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Review by Wes C Addle 
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 6.3 years, 1060 visits, last login: 60 days ago
 Canada
 $27 per month (12 month contract)
 about 1 days
 "Cheap, unlimited, unthrottled."
 "unable to communicate with Bell for support issues"
 "Needs improvement"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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I dumped Bell Sympatico because of their p2p traffic throttling during peak hours.
Acanac offers DSL for $18.95 x 12 months if you pay up from for the first year, then I think it is $31.95 thereafter. I also paid the dry loop fee of $9 per month for a year in advance for a total of $27.95 (all taxes in) per month - $20 cheaper than I was paying for Sympatico.
I like the fact that Acanac is up front and open with their customers, I first heard about them as they often advertise on RedFlagDeals.com and a couple of the guys from the company answer any inquiries and even assist people who have run into problems with the service in the sponsored threads. They also have a forum on the company website. Seems they've had some problems in the past, but a lot of people seem happy with them so I thought I would give them a shot - they do offer a money back satisfaction guarantee. They offer free trials if you ask so you have nothing to lose by trying them out.
I signed up with Acanac on their website and received an e-mail containing my DSL login and password the next day and I was able to log in right away. I've had the service for almost a month and my connection has never disconnected so it appears the everything is stable so far (I do live very close to a CO and I also never had a problem with Sympatico either). My torrent speeds are great and the speed tests I've done here and there seem consistent.
So far I am completely happy with Acanac, I wouldn't mind trying their VoIP service which is only about $9 a month, but they don't port numbers unfortunately.
Update:
What a difference a couple months can make. First off, once my 30 day cancellation period with Bell Sympatico elapsed, I was magically dropped down from the 5 meg profile that I have enjoyed for many years to a 3 meg profile. I've had 3 techs dispatched to my house for whatever reason (there is no problem at my house) and I have even lost a modem in the process as one of the techs took my personal modem, that I own, and I will probably never see it again.
I have literally been promised on a daily basis that my problem will be resolved within 24-48 hours and that has yet to happen, for 30 days now.
Finally this past Friday, something changed and the change is that I now have no DSL service what so ever. So now I am going on 4 days with no DSL service at all and since I have VoIP, I also have no phone.
From what I have now read, this 3 meg profile thing is pretty common for Acanac. They lack the ability to work with Bell to resolve these simple issues. I am not a high maintenance user, I don't think I have ever had to call tech support for any previous ISP. This is not a C.O. distance issue as I live a couple blocks from the C.O. and have always enjoyed the top tier DSL connection without a problem - this is pure incompetence as far as I am concerned.
Oh and if you get too demanding in your support ticket replies and say such things as "hey, bad news, now my dsl connection is completely down", this is the type of reply you should expect:
Hi
As i checked you have an ope ticket in Bell.Would you please be patient.We appreciate that.
Best Regards,
Acanac Inc.
Classy!
3/10 Update:
After an 8 day outage, I am back online. However, I have been dropped down to a 1728/640 Interleaved profile and Acanac has ZERO ability to do anything about it, apparently. In fact, they seem fine with this solution and seem to be doing nothing what so ever (I have no way of knowing, they are not good at keeping you updated on issues unless you call them daily or make a big fuss in online forums). For some reason during the disconnect/reconnect I was move from the CO which is 1km from my house to a remote which is about 3km away - still plenty of room for a 5-Meg profile.
3/11 Update:
I am on Interleave (1728/640) and Acanac seems content with this solution. They are not willing or able to do anything about it. When I update the support ticket, they reply telling me to contact DSL support and now when I call their DSL support, they just hang up on me - these are the kind of people they have working for them. The Acanac employees who post Paul/Sandro just ignore my PM's.
3/13 Update:
Yesterday I sent a politely worded e-mail to the executive office of Kevin Krull (president of Bell Canada) to explain my situation with a complete 6-week timeline of events and today I received word back from them that they are going to take care of my situation despite the fact that I am not a Bell Sympatico customer. It's too bad I was the one who has to do this, Acanac should be the ones doing this legwork and not me. Obviously if I am able to pull these kinds of strings, while not even being a customer of Bell, how can Acanac not be able to get these issues resolved even though they are the actual customer??
3/13 Update #2: My executive e-mail carpet bomb to Bell has been a great success, after 6 weeks of hassle, my issue has been resolved by Bell in just 24 hours.
3/16 Update: Everything is fine now, Acanac provided me with a 2 month credit which more than makes up for the 8 day outage I experienced. I will stick with them.
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