited on how many you can have per subscription.

So what's VMedia like in Ottawa?

No clue about Ottawa, sorry.

*

Alright, so the past couple of days I've been getting fucking ridiculous disconnects. Goddamn, but it's been maddening, trying to get anything done.

Thankfully, the fault seems to lie with my router's firmware, and not VMedia; specifically, with it being out of date. Upgrading fixed the problem. And I'm getting advertised speeds, too. Neat!

I'll check again between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. to see if the new firmware has also somehow helped with the small window of slowdown.

Thanks for the reply, Voltage. I already get my internet through Vmedia, but the next logical step was their IPTV. I was just concerned about the overall picture quality as it seemed no better than some online streaming sites, BUT I have no idea what setup Canada Computers were using and wanted to get feedback from actual customers.

Thanks for bringing up the other points. I realize this is still in it's infancy and am willing to wait and see how they iron out the bugs.

Thanks for alerting us to the quality of the VBox service at the Waterloo store. There must obviously be an issue there, because after six months on the market no one, and I mean no one, has said VMedia's picture quality is no better than some online streaming sites. I will personally make a trip to Waterloo this week to check it out and report back.

Okay, so I think upgrading the router's firmware must have done the trick; that, or VMedia has fixed some of the capacity problems (or whatever). Point being my many speedtests all day have been showing advertised speeds (well, 44/3.92 over wireless; close enough, I say!). And that's during peak time, too.

Netflix is streaming HD consistently; Twitch streaming works perfectly, with multiple going at the same time; Youtube is fine as well.

I usually avoided doing much on the internet between 9-11, maybe up till 12; but I could get used to this change.

It probably is the upgraded firmware that's brought about this stability. All I know is in my mind VMedia's suddenly shot up in my estimation.

I really hope this continues. If so, I'll call this money well spent. Woot!

No problem. My last issue was more aspect ratio and stretching for non HD channels, HD picture quality was good. Their HD channels are definitely HD. I do not know how CC did their set up, but I am using the HDMI connection @ 720p and direct ethernet cable.

I made it a point to stop in at Canada Computers yesterday (London, Wharncliffe location). I wanted to see if they had a demo as I'm seriously considering VMedia.

I went in with a load of questions as I've been reading along here and looking for as much info as I can before taking the plunge. The guys there were very friendly and were able to answer all of my questions. I did notice that the video quality was a little off but the rep told me that their connection with VMedia is absolute lowest. I'd imagine it's much better on a higher tier.

I noticed their Vbox doesn't look like the one in the picture on the website. This concerned me so I asked if it was the old box, he said it was 2nd revision. I asked about a remote with a keyboard, he said there isn't one yet but it's being worked on (same as I had read online).

I'm very close to taking the plunge. I'll most likely have another conversation over the phone with VMedia directly before it happens. At this point the only concern I have is the process of switching over from Rogers. Way too many horror stories with regards to TPIA's right now
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Weeeeeee

I'm not even going to bother reading your post. It's evident you've already made up you mind, but, I have to say for me. Vmedia was the best choice out there. I'm VERY happy with the service I've recieved. GeorgeBurger is probably the politest guy you'll encounter in these forums, and the small problems I had with Vmedia have been corrected over the course of the last month. Speed is no longer an issue. NBC, ABC and CBS are all first rate now without hesitation or stutter (thanks for fixing that issue George). Speeds are excellent.

If you're in the market to dump Rogers I'd say go with VMedia. I'm paying $24 a month for basic cable vs. Rogers $40. How do you compare that? You can't.