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Bell Satellite v.s. Bell Aliant IPTV

12K views 18 replies 11 participants last post by  Fordman 
#1 ·
I've seen some chat here about one v.s. the other.

Most of my neighbours bought into Bell Aliant when they went to FibreOP. I decided to stay with Bell for my TV.

I decided to stay with Bell for a number of reasons.
1) I own all my own receivers and they are all newer HD units with the ability to record shows.
2) I watched some of my neighbours feeds and although I can't really find much to fault, I did see some video break up at times. I've only seen that on Bell with very heavy cloud cover and normally during a storm and it lasts for a very short time.
3) I've seen chat about feed compression but they both can do that and I see very little difference between the two on the HD channels.
4) I still like the time shifting better on Bell then Aliant.

The packages do vary between the two but I couldn't see a great cost difference between either one.

I'll be the first to admit that Bell phone support sucks. Aliant wins hands down there.

Just throwing my thoughts out there to see what others think. I have myself configured, so I can switch if the time comes.
 
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#4 ·
I Had Rogers phone and internet and Bell Sat HD. Total paying $240. When the full price for the matching bundle kicks in after 3 months I will be paying $207 for Fibre Op TV, phone and 30/30 internet so it seems like good value. I will report back if not satisfied with the picture quality.

I have kept or will be keeping my HD PVR and the dish on the side of the house, so if after the 12 months I am not satisfied I will flip TV back to satellite.
 
#5 ·
I knew I'd take a hit to HD quality when I switched. However, I really wanted the faster Internet speed, and I knew that IPTV would offer better features than satellite, like on demand and whole-home PVR. Added to that, I'm saving money.

It's a little frustrating that the HD quality suffers, given that the tech would allow them to provide a better picture than Bell or anyone else.

For the most part, it's acceptable, but marginally softer than Bell. Hockey can be a bit blocky on my big TV. I remind myself that Bell isn't perfect either.

Perhaps as more areas come online with Fibre Op, we subscribers can push Bell Aliant to make some business decisions that improve our picture quality.
 
#6 ·
My experience from moving from Bell TV to Aliant FibreOp:
I miss certain features of the 9241 I had with Bell TV.
- favourites lists. Aliant only has one list.
- swap. Instantly switching between two channels was terrific on Bell TV. Also, the ability to pause one show and then swap to another channel was great, but then the skip to live bug spoiled a lot of shows.
- Search by themes in not on Aliant.
- Softer picture
There are others, but these are the important ones to me.

But to offset the above, FibreOp offers many features that Bell TV can't touch. Price, internet (uncapped and unthrottled), whole house PVR, all set-top boxes act like a PVR (all boxes can pause, rewind, etc live shows) and Aliant CSR service are just some of them. FibreOp is in its infancy, FTTH has a huge upside that Aliant is just starting to show us. Although Aliant is owned by Bell, Aliant does not act like a Bell company.
 
#7 ·
i switched to Fibeop at the beginning of May. the main part of this was cost. My TV bill alone on Bell TV was 120.00 a month. the HD channels on Fibeop do looks worse than Bell TV but with fast Internet and able to get all my channels i want without subbing to separate theme packs is still worth the switch for me.
 
#8 ·
Question.

As I recall, you get one STB with the TV install. Any additional STBs there is a monthly charge and I don't recall what that cost is.

Can you buy the STBs out right? It really bugs me that monthly charge. Reminds of times past when you had to pay the telco for additional house phones. One phone and you paid for it ten times over during it's life span.
 
#12 ·
I agree.

With Bell satellite, you have the option of either owning or renting your STBs. When you own, there is no monthly fee but there is, if you rent. I have always purchased my STBs outright.

With Bell Aliant, the only option appears to be the monthly rental system. I would prefer to own my units.

$4.95/month is not too bad. That's $59.04/year. The PVR is $10.00/month which is $120/year. I bet that in 3 years, you have paid for the devices.

My first Bell satellite receiver was a 5100 PVR and it still works fine
 
#13 ·
Been with expressvu since 1999, they still don't charge additional boxes as of this writing. If you don't like being an indentured servant, then don't choose IPTV.
ouch do i sense some hostility there? rent or not IMO it is better than paying 120 plus a month just for tv. plus i don't have to waste money on theme packs to get the channels i want
 
#14 ·
Yeah I was with with Bell Sat TV for years and recently switched to Bell Aliant TV when I moved. I have a bundle so it only makes sense to go with Bell Aliant TV as I am saving 50 to 100 bucks a month getting all 3 services for a year at 85 plus 10 for the PVR for year by taking the contract, although the HD is crappy (there was not bandwidth on the end of the street to support both so I choose PVR) and the software is crappy as there is no fibreop in my area until the fall.

Anyway I was wondering if you could buy your own STB box and add it to your account, I seen a few Bell Aliant 1200 and 1216's advertised on Kijiji for sale, more than likely these are rentals someone came across and are trying to offload for a few bucks?
 
#15 ·
fibre vs bell satellite

Hey guys, been doing some reading trying to get all the pros and cons of the fibre packages. I currently have aliant home phone, high speed internet, with bell satellite, all together about 175 plus tax. It seems that Aliant Fibre still does not have the same selecion of hd channels as satellite. How is the hd quality now compared to a few months ago. I had read it was not as good at least a few months ago anyway. Anyone switch from bell sat to fibre with a good comparison or opinion?
 
#17 ·
He did start a new thread there, but there was this existing thread on BTV vs Aliant, to which I moved his post. If he has specific questions about Aliant, I agree, the questions should be asked in the Aliant forum, perhaps even in an existing thread on the topic of the question.

BTV vs Aliant discussion should be in this thread though - for example, comparison of pricing, comparison of channels, comparison of quality.
 
#18 ·
Fibreop vs BellTV picture quality

After having fibreop internet/phone for the last 4 years I decided to add the television service. I have been going back and forth for a while now wondering if the switch would be worth it for me. I have had Bell satellite for the last 13 years and never really had any issues with it (except the odd bill screw up). Signal strength has always been good and rarely have I ever lost it due to snow/rain. Well today they hooked up the tv part and my expectations were that the picture quality would be better if not the same as the sat. But I am finding that the picture is not as sharp as the satellite. Some channels are better than others but the sports channels are a definite downgrade. Animal planet had a show on involving crocodiles and I found the the fast moving water was somewhat pixalated and compressed. Although some tweaking of the television settings has giving me a slight improvement I am still not totally satisfied. I have yet to cancel satellite and am going to give it a few more days to access. I do like convenience of the service (whole home pvr etc) but not at the expense of PQ. I may be in the minority here but has anyone else had similar experiences when switching. Thanks
 
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