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Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

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Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#41

Post by inferiorhuman »

chaostheory wrote: post #34
zalthor wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm being too picky? Or a maybe I'm just in the minority, bit I don't really like using Sonic. I mean, their internet works, and customer support is fine (but I've had as good a service from Comcast too). What I find annoying from Sonic is their billing process. I dislike that they foist a random router onto you and charge you $10 a month (and charge you if you want to return it). I also dislike that they force…

> 1GBPS internet at $40 a month" and only a year later realize that you're paying $75 a month instead I don’t feel you realize how good you have it. There are even more annoying hidden charges from Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. Moreover, for only 400 mbps I pay $200 a month while you only pay $75 for fiber internet. To be clear my cost is only a temporary discount that will shoot up to nearly $400 in a few months. At w…

I don’t feel you realize how good you have it.

What you're missing is that the price is the same for fiber and DSL. If you're in a part of the Bay Area where all you can get is 3 Mbps DSL from Sonic, they'll gladly charge you that same price (and yes I did this for a while until I realized that Sonic wasn't particularly loyal to their customers).

Oh, and $40 is the promo rate these days.

Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#42

Post by jandrese »

gervase wrote: post #9
jandrese wrote: post #5

I 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 s…

Looks like I got out just in time. Verizon's DSL options were notoriously overpriced and slow in my area, and I seriously doubt they got any better once they weren't forced to compete anymore.

Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#43

Post by inferiorhuman »

__sy__ wrote: post #4

Just 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…

I had Sonic fiber for a while. The speeds definitely weren't consistent -- max downloads would suffer (but still be much faster than non-fiber offerings) during peak hours. Plus they still don't offer native IPv6, static IP addresses (they reneged on that), or reverse DNS with fiber (their ADSL offering still does). If all you're doing is "surfing the web" that's probably not a big deal. But it is a step down from the Sonic of yesteryear that was targeted at power users and had excellent customer support.

Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#45

Post by inferiorhuman »

cbhl wrote: post #32
Avamander wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10$? Do you get a dedicated landline-line or is it actually just VoIP?

That depends on whether you get ADSL (6 Mbps per copper phone line, resold AT&T, but a real phone line) or Fiber Optic (gigabit fiber optic to the apartment, but you get an additional box that exposes a phone jack plugged into the ONT in the closet, so presumably VOIP). I've seen Sonic hook up places in SF with both; they sell the ADSL to try and get the revenue to build out more Fiber. The Sonic technician I spoke t…

That depends on whether you get ADSL (6 Mbps per copper phone line, resold AT&T, but a real phone line) or Fiber Optic (gigabit fiber optic to the apartment, but you get an additional box that exposes a phone jack plugged into the ONT in the closet, so presumably VOIP).

ADSL2 goes up to around 20 Mbps, VDSL up to around 50 Mbps. Sonic may or may not still sell bonded DSL service. I believe the only resold AT&T service these days is the FTTN offering (resold U-Verse with all the nastiness that involves).

Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#46

Post by mosdl »

robbiet480 wrote: post #38

I tried to get Sonic at 100 Grand Avenue in Oakland after they put fliers on homes and businesses all around saying "We are coming to Oakland with our own fiber and offering gigabit!" (they have been in Oakland for a long time with their AT&T DSL product). Turns out, they decided to not install to my building (254 unit high-rise), most likely due to a, what I believe to be, illegal exclusive line ownership agreement…

In the South Bay we have Sail Internet which also does point to point.

Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#47

Post by fletchowns »

floren wrote: post #33
fletchowns wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would happily switch from Comcast but when I check availability for where I live in Livermore, they only offer 50Mbps. Currently paying ~180/mo for Comcast gigabit and TV (and phone that I don't use). I would fork over quite a bit for symmetrical gigabit, very jealous!

I used Sonic in Livermore because despite the relatively low speeds, I didn't have to reboot the modem every week like Comcast!

I never use ISP provided equipment, I always use my own. Except when I had AT&T U-Verse, since I was forced to use their proprietary 2-wire modem (which was absolute garbage and required weekly reboots).

However, with Comcast, I can use my own NETGEAR DOCSIS 3.1 modem which has been absolutely rock solid, I have never rebooted it in the two years I've had it.

Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#48

Post by inferiorhuman »

jandrese wrote: post #5

I 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…

And since FiOS didn't have to deal with grandfathered common carrier laws Verizon wasn't forced to share and they have not.

While that is true, most of the Bay Area is Pacbell/AT&T territory. GTE/Verizon had a few zipcodes in Marin and I think some in the South Bay but that was it. FiOS is unobtainable for most of the Bay Area.

Of course you can't get IPv6 on there, because Verizon's most advanced network ever doesn't support it.

This is true with Sonic's fiber network too.

Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#49

Post by chaostheory »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #41
chaostheory wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1GBPS internet at $40 a month" and only a year later realize that you're paying $75 a month instead I don’t feel you realize how good you have it. There are even more annoying hidden charges from Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. Moreover, for only 400 mbps I pay $200 a month while you only pay $75 for fiber internet. To be clear my cost is only a temporary discount that will shoot up to nearly $400 in a few months. At w…

I don’t feel you realize how good you have it. What you're missing is that the price is the same for fiber and DSL. If you're in a part of the Bay Area where all you can get is 3 Mbps DSL from Sonic, they'll gladly charge you that same price (and yes I did this for a while until I realized that Sonic wasn't particularly loyal to their customers). Oh, and $40 is the promo rate these days.

Yeah I know about their AT&T piggyback DSL service. Yeah, it isn’t a good deal, but $40 for fiber internet is unbelievable. What’s sad is that I don’t live that far away from you. Thanks for your post though. It reminded me to talk to Comcast again. Now I’m paying $140 for 1 gbps

Re: Most internet service providers are gone – Sonic has survived and thrived

#50

Post by JustSomeNobody »

zalthor wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm being too picky? Or a maybe I'm just in the minority, bit I don't really like using Sonic. I mean, their internet works, and customer support is fine (but I've had as good a service from Comcast too). What I find annoying from Sonic is their billing process. I dislike that they foist a random router onto you and charge you $10 a month (and charge you if you want to return it). I also dislike that they force…

> I get that most advertising is not supposed to reflect reality...

It actually is supposed to. A lot of companies just seem to get away with not.

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