how-to block ads
|
»next review in page
Review by darknestgirl 
UPDATED: a few hours ago
member for 327 days, 52 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Montreal,QC
 $18 per month (12 month contract)
 about 30 days
 Bell Canada
 "Good service overall"
 "none"
 "Great service for the price."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I did consider tecksavvy for dsl company but after having to many problem when i was with them before i decide to go with Acanac.
I have the 5mbps down and 800 kbps dsl internet.
I order their service on the internet, recieve the modem 2 days after the order and got activate 30 days after the order because of some problem on Bell ends.
They send me the aztech modem by fedex, all i had to do is plug it into my computer.
you probably saw me a lot here and on other dslr forum cause i love to help people and give my honest opinion on other post without sounding harsh or irrespectful. Now back at my topic
I've been with Acanac for the last 6 month except for some downtime that any other dsl company would have or had the past six month, i'm glad to say i'm very satistfied with the service, i didn't had any problem with it except of course problem from Bell side like anyone else in Acanac had(not showing up, putting people on the wrong profil, etc) I would recommand it to anyone who ask for a dsl company. I particuliarly love the fact that they have their own forum(community forum) where anyone new and futur customer can come and expose their problem. There's always someone there ready to help even if some of the customer there are complaining but we always make sure that their problem was taking care of and i'm glad to say that most of them were resolve in no time.
So, please before you do complain, you should always exposed your problem to see if anyone can help you with it. WE often see people come here and complain after only one week without exposing their problem first to see if anyone can help them resolve it.
So to anyone who are considering to get acanac service don't hesitate to ask question here or on the community forum, we will be more than happy to answer them and to help if you have any problem with the service or your order.
Have a nice day
UPDATE
It's been almost a year now(august 8 ) still very please with the service, no problem except for the throttling on Bell part but theirs always a way to bypass that with the tunnelier, but don't forget that dsl is all about distance and wiring condition. So if your are not too far from the CO you should consider Acanac for the internet(can'T say for the VOIP since i don't have it)
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
 | »next review in page (previous review)
Review by adrian_101
UPDATED: 12 days ago
Fair warning: reviewer joined this month
undisclosed location
$33 per month (12 month contract)
Bell Canada
"Unmetered bandwidth, Free SSH tunnel, Free 100GB FTP storage"
"Bell Canada"
"Excellent ISP with a lot of features"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I'm an Acanac client for 14 months now and I'm still highly pleased with their services.
They offer a free SSH tunnel which enables you to beat the Bell's throttle, 100GB storage which can be accessed from anywhere in the world, a choice of free static or dynamic IP (both with no port blocking) and much more.
Also, they are currently connected to Tiscali backbone which decreases your online games latency dramatically and, at the same time, they are great for intensive downloading.
A bad point is that they are using Bell Canada copper lines which have few DSLAMs outside urban areas and as DSL is distance dependent technology, the speed could be reduced a little outside the cities. I'm not going to reduce their score, since with every DSL ISP, it's still going to be the same.
In conclusion, I think that this is an excellent internet service provider for anything. They really offer their customers the best service in Quebec and Ontario, at the lowest price.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Jimster5452
Posted: 25 days ago
member for 179 days, 12 visits, last login: 150 days ago
undisclosed location
$27 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
"Everything-especially price!"
"none"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I ordered Acanac internet at the beginning of this year with some hesitation since I had no experience with smaller ISPs like Acanac. I was previously a Bell Sympatico cumstomer for four years but I did not like the fact that they raised my monthly fee and put a bandwith cap WITHOUT any notice or warning. I have a big family with many internet users and I always exceed their 60GB cap and have to pay extra on top of their near $60 bill every month. I made the switch and it was very east- all you had to do was to fill their order online and you will recieve your modem after a few days. Since I also canceled my Bell telephone and switched to a VOIP company I also needed dry loop. The Bell Technicians came and installed the dry loop. Although I had to pay extra $8 for the dry loop each month it's still worth it because I got their promised 5Mb/s, and never had any loss of connection. My VOIP service is crisp clear eventhough I was downloading. The best part of all is no bandwidth cap! Their customer service is quite reasonable as I did not have to wait over half an hour to talk to any SRs and they do try their best to answer your question. Overall, my experience with Acanac is great, and I recommend it to anyone who is sick of Bell and Rogers.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by paul_mtl
UPDATED: 51 days ago
member for 52 days, 1 visits, last login: 51 days ago
Montreal,QC
$20 per month (12 month contract)
Bell Canada
"Cheap at $20 by month"
"Bad customer service & technician support. No French support"
"Too much trouble for this economy"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
It start with a modem that doesn't work. After many phone call and emails I succeed to have a good modem. But another troubles. Slow web browsing, long delay etc... No French support.
Acanac forum can be helpful but in my case doesn't help truly.
I am very patient and I stay 1 year with this ISP contract. When I decided to switch to another ISP (Teksavvy) and not renew my contract but just pay 1 month more. They cut my access. I sent back the modem at my expense and they asked to send back in perfect condition which one defective they sent to me. Trouble trouble ...
Awfull customer service !
Technician support is worst than technician 1st level Bell Canada ("reboot and reset your modem"). Lol
If you are very cheap, share wifi access with your neighbour because $20 is too expensive for this poor service.
Followup comments:  
FunnyHow
@teksavvy.com
| Funny How Funny how everyone who switches to Teksavvy , gives this company a bad review.
Co-incidence!
How is $20 a bad value for money then?
Was there bad pre-sales informations?
Whats happened during installation that got them such a low #?
Sure hope you review Teksavvy as harshly, or your review would just be taken as being a hypocrite | |
| | paul_mtl
join:2009-05-14
Montreal, QC
 ·Acanac
| Re: Funny How > How is $20 a bad value for money then?
When your web browsing is sometimes so slow with long delay like you think at a RTC access. I am very near to DSLAM 1km.
My first contact with Teksavvy representative (sales and technician) was good and in french.
I don't care if some people take as a hypocrite or an martian. I report my bad experience without write a long description of my troubles. I know it can be bad interpreted. | |
| 
Fergilicious
join:2008-04-19
Toronto, ON
·Acanac
| Support I know for a fact there at least 2 bilingual support people.
Plus you have the community forum to help out.
Your review doesn't make much sense other than to give a bad review.
PS: I might add there Teksavvy guys signing up with Acanac now.
Let's see what happens down the road.
Personally I've had stellar results with Acanac.
Good luck when MLPPP craps out. | |
| | paul_mtl
join:2009-05-14
Montreal, QC | Re: Support Thanks Fergilicious for your help in the past on Acanac forum.
It didn't fix my problem but improve little my web surfing speed. | |
| | |
Fergilicious
join:2008-04-19
Toronto, ON | Re: Support Hehe... Funny who you run into.  Have fun. | |
| shabdizi
join:2009-03-22
Beaconsfield, QC
 ·Videotron
| Report of former videotron but current acanac customer On Thursday before the Easter weekend of 2009 I applied on line and paid for a one year contract of acanac dsl service for $18.50 per month INCLUDING TAX and UNLIMITED Download and upload plus $50 for their modem.I received the modem by FedEx on Monday and by Tuesday could connect to the internet and within a week had reached my current speeds of average 3.5 Mbps download and 0.6Mbps upload.Customer service response was very fast,friendly and helpful and has been up to now.
For ten years I had Videotron high speed internet with 30 Gb download+upload per month with gigabytes over the monthly limit charged at $8/G with a max of $50 extra per month.I paid after the $10 discount for TV subscribers about $60/month including tax.
Today it is about one and half months that I have acanac dsl and so far have been very satisfied and very happy not to have to pay Videotron for their overpriced and over complicated packages for internet.My speeds are roughly half of what they were with Videotron but I pay about A THIRD of what I used to pay.
That is why I strongly recommend switching from videotron to Acanac! | |
| | shabdizi
join:2009-03-22
Beaconsfield, QC | Re: Report of former videotron but current acanac customer I would like to add that my internet connection is steady and the speeds pretty much stable,so I am not having trouble with dropped lines or slow down during evening hours or other problems of this sort with acanac.com. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Amadaeus
UPDATED: 51 days ago
member for 51 days, 4 visits, last login: 39 days ago
Thornhill,ON
$19 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
Bell Canada
"- 30-day money-back guarantee"
"- Unknowledgable tech support, NO phone billing support - Unable to diagnose speed problem after 3 weeks of usage"
"Would NOT recommend."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
- Terrible service and impression overall
- Terrible support: Phone tech support is NOT 24/7. NO billing support through the phone. Tech support is NOT knowledgeable. Acanac support is either technically unable or not motivated to help their own customers.Tech support emails are flagged as spam by GMail.
- Customer Service: There is NO billing support over the phone.
- Tech support failed to diagnose speed issues over a 3-week period, while competitor was able to find the problem within 2 minutes and fix the problem that same night
- Encountered repeated stalling from billings department when requested to cancel (I was entirely within my rights to cancel within user agreement under the 30-day money-back guarantee)
I started with Acanac early April 2009 when I decided to switch to DSL from Rogers Cable. Acanac had a very attractive pricepoint so I decided to chance it and ignore the consistently poor reviews regarding technical support and client service. I called before ordering to inquire about the expected connection speed from where I live and was ensured that I could get a 5Mb connection with no problems. Knowing they had a 30-day money-back guarantee, I decided to try out Acanac.
It was a mistake.
I've documented the debacle chronologically:
April 4 -- Ordered Service
April 14 -- Bell technician arrives, declares nothing is wrong, but the DSL service magically activated after his visit. That's 1.5 calendar weeks from start to activation. I can understand the lengthy wait due to the Easter holidays, and do appreciate the readjustment of the contract start date. This, however, would be the only silver lining to my 3 weeks the "Acanac Experience"
April 15 -- Speedtest conducted using Acanac's own speedcheck service. Discovered that the performance was substandard:
Download Speed: 3876 kbps (484.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 642 kbps (80.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
I contacted an Acanac support analyst through the RedFlagDeals forum to help me out, and she asked me to wait a few days for full speed to ramp up.
April 20 -- After a rainstorm, the ADSL connection becomes intermittent. I call into tech support and request a technician to come to my house to look at the line the next day. The speed on the line DID NOT IMPROVE as expected by Acanac support. In fact, connection speed has degraded to half of the advertised speed:
Download Speed: 2515 kbps (314.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 638 kbps (79.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
April 21 -- Scheduled Bell technician does not arrive. My father wastes a full day at my house waiting for the tech to arrive. I receive a call at the end of the day from the Bell dispatch asking for a time to arrive tomorrow. I tell them they should have arrived today, but Bell dispatch tells me that the appointment was originally scheduled for the next day. I am unsure who to believe at this point as neither Bell or Acanac holds much of my confidence.
April 22 -- Bell technician arrives, and declares nothing is wrong. Goes ahead and blames the hardware setup. Apparently, according to the technician, modems are not supposed to be plugged into routers (This was shocking as routers are designated for that exact purpose)
April 28 -- Line speed has not improved. I contact support again, and quotes the notes from the Bell technician that my modem is the problem. Support them immediately attempts to upsell me the Acanac modem at 49.99 as it "may improve speeds"
Sensing the same troubles other had experienced, I signed up for Teksavvy and they were able to diagnose, within 2 minutes of being on the phone that Bell had put me on a 3Mb profile. It took them another 2 minutes to request my profile be raised to 6Mb. My connection speed drastically improved later that night through my line with Teksavvy. It took Teksavvy under 2 hours over the phone to resolve a problem that Acanac failed to even diagnose in 3 weeks using 2 Bell techs and 3 separate tickets. For the record, Acanac's official response was to upsell me their own DSL modem which "may improve speeds". I get completely fed up and decided to cancel immediately.
April 28 -- Cancellation request sent through the webform.
April 29 -- Reponse from Acanac was less than optimal: "I have asked our manager to investigate this issue, Please wait, we will contact you as soon as we receive his response". I consider this nothing but a stalling tactic to have my contract lapse past the 30 day guarantee. At this point I make it clear that I do not want in investigation to take place and to have my refund processed immediately. I also threaten a credit card chargeback
April 30 -- More stalling from Acanac: "Please note in your case we need to have a permission from our supervisor and we have informed him already. We are looking forward to hear from him. We will reply/update you upon receiving an answer." Now getting close to the 30-day mark, I provide them with a deadline to process a refund or I will pursue a credit card chargeback
May 1 -- More stalling from Acanac: "Hi, I asked my manager to expedite the investigation. Please wait". Note that they are still "investigating" even though I had explicitly told them that no investigation is to take place and that I'm fully within my rights for a refund under their user agreement.
May 1 -- Refund finally approved, 4 days after initial cancellation request and two separate threats of a credit card chargeback.
After the nightmare of an experience, I would NOT recommend Acanac to:
- Casual users, as they might be quietly bumped to a lower profile without them even knowing about it, or knowing how to pursue an improvement of service quality
- Experienced users who experience a line issue that cannot be resolved under the 30-day money-back guarantee
- Any user who is less than comfortable with being aggressive with tech support to get what you're entitled to (let that be a refund or line quality improvements)
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by gduong128
Posted: 53 days ago
member for 1.7 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
Lasalle,QC
$18 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
Bell Canada
"Good service plus referral program"
"18.95$ tax in for the first year only"
"Best value/price for the first year"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Package 18.95$ tax in is for 5Mb down and 800kb up.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Madwand
UPDATED: 58 days ago
member for 6.5 years, 1471 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Toronto,ON
$17 per month (12 month contract)
"Price & Extra bonuses - online PC - throttle workaround - anonomous surfing. Always expanding services!"
"Bell gives substandard treatment if you have technical issues with your line (which is not Acanac's fault)"
"You can't beat Acanac if you have good DSL connect speeds with another provider. As long as you understand DSL setup."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I ordered the 1 year special at $228 upfront for a full 12 months. I gave Bell my 30 days notice and about two weeks before the end I ordered Acanac. I received my login details within 1 hour and was already using Acanac's service within a few minutes.
The first night was slightly choppy, but there were some small issues with heir Cogent lines. Everything was perfect come the morning. About two weeks later there were some Cogent issues again, but they only lasted for five minutes. It's now been almost two months and I'm a very happy Acanac customer. I just wish Bell did not reduce my line to the 5mbit service (which is what I am paying for).
With the Bell throttle, and the workaround I can easily get my P2P at 300-500K on a regular basis (assuming there are enough peers). I am extremely happy for this. Also, with an online PC I can use it without having work follow what I am doing. Also, I can block the DNS blocks from work by using the throttle workaround. i.e. using Facebook just fine.
Acanac has added new AGAS 7 & 8 and 9 and 10 will be online within the next month. The speed is 99% the same as with Bell.
I might in the future use MLPPP, but with the workaround I don't see the need. I would prefer a VPN or ipv6, but these will come out soon enough. I already know that Paul is working hard to keep his system up to date!
I really feel that I am a part of the Acanac team. I am excited for them with each new feature they introduce.
If you don't know anything about computers or DSL connections, I'd recommend that you stay with Bell though as you will probably have a lot of questions or potential issues that you might encounter, and a third party DSL provider may not be for you.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by nancy.miranda
Posted: 66 days ago
(review was emailed from domain ontario.ca)
Toronto,ON
$18 per month (12 month contract)
about 9 days
Bell Canada
"Sales and Tech Help were very very good and helpful!"
"No music while on hold for techies.. :-)"
"So far - So Good! Have recommended them to others"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
It took a little longer to get my DSL up and running because Bell Canada had to come to my house to "turn" something on. But so far the sales people and tech help have been very very good.
My speed is at 4.36mbs while on the internet. It drops because of Torrents, but I just put in a ticket for the "tunnel" for that one. All the ACANACA websites warn that torrents are slow... so no surprise when I joined up - Even the sales lady told me about apply for my free online PC so I dont' get the slow speed.
Good value - don't have to worry about reaching your "limit" as with Bell and Rogers. Let's hope it lasts!
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by mech9t5
UPDATED: 76 days ago
member for 187 days, 1 visits, last login: 61 days ago
undisclosed location
$27 per month (12 month contract)
"Price"
"everything else"
"Don't order here unless all you care about is price"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
Price: $19 + $8 (dry loop) = $27 /month all paid upfront.
Ordering: Was done on the online form. Indicated on the order that I did not require a modem but it was sent and billed anyway ($50 deposit). Had to get the modem sent back to them and get a refund on the deposit. Luckily that was not too painful requiring only a few emails with accounting/billing.
Installation: I was coming off Sympatico so I was using the Acanac username/pw within a few days. Initially, I had both Sympatico and Acanac overlapping for a week. After the first week, Sympatico was cancelled and Bell cut my phone line (dry loop). Specified in the order that I had existing dry loop with Sympatico. Better communication with Bell required? In any case, it took another 3 days to get back up and running.
Speed: When I had both Sympatico and Acanac, I could compare the 2. Sympatico was definitely faster. I was going through the same modem and the same phone lines. The only difference was logging on with a different password.
Performing a speed test on both Sympatico and Acanac resulted in the following:
Sympatico: 2500kbps down/650kbps up (consistent) with consistent 50ms ping
Acanac: erratic speeds. on a good day the same as Sympatico, on a bad day less than 1000kbps down and as low as 5kbps up (sometimes the speed test would timeout on the upstream test). ping was always >120ms
On average, I was getting about 1500kbps down and 300kbps up with >120ms ping.
Uptime: There were many outages and a lot of them lasted more than a few hours. On average there was probably around 1 outage a month that was greater than 30mins. When I was on Sympatico (5 years+), I only experienced a handful of outages that was greater than 30mins.
Support: When I complained about the speed (I called about 4 or 5 times), nothing was fixed. I got various excuses such as my modem was bad, i was using wireless, my router was bad, etc. It was never their problem but always someone else. It was not my equipment and it was not Bell because I was getting consistent speeds and compared everything directly when I had overlapping service. In the end, they said all they can do is send a Bell tech to my house to check my equipment and if nothing was wrong with my equipment, I would be charged $75. I knew it wasn't me but they wouldn't do anything else.
I mentioned numerous times that their ping times were way out of normal. They say their servers are in Mississauga but pinging a Toronto server takes over 120ms??? The routing is really messed up!! It should be no more than 50-60ms. They ignored that issue.
Cancellation: I sent a ticket into billing to stop auto renew 1 month prior to the 12 months being over. Got a response asking why I wanted to cancel. I responded with my reasons and asked them not to renew. 3-4 days go by and I never heard back from them. Followed up with another ticket and the ticket was ignored for another week before I followed up again. Finally got a response asking me again why I wanted to cancel and I had to respond again. Finally got them to disable auto renew after over 2 weeks. Good thing I followed up and also started the process 1 month in advance, otherwise they probably would just ignore my cancellation request and charge me another year.
Summary: Poor speeds, poor tech support, poor customer support (billing). For $19 a month I would live with all of that. But considering I had to pay $8 for dryloop fee as well, it is not worth it. I got a new customer deal at Rogers for $30 a month for 1 year. I would rather pay the extra money. Now my internet is fast. I click a link and the page loads up instantly rather than having to sit and wait for the server to respond. And, youtube videos actually load without having to buffer all the time.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
| »next page (previous review)
Review by rik
UPDATED: 104 days ago
member for 1.1 years, 19 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Vanier,ON
$37 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
Bell Canada
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
»477bc4f01c729.media.neutrality.c···B_01.gif
1./ What other options did I consider for broadband ?
Rogers, or Bell since Canada unfortunately has this "DUOPOLY" what choices do Canadians really have ?!
Luckily, I did found one -thankyou ACANAC !!!
2./ What SPEED/package did I order, at what monthly price?
5Mps/ADSL with a DRY-Loop and VOIP service, total monthly cost $37.90
(I only wish I waited for their $18.95/mo 5Mps/DSL package price 
3./ What good or bad experiences most struck me?
ok, HANG ON:
Well, to be honest, for me its important that ALL canadians get a fair shake, Rogers and Bell, and TELUS,... having been "gouge"ing us for some time now -ALL their telecommunications services are MUCH TOO Expensive in Canada.
ok, enough said:
I just wish Bell/Rogers/Telus/... all these Canadian? corporations would get out of the "RETAIL" market and establish themselves as the "wholesale" "source" providers' for all of our network needs. -with a gov't appointed body to keep their
prices to our smaller ISP retailers in line -with no funny business !
And let these smaller hands-on companies like Acanac, Tek-Savy, and many more... flourish and grow in Canada as our "retail" ISP providers.
Hey, WHO KNOWS CANADIAN NETWORKS BETTER THAN CANADIAN IT/TECHS ? - Did you get that "Bell", Rogers'" ?!!!
It would promote healthy competition,..., and bottom-line "LOWER" and "AFFORDABLE" overall monthly rates for all of us, no matter where we are.
So my experience with all this right now is:
Our "CRTC" is still stuck in 1989, and the sooner Canadian-consumers realize all of the the above, then the sooner we will all be paying cheaper rates for our Internet/VOIP/..., needs.
Maybe then, NortelNetworks can finally lay-down Fibre-Optics to every Canadian residence.
And NO, that's not a dream, it's a reality that should have been implemented by now across Canada. ....sooo WAKE UP! and smell your Java, Canada.
respectfully,
Rick.
Ottawa, CANADA.
PS: forget the "...NortelNetworks can finally lay-down Fibre-Optics to every Canadian residence..."
-tragically, and shamefully this probably won't happen by Nortel directly anymore.
:(
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Acanac |
|
|
(18)
(29)
(19)
$18.95 Residential