Its major competitors include satellite service Shaw Direct, as well as various cable and communications companies across Canada.

It was a VDSL service for select multidwelling units (condominiums and apartments) in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.

ExpressVu was conceived in 1994, at the time of American DSS systems launch, as a consortium of Ontario-based Tee-Comm Electronics, Canadian Satellite Communications (Cancom), Vancouver-based Western International Communications (WIC) and Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), with a projected startup date of late 1995.

High technology development costs and delays placed Tee-Comm in a severe financial position, prompting the remaining partners to pull out in 1996.

Tee-Comm on its own managed to launch the first DBS service in Canada, AlphaStar, in early 1997; however, in a matter of months the company went bankrupt and the service was discontinued, leaving thousands of consumers with useless receivers (although with some reconfiguration, could be used to receive unencrypted FTA channels).

Plans have been shelved for any additional ExpressVu satellite expenditures assuming pending CRTC and Industry Canada approval for Dish Network to use all 32 transponders on Nimiq 5.

As a result of this, SES has announced that they will not be replacing the ill-fated AMC-14 now that Dish Network has cut this deal with Telesat & BCE for Nimiq 5 usage.

Channels in the "Best" tier can still be purchased in theme packages, and existing customers with older plans are grandfathered.

Along with these changes, Bell discontinued sales and rentals of its final standard-definition television (SDTV) receiver, the 4100 model.

Bell offers composite video outputs on almost all receivers, including the 9500 and 7500, to support older televisions.

Canadians living in the territories and certain parts of British Columbia and northern mainland portion of Newfoundland and Labrador require larger dishes between 60 and 120 cm; these are used to compensate for the weaker satellite signal available to these regions.

The size of the dish was increased from 18 to 20 inches in late 2001 to accommodate a second LNB to acquire signal from Nimiq 2 (BEV 82) satellite.

In February 2008, Bell Satellite TV announced a second smartcard swap involving all its receivers with the exception of the 6141 and 9241 models.

The only means to view Bell Satellite TV illegally is through IKS (Internet Key Sharing) devices which include NFusion FTA and the Slinger.

The 6000 does support the use of 8PSK with an add-in module, but Bell Satellite TV decided not to send out these as the 6000 is old and most customers will be wanting to upgrade to a 6141 which can have a hard disk drive added to it to be used as a PVR.

Setting up a greater number of receivers is more complicated and costly, so Bell does not provide setup in such circumstances.

Bell's receiver limits can prove to be challenging for larger homes or multi-family residential units because landlords tend to prohibit the installation of more than one satellite dish.

There is no requirement whatsoever in the Regulations that prohibits a BDU (broadcast distribution undertaking) from providing service at more than one location via a single account.

The use of Bell Satellite TV services in the United States is not illegal, but it remains a controversial issue.

[11] For sports such as NFL Sunday Ticket or NHL Centre Ice, iTV allows fans to simultaneously keep track of multiple games.

Basic video games, lottery results and horoscopes were previously available as Bell Satellite TV interactive services.

Pornography-themed video games were also offered in the past via Bell's sex industry brand, Venus.

Bell Satellite TV carries movies recently released on DVD along with major sporting events including boxing, WWE and Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Some customers have the misconception that the optional phone line, when plugged into the receiver, is used for software downloads and programming changes.

Early versions of this service was originally deployed as "Bell ExpressVu for Condos" to get around restrictions regarding the mounting of satellite dishes.

The original service was trialled using "NextLevel Communications" (now part of Motorola) set-top boxes that receive television broadcasts over VDSL in ATM form.

The company provides over 130 High Definition channels, which used to be the most in Canada, until Shaw Direct launched its new satellite Anik G1 on May 29, 2013.

Show debuted in September 2007, and replaced Bell Satellite TV Magazine, the previous name for the customer publication from ExpressVu.

Show was delivered to over 800,000 Bell Satellite TV customers and showcases entertainment from Canada, Hollywood and around the world.

Show Magazine and Extra had been cancelled by Bell Satellite TV to save paper in early 2008.