In a world of geo-restrictions, Virtual Private Network services are becoming increasingly common. This no very competitive space offers users the ability to connect to servers internationally and appear to websites as if that traffic is coming from that location rather than your own. While VPN’s can be used for a number of reasons, one popular use is to access video streaming services like Hulu or BBC iView.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had the chance to try out UnoTelly VPN who doesn’t hide the fact the VPN can be used for accessing these IPTV services, instead promotes it on their front page.
Device support can be an issue with some VPNs, but UnoTelly touts that it’ll work on all the devices you have such as you Mac, PC, Xbox, PS3, AppleTV, Android devices, iPad/iPhone/iPod. A decent list of routers are also supported, which then changes all internet traffic coming into your network to use the VPN.
Speed
So now down to the important bits, how fast is it? One of the best ways to testing this synthetically is to run a Speedtest of a direct connection, then compare to the VPN connection. UnoTelly are doing something pretty special in their global VPN network.
While we’re used to seeing a significant degradation in speed while the bits get routed across the globe and back. Staggeringly this isn’t the case when testing UnoTelly VPN. I chose the LA server in East America to compare the data throughput.
The Speedtest on the left is my direct connection out to the internet through a standard configuration. The Speedtest on the right is with the VPN enabled. Amazingly the loss of speed up and down is really minor.
Another test was streaming from video site Hulu, with the High quality setting selected, the video buffered shortly, then played flawlessly. Given this is one of the selling points for the service it is important that this works well and from my experience, it does.
The other test was a download of a HD podcast from Revision3. The download on the left is running at 455 KB/s and is the direct connection, while the one on the right is over the VPN achieving a slightly slower 425 KB/s.
Setup
To configure UnoTelly can be relatively easy, but depending on which devices you want to connect with determine how long this will all take. The fastest configuration is to set it up at the router level, but not everyone is comfortable in doing this. Also its easy to imagine plenty of scenario’s where you want some traffic to go direct and some over VPN. This means you’re back to configuring devices manually.
While you can follow the steps to manually configure VPN IP addresses for your network adapter, an easier way for regular users is to install the UnoHelper app (avail for Windows only). After this app installs, simply run it and click Start and your VPN will be activated.
The good news is there’s plenty of straight forward video setups tutorials for the rest of your devices, it’ll just take time to configure everything.
Price
If by this point you’re ready to hit the buy it now button, here’s the single most important piece of information, the price. UnoTelly comes in two varieties Premium for $4.95 per month and Gold for $7.95 per month. There’s no lock in contracts, which means you can go month to month.
While I haven’t had to use it during the review, UnoTelly / UnoDNS offers a 100% money back guarantee (within 7 days) if you’re not happy with the results.
Overall
The basic idea of VPNs is fantastic, get around artificial restrictions put in place by the people who ‘just don’t get it’. It is bizarre that in 2012 we have content creators making a product that people want to buy internationally, but are told no. UnoTelly is a great solution to these frustrations we users hit far too often.
This service with suit those with a thirst for content from around the globe.
Disclosure: As a thank you gift for your review, you will have a free lifetime Gold account for Unotelly. Also discount codes for readers will be available. Leave a comment to be in the running – chosen randomly.
Giveaway details
- Coupon code is "techau"
- Coupon provides 15% discount to all Unotelly Gold subscriptions (30 day, 90 day, 180 day, 365 day)
- Coupon can be used by 15 users
- Coupon expires at 30/October/2012
More information @ http://www.unotelly.com
