Review by firefox360 
Posted: 268 days ago
member for 5.3 years, 137 visits, last login: 119 days ago
 Montreal,QC
 Business customer
 $29 per month (12 month contract)
 about 5 days
 "Great service, great prices, reliable."
 "SSH tunnel slow downs due to increasing users."
 "Excellent service at a price that can't be beaten."
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Ordered the Business DSL service, and promptly received hardware and was setup a few days later. Initially was dropped to the 3Mbps profile (like most people that switch away from Bell), however after a quick e-mail to Acanac, I was bumped up to the 5Mbps profile (which was the limit of the line). A week or so later, I inquired about the static IP addresses that were included in the plan, and promptly received an email with all the necessary steps and configurations to get started.
Acanac provides a free 'online personal computer', which doubles as an SSH tunnel for the application of by-passing Bell's network wide BitTorrent throttle. In the beginning, this worked excellently, however recently as more and more users began to use the server there has been noticeable slow downs now and then. Overall it still works rather well, although speeds aren't as great during peak hours as they use to be. Acanac acknowledges the issue though, and have attempted to work on the issue which is promising. Along with the SSH tunnel, certain gateways have been retrofitted with MLPPP capability, however this is apparently still in the testing stages. It is a much better alternative to the SSH tunnel that is just as effective (if not better), provided that you have the appropriate hardware (compatible router).
Another minor issue I've encountered has been with the Aztec modem provided by Acanac which seems to freeze-up when encountered with BitTorrent's large amount of con-current connections. The modem still holds sync and is still connected, however network traffic is stopped to a standstill, and accessing the administration page of the modem usually results in it completely freezing and unaccessible. I've found that the workaround to this problem is to simply reduce the number of connections made by the BitTorrent client. This modification coupled with regular modem restarts once awhile (twice a month) has ensured a reliable and fast connection. While this is rather annoying, it can't be attributed to Acanac.
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