UnoTelly is a Smart DNS service funded by Unovation, Inc. Their team is based in Toronto, Canada. One of my favorite towns. The Unovation team came up with a solution to help break down the barriers posed by online geo-restrictions. They created a technology called UnoDNS. UnoTelly uses the UnoDNS technology to help users gain access to channels like Netflix, Hulu and BBC iPlayer from anywhere in the world.
One of the first things you’ll notice when you visit the UnoTelly site is their free trial offer. If you’re new to UnoTelly they offer an 8 day premium trial. The free trial will give you full access to the Smart DNS service. The only thing you won’t have access to is their VPN service. The gold plan which includes VPN is available for $7.95 a month. The Premium plan which is Smart DNS without the VPN is available for $4.95 a month. We’ll be covering the Premium (Smart DNS) plan in our review. You can compare both plans at unotelly.com.
Once you sign up for the free trial you’ll receive a confirmation email. Simply click the link to activate your account. From there you’ll receive a welcome email. The email makes it clear that you can use the service free for 8 days during the trial period. From there you can either purchase a membership or let the trial expire. There is no commitment necessary for the trial. You just need to provide an email address to set up the account.
When you first log into the UnoTelly site with your new trial account it will walk you through the process of updating your DNS settings. I tested Unotelly on Windows 8. Changing DNS settings is very simple. UnoTelly offers step by step guides for several platforms including Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire HD, gaming consoles, smart tv’s, media boxes and several router brands. Just to name a few.
Now that I’m logged in and switched my DNS settings let’s take a look at the UnoTelly quickstart screen:
As you can see my account status shows that everything is good. Meaning that I set my DNS servers to point to UnoDNS servers in the US and Canada. Here’s a brief explanation of some of the other quickstart options.
- Global Servers – view a full list of UnoDNS server addresses. You can select any two servers. In general you’ll want to choose servers near your current location for the best performance.
- Channels – full list of channels around the world that UnoTelly will help you unblock.
- Devices – list of supported devices along with step by step set up guides for each device.
- Channel Request – this is where you can request a channel that’s not already on the list.
- Dynamo – this feature let’s you set the region for services like Netflix. Giving you access to different content based on the country you select. They offer 20 UnoDNS Dynamo region settings for Netflix.
Once you get the DNS settings in place you can fire up your favorite web browser and connect to your desired channel. For testing purposes we used BBC iPlayer. Here’s what iPlayer looked like when we tried to use it without the UnoTelly UnoDNS service. As you can see we’re blocked since we’re outside the UK.
Now take a look at iPlayer after I set my DNS to the UnoTelly UnoDNS server addresses. As you can see iPlayer is no longer blocked. I’m free to watch BBC content using the UnoTelly service to unblock iPlayer streams.
That’s really all there is to using the UnoTelly Smart DNS (UnoDNS) service. You simply sign up for the free trial and change your DNS settings as instructed. From there you can access sites like Netflix, Hulu and BBC iPlayer. Along with media sites from around the world. Don’t forget about the Dynamo feature if you’d like to check out Netflix content in other countries. The Dynamo page has some other channel options as well.
I enjoyed testing the UnoTelly Smart DNS service. It was very straight forward and easy to use. In the days to come I’ll test out their VPN service and share the results. In the meantime you can visit unotelly.com to learn more. Remember you can sign up for the 8 day free trial without any payment information. No obligations. A perfect way to test UnoTelly. From there you can sign up for $4.95 a month or add VPN for $7.95 a month.
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