Watch Every Puck Drop and All the Rest, and Leave the Bell or Rogers Bill Behind

Think of it as television delivered down your broadband line rather than a Bell or Rogers cable feed. Each channel opens inside a light app on whichever screen you have; you enter a host address, a username and a password just once — sent to you on WhatsApp — and from there the whole 25,000+ line-up and 120,000+ on-demand titles pull in on their own.

A single screen runs $15 monthly or $69 for a full year, the latter working out around $6 a month, which is where most people end up. The pricing page adds the two, three and five-screen terms. It is all quoted in US dollars, with no contract and no card left on file.

There is, and putting it to proper use is rather the point. You hold a complete account for 24 hours — every channel, the on-demand shelf, the guide — arranged over WhatsApp. No charge is taken, no card is requested, and once the day runs out it simply expires by itself.

In practice, anything that installs apps: Fire TV Sticks, Android TVs and boxes, Samsung and LG smart sets from about 2016 onward, Apple TV, iPhones and iPads, Roku, Windows and Mac, along with MAG and Formuler boxes. Since the account is an ordinary Xtream login, that single set of details signs in on every screen you own.

Fifteen minutes or so, as a rule. Ordering, paying and setting up all take place inside one WhatsApp thread, and the login drops into it as soon as your payment clears. There is no technician and no appointment slot to wait for — and anything sent through the night gets picked up at first light.

You get CBC, CTV, Global and Citytv, the Sportsnet and TSN sports channels, the film and specialty tiers, the Québec French networks, round-the-clock news, a section for the kids, and programming out of roughly 60 countries. The channel page maps the backbone; the app carries a good deal more than that.

Every bit of it, and this is precisely where a solid service proves itself, since the whole crowd arrives at puck drop. That means the complete NHL, the Raptors and Blue Jays, the CFL and the Grey Cup, plus the Premier League, Formula 1, UFC and boxing — each on its own channel, and most in a 4K feed for the marquee nights.

Generally no, and we never present one as required. The single scenario where it earns its place is an ISP that squeezes video in the evenings; aiming at a server close by, in Toronto or Vancouver, restores the speed. Beyond that it merely inserts a hop you have no use for.

Roughly 10 Mbps carries HD and 25 carries 4K, yet a steady line counts for far more than a big headline figure. A dependable 50 outperforms a shaky 200, because streams stumble on the dropouts, not the average. Wiring the box to the router with Ethernet, rather than trusting Wi-Fi, sorts most trouble on its own.

Seven days, behind every term. If the service will not run on your equipment and support cannot revive it, flag it to us within that first week after activation and the full amount comes back. The refund page spells out precisely what does and does not qualify.

Your term decides that, not the app itself. A one-screen term plays just one stream at a time even though the player can go on any device; the two, three and five-screen terms lift the ceiling, carry the prices shown on the pricing page, and can be raised whenever it suits you.

Pick a term, open WhatsApp, and the purchase is settled right there in the chat. The moment payment is confirmed, the host address, username and password come straight back in that same thread — normally inside fifteen minutes — together with a nudge toward the setup guide for your device.