Expat Telly Review

Expat Telly helps users access blocked content, but they position themselves in the VPN market a little differently than most services. There are few others that do this, but Expat Telly markets themselves as a VPN designed primarily to facilitate streaming video content by country and region. The UK based provider did a great job of simplifying the service for users that felt confused on VPN usage, but is it better than traditional VPN access?

Pricing:

Because they market their services as a method to access blocked video content sites – such as Hulu, Netflix, HBO, and television networks – they offer a completely different pricing plan that most other providers. Other VPN service providers typically offer their service in chunks of time. The longer you subscribe, the more you save. Expat Telly, however, offers flat monthly rates depending on the types of devices you have and what countries you want access to. Their plans are as follows:

• $5.00 per month – for PC, Mac, or Router access
• $5.00 per month – for tablet and mobile access
• $7.00 per month – for PC, Mac, tablet, mobile, and router access
• *Expat Telly Service seems to have been suspended and re-routed to HMA.

However, you should be aware that their pricing is adjusted for different currencies in other countries. For example, because there is a conversion rate, it will be slightly more expensive if you live in the UK (£5 instead of $5).

Features:

The features of their software are a little different owing to the fact that they aim to unblock television content. One handy feature of their website is that they offer a directory of common and popular content sites that may be blocked at your location.

Their service works on the following devices and operating systems:

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Max OS X
• iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
• Android Mobile
• Windows Mobile
• Linux
• DD-WRT

Security:

Unfortunately, their users are left in the dark regarding the underlying technologies used for their VPN service. They don’t provide many technical details past the operating systems they support on their website. However, some of their documentation describes PPTP VPN connections. While this is a great technology, almost every other VPN service provider offers more security protocols like OpenVPN and L2TP.

Speed and Stability:

In addition to failing to address technical aspects of the underlying technologies, they also don’t make any claims regarding the speed and stability of their VPN service. Testing was limited, but when using UK and US servers, we had minimal speed loss from 3 different testing locations in North America and Europe. Could not complain about speeds at all, but limited access means I could not test various locations either.

Customer Service:

Admittedly, they seem to provide only limited customer service. The method of contact is email, and the turnaround time for a response is 24 hours. However, they say that they will usually get back to you much quicker than a full 24 hour period. Unfortunately they do not list a support number to call. Since the time of writing this review, the website is no longer selling plans, and redirecting to parent company Hide My Ass.