IPTV – an alternative to conventional cable and satellite providers – part three

By Jim Bray
March 10, 2026

Is IPTV a way to save money you'd spend otherwise on cable or satellite providers? Or is it just one big scam?

In two recent columns I've been focusing on IPTV services in Canada and whether or not they're any good. In this column, I'll look at some of my real-world experience with some apparently fly by night providers as well as at least one that seems to do what they say they'll do – which is a nice change compared to some of the providers I've tried.

Yet another thing you should keep in mind when investigating an IPTV service is their payment method. Some of the "questionable" providers I looked at don't offer simple credit card payment, but insist you use electronic funds transfer as if you're dealing with someone on eBay. I hate that.

Fortunately, some – including my current favourite IPTV.ca – take credit cards in a straightforward manner.

Before you take the plunge, check out the various websites of the providers. Most of the sites I've looked at are big on sales pitches and promises (often accompanied by childish spelling mistakes) but in my experience that and $150 will get you a Starbucks latte. Sure, they'll promise tens of thousands of channels, and a dizzying selection of movies and TV series, but if all you're getting is buffering and lagging and you can't get any help from the provider, what's the point?

Which brings me again to IPTV.ca, whose website is the polar opposite. They not only offer the IPTV service itself, their website includes a wonderful library of support topics and info. They even have a section that explains why that buffering and lagging might be happening and how you can take steps to get around it.

Turns out that internet providers regularly throttle their throughput! "Canadian internet traffic spikes between 7-10 PM when families settle in for evening entertainment," IPTV.ca's site says. "Your 100 Mbps plan might test perfectly at 2 PM, but it will slow to 70 Mbps when everyone in your neighbourhood starts streaming dinner-time shows."

Yep, you pay for 100 Mbps but the folks you're paying for that service aren't giving it to you if it's busy. I don't imagine they offer any refunds or rebates for their slowing down the service for which you're paying good after-tax disposable income.

Apparently, they call it "traffic shaping". I call it ripping people off because they're too cheap – or lazy – to have enough infrastructure on hand to actually deliver what you're paying for. But what do I know?

If you're finding this happening to you, IPTV.ca's site says "the smart approach involves choosing internet plans with 25-50% (sic) more capacity than your calculated needs to account for peak-hour slowdowns and unexpected usage spikes. It's cheaper than upgrading mid-contract when buffering becomes unbearable during hockey playoffs."

Or the ISP could simply do what you've contracted with them to do.

I'll hold my breath.

Another thing I appreciate about IPTV.ca is that they get back to you, promptly (mostly, anyway). When Hillox and DigitalLizard were my IPTV providers of choice, they responded to my queries quickly – until they got my money, then they seemed to, well, lose interest in hearing from me.

IPTV.ca's folks, on the other hand, have continued to respond, mostly promptly (but always eventually), and they don't write in "boilerplate" like the online support of most companies these days, and they've answered so many of my questions I'm surprised they didn't tell me to get lost. And thanks to the lack of boilerplate, they talk to me as if I'm a human being, not someone to just get rid of – and they don't make you deal with a "chat" bot instead of a real human.

IPTV Smarters They also have extensive installation guides for a wide variety of hardware options. The one for my Amazon Fire didn't work exactly as outlined on their site, but it was close enough that it was easy for me to figure out anyway. It looks intimidating, but it's really quite straightforward. Just don't panic if something looks a little different than the illustrations and hints!

Alas, as outlined in the text of Murphy's Law, it seems that even IPTV.ca isn't without its issues. On the weekend of January 24, it was gone just like the others. Well, except that, instead of just not being there when I loaded the app (like the others were), every time I tried to get to programming, I'd get an error message saying that the service was restricted and streaming video from the site is a violation of the terms of service.

It was obviously a message to them, not me, but that didn't change the fact that it was down.

So, I contacted them a few different ways (email, via their website, etc.) and didn't hear back for about two days. Then they emailed me, apologizing for the delay and pointing out that they'd been pretty busy with their maintenance issues and having to juggle many emails from their users who were undoubtedly wondering what the heck was going on.

I can imagine!

They gave me a new playlist URL I could use with my previous username and login, and it has worked fine since then, with only a few minor glitches. The new URL was to a site that appeared to be in Russia, with its ".ru" URL as opposed the original one's .com, proving that it's all a vast Russian conspiracy!

Must be Trump's fault!

Alas, moving to a new playlist – which I'd also had to do with every IPTV reseller I'd used – means you lose all your favourites and your history memory and have to start building them up from scratch again. This is a bit of a pain in the rear end, but I figured out a slightly less painful way to restore them: I started taking screenshots of my favourites and keeping them on my iPad so I can remember what to search for in the new playlist.

The Tivimate app made this easier. It allows use of multiple playlists at a time, so when I added the new playlist the old one stayed there as well, so all I had to do was look at the old playlist and then search in the new one for the same title.

The downside here is that I ended up with two copies of my items, one of which no longer works and one of which does. To get around that, I had to access both items, and then delete the one that no longer functions. Fortunately, Tivimate makes this easy.

You don't normally have issues like this if you're accessing cable or satellite, but I believe this falls into the category of "you get what you pay for" because, even though IPTV offers terrific service when it works, there are still compromises to be made, whether it's the lack of easy recording, finding particular content, etc..

Speaking of recording ability, Tivimate – and the Fire stick – can be expanded and configured to give you full PVR capabilities. You have to spring for some extra hardware, but it's cheap and easy. I purchased a 128 gB USB stick and an expansion dongle thingy from Amazon, costing under $40 CAD total, and in two minutes it was all hooked together.

Then I configured where I wanted recordings stored (the USB stick) and Presto! Now, I can watch one program and record another, pause live TV, all the usual stuff you'd expect from a PVR. And so far it has worked flawlessly.

If you're interested in pursuing IPTV, you need to decide if its hassles and/or compromises, most of which in my experience so far are easy to live with if you have a good provider, are worth saving so much money compared with conventional providers.

For me, it's an easy decision: IPTV, especially via IPTV.ca (there are probably others, too) is the clear winner. Even with its warts – for example, it's frustrating that the service seems to go down just when I really, really want to watch something live (I believe this is also covered under "Murphy's Law") – I can get far more content than I would from traditional cable or satellite providers at a fraction of the price.

You can also thumb your nose at the big, greedy and soulless companies that have been ripping us off for decades, thanks to a lack of competition facilitated by the political organization called the CRTC, whose mandate appears to be shoring up the fat and lazy Canuck content providers whether they deserve it or not.

Just remember that it's the wild west out there in IPTV-land and govern yourself accordingly.