Still waiting...

It's been three weeks since I signed up, and still no internet service. I got told by my neighbour upstairs (duplex rental) that Bell tried to call me yesterday (but called my neighbour upstairs instead) ... she gave her name to my neighbour and said I should call back.

I called Bell phone service, they refused to talk to me about any technician that might be scheduled to come to my house, and told me that I should talk to Acanac instead.

I was transferred to Sympatico (Bell's internet) and they said the exact same thing.

Apparently when Bell calls your neighbour, asks for you, and leaves a name ... you're not supposed to call back.



And then of course Bell didn't show up on the date they were supposed to; Acanac re-scheduled for December 1st.

I will post then!

Router is here...small issue :(

The router arrived via FedEx, I took a few pictures in case you'd like to see what's in the package:


They arrived on Tuesday the 17th, six business days since ordering internet (as promised). I hooked it up to the phone modem I have ... and ... nothing.

I sent a quick email to Acanac (10:30pm that same day) saying "Are you able to see if my DSL connection is active, or tell me when it should be? I'm pretty sure I'm connecting the router correctly, but would like to make sure!"

By the next morning I received this reply:

Hello,

As I checked your order has been rejected on account of "Tn not found in bell database (incorrect tn or local provider)",

Are you sure this is an active Bell phone number xxx-xxx-xxxx?

If it is non-Bell, you'd need to provide us with your circuit ID. for all NON-BELL landlines (eg: Primus, Yak, Tek, etc.), we require the circuit number formatted as LCLXXU######000BCLA000, which you can get from your current service provider.
If your phone provider does not provide any circuit number,you will need to order dry loop DSL service that costs 8$/month more.

Best Regards,
Acanac Inc.

What?

I looked on the Acanac website for information about this "dry loop" and found this:

Naked DSL

Acanac Naked DSL lets you surf the net with out having an active phone Line. This is great for cell phone users who do not have land lines or Voip users who are tired of paying the big bucks to the major phone providers. All you need for Naked (Dry Loop) DSL is a phone jack. No dial tone is necessary.

Note: Naked DSL is only available In Ontario and Quebec and it costs an extra $8 per month.

I do have an active phone line, though! I thought it would work.... Next I called my Rogers to see if I could get a circuit ID. They don't have them - only Bell does.

I searched the Acanac community for "rogers dry loop" to see if anyone else has had the same issue, and came up with this thread called Do I need to stick with Bell home phone to have Acanac ASDL?

The answer is something like this: You can use anyone that is an analog service (Bell), but not digital (Rogers).

It would be awesome in the future if Acanac would inform new customers ahead of time of this fact!

So I replied to the email that Acanac tech support had sent me, saying that I guess I'll need to order a dry loop. Really quickly I got a reply:

Hi,

We are really sorry for inconveniences,

First of all, I have extended your account term for 2 weeks for unused days and the next due date will be on 2010-11-24.

Also, please note the charge for dry loop service is 8$ per month,
Do you agree with the charge?

We are looking forward to hear from you.


Best Regards,
Acanac Inc.

I replied in the affirmative, and now just need a dry loop installed. The good thing (the silver lining, as it were) is that this brings me one step closer to ditching Rogers altogether and signing up for Acanac's home phone service as well! (We'll wait to do this after internet is up and working well!!)

I'll post when the dry loop has been installed!

Router is en route!

Hello Chris Togeretz,
Your unit is now being sent via Fedex.
Tracking number : xxxxxxxxxxxx
You may visit http://fedex.com or fedex.ca and track your package. Please note it may take a few hours for Fedex to scan the package and for it to show up on the online system.
If you feel you have received this in error please contact us immediately. Thank you and have a great day.
Best Regards,

Shipping Department Acanac Inc.

http://www.acanac.com

Waiting...

Haven't seen my router in the mail yet or any new emails. I really hope it's early next week!

I did notice that Acanac's website got freshened up...

Email confirmation

5:35am on Wednesday this shows up in my inbox:

Dear Chris X,

Below you will find your invoice for your account with Acanac Inc. If you find any problems with the numbers which are listed bellow please call us @ 1-866-281-3538 and we will be glad to correct them for you.

Invoice#	Generated Date	Paid Date	Description	Status	Total
335125	2009-11-10	2009-11-10	Setup CND-DSL Pro-RES 12 month-(deposit:49.95)xtk9b7ep	paid	277.35

OK, perfect! NO hidden charges! Prices quoted include taxes! How often does that happen (besides gas, I can't think of many cases here in Ontario)?

Still waiting for the router, wonder when it will come in!

Signing up for internet!

I just went to the ordering form and filled in my info. As I was there, I clicked on the User Agreement; here are some important clauses that you might find useful:

Billing. All terms are due up front. If you sign up for the lowest rate then you are likely on the 1 year term. You will be billed the entire term up front and then billed on a yearly basis.
All credit cards are billed automatically on there renewal dates. If you do not want to renew your account please cancel the account on or before the renewal date. Cancellations must be done by e-mail and sent to accounting@acanac.com or billing@acanac.com. Please make sure you obtain the cancellation ID or ticket number for your request to confirm cancellation of service.

30 Day Money Back. If you are not satisfied with our service for any reason within the first 30 days, Acanac will provide a full refund less any usage incurred through long distance charges. After the initial 30 day period a customer must complete the remainder of the term. Customer(s) may choose to cancel the account prior to the end of term however, no refund will be issued for that period. Acanac Inc. understands that due to the nature of our technology and affiliations with other partners, issues can occur which are out of our control. In such cases Acanac Billing department may choose at our sole discretion to grant refunds on a case by case basis. Furthermore the 30 day unconditional money back guarantee does not apply for renewals. Customers must terminate the agreement before or on the renewal date. Should a client forget to terminate before the renewal date, clients will be required to pay each additional month of service ( at the monthly rate ) and the remainder will be refunded.

In addition to the twelve months at $18.95/month (a subtotal of $227.40), I also was expecting to pay a bit for a router that Acanac supplies (I was renting a router from Rogers for $3/month, so I have to get a new one anyways!).

The sidebar says:

Modem Info

Due to theft of devices we are now charging 49.95 Canadian for all DSL modems. Once your service is terminated Acanac may choose to buy back the modem at the same price. There is no obligation to purchase the hardware from our customers.

So - a total of $277.35 for the first year, and then I should expect to pay the regular rate for the next year of service. That works out to $33.95/month x 12 months = $407.4/year. Considering I'm paying $38.99/month for internet with Rogers right now ... no problem!


I ordered the internet at 11 pm on Monday evening and got this nice message:

Thank you for your order. We appreciate your business.

Orders take approx 24 - 48 hours to process . Should we have any questions or concerns regarding any information on the form we will contact you.

DSL modems are automatically shipped within 2-3 days unless a client has stated otherwise in the comments section. If you do not require a modem and forgot to add the comment simply contact our sales office and they will be more then happy to correct this for you.

For those customers who are requesting a modem please note that it takes approximately 2 - 3 business days to ship. Once you receive your modem simply plug it in and wait for the signal. DSL installation takes approx. 7 business days from the time of have submitted this form.

Customers who have their own DSL modem will receive an e-mail within the next 24 - 48 hours with your login and password. Once you have received that info simply configure your own DSL modem with the PPPOE login and password and plug in your modem to your phone line. Once service is activated your modem should connect automatically. Please note activation is the same for all users thus it will also take approximately 7 business days from now for activation.

Should anyone have any questions or concerns please do let us know.

Once again thank you for your order and we look forward to a long term relationship.


Best Regards,

Acanac Inc.

We'll see how long it takes to get set up!

Potential issues

I've tried to do my research before switching! Mostly I visited the Acanac forum, in addition to a few Google searches and asking friends what they thought about their Acanac.

I found a few people talking about some potential issues such as:

• Annual billing. A number of people don't realize when they sign up that their second year of service is billed automatically, and that it's going to be at the regular (i.e. non-discounted) price. Then, when they see a charge on their credit card bill that they forgot about, they flip out.
• Issues getting connected. There seems to be some work done by Bell, and some by Acanac - I can't follow everything (likely because I haven't gone through it?).
• Poor customer service (billing and technical support). I suppose my attitude towards this is that (for the most part) you tend to get what you pay for. Do I need to get problems resolved in ten minutes if I ever have a question? I'll pay for it. So far I've emailed Acanac twice; it's taken one and two days for them to respond. Considering it took Rogers over two years to get our home phone number into the white pages and 411 ... that's acceptable.
• Downtime (scheduled or not)
• Speed variations or just overall a lower speed than promised (5mbps down, 800 kbps up). This might be imposed upon Acanac by Bell, not sure!
  

One friend's feedback to me (he's talking about his friend), which sums up some of the issues:

After four weeks, the internet service still hadn't been provided. And when he asked for a refund, they were very vague on instructions and even hung up on him once. Just overall very poor communication and attitude. Last I heard, he's still dealing with them. He ended up going with Rogers, which started the service within a week.

So - that just about sums up the worst-case stories. I feel a lot better signing up for Acanac knowing that the worst that can happen isn't all too bad! I will of course keep this blog updated with any issues that I encounter.

Referral

I was talking with an acquaintance at a Halloween party, the topic moved from music to internet .. and he told me he really likes his Acanac.

That got me interested in changing, because of three things: 1) ever-increasing bills, 2) unlimited bandwidth, 3) referral program.

Let me talk a little about those three!
1) Increasing bills. Nobody likes them. So when I see the chance to pay for a year's worth of service up front I say "maaaaaan, that's a lot of money all at once!" but also you do have to realize that now your part is done for the year. They can't nickel and dime you at all! Instead of monthly bills and having to remember to pay bills every month (and watching them carefully to make sure you're paying for what you want), you're done.

2) Unlimited bandwidth. My current Rogers plan (Lite) is for 25 GB a month, but I'd like to avoid going over if I could ($2/GB extra)!

3) The referral program that Acanac has is pretty awesome - for every person that you refer to Acanac and gets signed up, you get a month free service. After you've got ten people signed up, you get free service. Forever. This works for their internet and phone service (seperately)!

Two years of actual Rogers bills

I just compiled the Rogers home phone and internet bills that I've paid since September 2007. Here's a pretty graph:

(click to see larger size!)

Note that in August 2009 we upgraded from Roger's "ultra-lite" to "lite"; the price increase for internet in September/October 2008 were because our one-year discount had expired.

Average annual cost for the first twenty-four months are as follows:
Home phone $305.85
Internet $385.50
Total (incl tax): $768.60

When we signed up with Rogers, we thought we were getting home phone for $21.95/month and internet for $25.95/month. With taxes, this would have worked out to about $640. Actually, we paid $25.49/month for internet and $32.13/month for home phone. This price difference happens to be exactly a 20% increase....

What is Acanac?

Their website talks about their services. To summarize, Acanac offers phone and internet service at very affordable rates. They can do this by offering less advertising and less expensive customer service that other companies spend big $$$ on.

Acanac's core value is to make sure that you the customer is served with the utmost respect and professionalism. This is the reason that we are one of the few companies that offer a unconditional money back guarantee.

How good are their prices? As of November 2009:

Phone service
Residential Unlimited - $9.95/month
Residential Unlimited- Includes Voip ATA - $19.95/month
Business Unlimited - $39.95/month

DSL
Residential - $52.95/month (1-year discount), regular $33.95/month
Business - $29.95/month (1-year discount), regular $33.95/month


They have one more amazing addition to the low prices: their referral program.

Refer ten clients for our High Speed Internet or Phone Service and your fees will be waived as long as you remain a customer of Acanac Inc.

10 referrals equals: Free service for life

Sounds too good to be true? I emailed their support team, their reply was:

Hello,

Yes for every 10 people you refer for phone that stay with our service longer than 30 days your service would be free. Same with the internet, 10 people refered service is free.

Best regards Acanac Inc.

Rogers or Acanac? Sept. 2007

Way back in September 2007 I was deciding between a few companies for home phone service (had just got married and moved out).

Here are my notes about that decision:

Rogers home phone: $21.95/mo, 2 free phone handsets, can install next week Friday

Bell home phone: Too much. :)

Primus: http://www.primus.ca/en/residential/bundle/bundledServices-bundlelite.htm (I think this one is the best package, $34.95 for home phone, high speed DSL, and 5 cents a minute long distance anywhere in CAN or US. Only hitch: we need to have existing phone service before we can switch to Primus)

Acanac: http://www.acanac.com/index.html ($18.95/mo, DSL)"

We decided to go with Rogers. For one, we already had cell phones with them; secondly, it seemed like an easier set-up.


We also picked up internet!

Wife to me:
[W]ell, with rogers we pay every month, and it's $25.95 for ultra-lite internet (that one makes most sense for us). with acanac it's $18.95 a month for the first 12 months, you pay it all at once for the year, $227.40.

My response was:
For $85 extra we can go with Rogers and get a) good service b) same provider (better?) and c) monthly payments (nicer right now!)

So there you have it - Rogers was chosen over Acanac based on us getting better service for $85/year. In addition, the monthly payments were preferred!