Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
1–10 of 122 posts
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#2sonic customer here (past through sonic, currently through LMI.net as a reseller).
they're the best ISP i've ever dealt with, and the fact that they've won a court case against AT&T to run fiber through oakland and berkeley is just amazing. their teams are working in my neighborhood now to get this all installed.
i can't wait for my $50/month gigabit internet, complete w/the best customer service ever!
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#3sonic customer here (past through sonic, currently through LMI.net as a reseller). they're the best ISP i've ever dealt with, and the fact that they've won a court case against AT&T to run fiber through oakland and berkeley is just amazing. their teams are working in my neighborhood now to get this all installed. i can't wait for my $50/month gigabit internet, complete w/the best customer service ever!
Completely agree. Sonic is a customer service provider that happens to be an ISP.
I've had their gigabit fiber service in SF for the past two years. The few times I've had to call and inquire about a service issue, I was able to speak to someone within a minute of calling. And if you check their forums, you'll find their CEO responding to questions.
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#4Just wanted to chime in about how happy with their residential service in SF. I have their 1Gbps package. With Comcast, this would most often translate to a real-life asymetric 250mbps download, 50mbps upload speed. With Sonic: I'm consistently getting SYMMETRIC 900mbps+! It's insane and comes in real-handy when you're pushing a few gigs of file from your home server to AWS...
Edit: I have cat6 ethernet wired throughout my place.
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#5I miss the days of competing ISPs. I remember having Speakeasy for my DSL back in the early 2000s and being impressed at the range of services they offered and relatively high speeds they offered for less than what Verizon wanted to charge for a DSL line. Usenet, a shell server, personal webhosting, a POTS phone bank you could use as a backup when you were on the road.
But the limitations of DSL meant they couldn't compete with FiOS. And since FiOS didn't have to deal with grandfathered common carrier laws Verizon wasn't forced to share and they have not. Amazingly, even though the customer service headaches are incredible, you can get a reasonably fast line for not too much money (100Mbit for $35/month) on FiOS. Probably because we have some competition from cable modems. Of course you can't get IPv6 on there, because Verizon's most advanced network ever doesn't support it.
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#6I have Sonic's gigabit fiber service and I absolutely love it. I also appreciate that you can get support via SMS.
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#7Just wanted to chime in about how happy with their residential service in SF. I have their 1Gbps package. With Comcast, this would most often translate to a real-life asymetric 250mbps download, 50mbps upload speed. With Sonic: I'm consistently getting SYMMETRIC 900mbps+! It's insane and comes in real-handy when you're pushing a few gigs of file from your home server to AWS... Edit: I have cat6 ethernet wired through…
>With Comcast, this would most often translate to a real-life asymetric 250mbps download, 50mbps upload speed
Don't forget the inevitable data cap!
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#8Very happy Sonic customer here. I just moved from San Francisco to the East Bay and the process was mostly painless, and when a little glitch did occur, instead of trying to force me to deal with the existence of their internal processes, policies, and silos, something I call Conway's Law For Customers, they just Took Care Of It For Me.
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#9I miss the days of competing ISPs. I remember having Speakeasy for my DSL back in the early 2000s and being impressed at the range of services they offered and relatively high speeds they offered for less than what Verizon wanted to charge for a DSL line. Usenet, a shell server, personal webhosting, a POTS phone bank you could use as a backup when you were on the road. But the limitations of DSL meant they couldn't c…
FIOS wasn't actually why that market segment died; it was due to the FCC decision to re-classify DSL [0]. This was in response to a lawsuit resolved a few months earlier that did the same for cable internet connections. [1]
By re-classifying both cable and DSL as Title 1, rather than Title 2, that meant that they were no longer common carriers, and could kick all the competing ISPs off their network. This is why it seemed that most of the third-party providers went away nearly overnight.
[0]: https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-changes-dsl-classification/
[1]" https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/technology/cable-wins-int...
Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived
#10Just wanted to chime in about how happy with their residential service in SF. I have their 1Gbps package. With Comcast, this would most often translate to a real-life asymetric 250mbps download, 50mbps upload speed. With Sonic: I'm consistently getting SYMMETRIC 900mbps+! It's insane and comes in real-handy when you're pushing a few gigs of file from your home server to AWS... Edit: I have cat6 ethernet wired through…
Former Sonic customer here. I caved and moved to the South Bay after doing the commute for too long and Sonic is honestly what I miss most about the city.