IPTV in Montreal: building Wi-Fi is the real subject

What changes in Montreal?

The service is identical to the rest of Canada, and the city is well served by fibre and cable. The Montreal particularity lies elsewhere: this is a dense city of plexes, triplexes and condo towers, where dozens of Wi-Fi networks overlap on the same frequencies. A great many stuttering pictures in Montreal come from that, not from the internet plan.

The quickest way to confirm it: temporarily connect the television or box to the router with an Ethernet cable. If the picture steadies, the problem is Wi-Fi — and no more expensive plan will fix it.

Why does Wi-Fi saturate in a Montreal apartment building?

Because the 2.4 GHz band has only three non-overlapping channels (1, 6 and 11). In a building where twenty or thirty networks are visible, all of them share those three channels: throughput collapses at peak hours, in the evening — exactly when you are watching.

The 5 GHz band offers many more channels and is far less crowded, at the cost of shorter range and poorer wall penetration. In a typical Montreal apartment it is almost always the right choice for a television one or two rooms from the router.

• Connect the television to the 5 GHz network rather than 2.4 GHz — the two often carry distinct names in the router's settings.
• Move the router closer to the living room instead of leaving it in the entrance hall or a closet.
• Do not tuck the router behind the television or against a cast-iron radiator: metal blocks the signal.

How do you wire an older plex without renovations?

In a Montreal plex the router usually sits wherever the provider's line enters — the hallway, the kitchen or a bedroom — and rarely in the living room. Three fixes need no drilling: a flat Ethernet cable run along a baseboard, a powerline adapter using the electrical circuit, or a mesh Wi-Fi system with an access point in the television's room.

In order of real-world effectiveness: Ethernet first, always; mesh next, very effective in the long, narrow layouts typical of a plex; powerline last, because older wiring and outlets on different phases give highly variable results. A 10 m flat cable costs less than one extra month of internet service and settles the matter permanently.

Fibre or cable: what difference does it make for video?

For streaming, the difference is mostly steadiness at peak hours. Fibre gives symmetrical throughput that is largely insensitive to the neighbourhood; cable shares capacity between households in the same area, which can show in the evening. Both handle 4K perfectly well as long as real throughput holds.

Measure from the device that streams, on a weekday evening. A steady 25 Mbps will carry high definition without trouble; aim for 50 Mbps for 4K with headroom for the rest of the household. The full method is in our bandwidth and picture quality guide.

In English or French, whichever you prefer

Montreal is bilingual and so is our support: write in whichever language suits you and a person replies in the same one. The entire site exists in both English and French, terms and policies included.

To go further: the IPTV in Quebec page covers regional connections, the pillar page IPTV in Canada explains how the service works overall, and our installation guides cover the steps device by device. If the picture stutters despite good throughput, start with our connection troubleshooting guide.