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

sfchronicle.com

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

#91

Post by jedberg »

wahern wrote: post #70
an_opabinia wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Sonic subscriber, I can vouch that this is an accurate report, and that their business model is fundamentally to advertise a low price and charge a high one hoping you’ll like gigabit Ethernet enough to keep it. Another way of looking at this is search engine- and eCommerce-driven price discovery hasn’t given us better prices or more accurate ones, it has just moved money from one set of bad actors (people who r…

That's just not true. They simply don't include taxes in the advertised price, same as everybody else, and because they include voice service in all their plans the taxes add up. You also don't need to use their routers (I don't), but they charge you an extra $10--presumably because of the increased support calls. Here's my latest invoice. I've had Sonic Fiber for a few years so these are the non-promo numbers: Voice…

My ATT is exactly the advertised price. It includes all fees, taxes, and equipment. $90/mo for gigabit (was $70 when I signed up, which reminds me I need to ask about getting the promo rate again).

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

#92

Post by scurvy »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #90
awongh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived in SF I had monkeybrains, I was happy with them, and very happy not to give comcast my money.

How fast were upload speeds with Monkeybrains?

It depends on your building's setup. We have a gig radio on the roof with G.Fast inside the building to each unit. I get 200mbps up and down. $35/mo tough to beat unless you can get Sonic fiber.

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

#93

Post by Animats »

reaperducer wrote: post #55
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…

Who in 2019 needs a landline? People with house alarms. People with fax machines. People with medical equipment that sends information to their doctors a couple of times a day. People who don't trust VOIP providers. People who want to be properly geolocated when they dial 911. People who want to use a phone when the power goes out for longer than a cell phone can hold a charge (think hurricane-prone states). Here's a…

"Good Lord, I'd forgotten what a quality phone call sounds like. It was as if she was right there in the room with me. No awkward cellular delay."

Right. I have a friend in Switzerland who had an ISDN voice line. Synchronous 64Kb/s digital voice end to end. No jitter. Swisscom discontinued that recently and now he has inferior VoIP.

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

#94

Post by zonidjan »

reaperducer wrote: post #55
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…

Who in 2019 needs a landline? People with house alarms. People with fax machines. People with medical equipment that sends information to their doctors a couple of times a day. People who don't trust VOIP providers. People who want to be properly geolocated when they dial 911. People who want to use a phone when the power goes out for longer than a cell phone can hold a charge (think hurricane-prone states). Here's a…

> I already have my current place wired with VOIP, but in my next home I'm going to get a landline.

Good luck.

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

#95

Post by wahern »

jedberg wrote: post #91
wahern wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. They simply don't include taxes in the advertised price, same as everybody else, and because they include voice service in all their plans the taxes add up. You also don't need to use their routers (I don't), but they charge you an extra $10--presumably because of the increased support calls. Here's my latest invoice. I've had Sonic Fiber for a few years so these are the non-promo numbers: Voice…

My ATT is exactly the advertised price. It includes all fees, taxes, and equipment. $90/mo for gigabit (was $70 when I signed up, which reminds me I need to ask about getting the promo rate again).

Interesting. Where do you live? This page, https://www.att.com/local/fiber/california/san-francisco, advertises $50 "Plus taxes. 12mo. agmt req’d. Incl 1TB data/mo., overage chrgs apply. Ltd. Avail/areas. See offer details"

EDIT: Lower down the page it says "Starting at $70/mo. plus taxes for 12 months for Internet powered by AT&T Fiber", so looks like the top of the page is some kind of algorithmic promo? Also, just to be clear, Sonic advertisements also include fine print regarding taxes.

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

#96

Post by zonidjan »

newman314 wrote: post #66
chaostheory wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sonic gig fiber is only $40 if you use thier fiber. Where they resell ATT fiber, it's $80/mth for the first year then jumps to $90.

That's still quite good compared to some parts of the country (like anyone who has to use Spectrum).

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

#97

Post by IntelMiner »

zonidjan wrote: post #71
reaperducer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

illegal exclusive line ownership agreement that my commercial landlords signed with AT&T. Exclusive, yes. Illegal? Not really. Every apartment building I've lived in has had an agreement with one provider. They don't want to rip open the walls for every company that wants to put in a line. And these days with the way internet providers come and go, I don't blame them. If you rent, you don't own the building, so you h…

It is, in one sense, illegal. "The NOI provides a history of FCC regulations in this area, noting that in 2007 and 2008 the commission “prohibited providers from entering into or enforcing exclusive agreements to provide services to customers in commercial and residential MTEs.”" - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/exclusive-broadb... What's not illegal is landlords accepting free services from the ISPs in…

I worked at Comcast from 2014-2016

Comcast never explicitly signed contracts barring landlords from allowing competing services in, mainly to reduce the scope of legal culpability if it somehow came to such a thing

They would offer very generous (read: free) services to the landlords of buildings however. Especially in large complexes like the one I lived in northern Seattle

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

#98

Post by chipotle_coyote »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #89
dredmorbius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one that does ;-) https://www.sonic.com/shell-access

Does anyone have experience with the usenet access it says it provides? I can't find any information on google.

When I last tried a few years ago, I could just point a news reader at news.sonic.net and it worked. I can't test it now because I'm no longer a Sonic customer. (I love many things about them, but where I live in Santa Clara, they could never offer any service faster than DSL, and I finally gave in and switched to Comcast.)

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

#99

Post by adammenges »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #64
reaperducer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who in 2019 needs a landline? People with house alarms. People with fax machines. People with medical equipment that sends information to their doctors a couple of times a day. People who don't trust VOIP providers. People who want to be properly geolocated when they dial 911. People who want to use a phone when the power goes out for longer than a cell phone can hold a charge (think hurricane-prone states). Here's a…

No landline has sounded anywhere near as good as FaceTime Audio to me.

Personally this has been my experience, too

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

#100

Post by rladd »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #88
rladd wrote: post #54

I used to be a big support of Sonic for years, but have changed my mind as of late. They skipped my block for fiber, and I thought there could be some issue (like the fact that a Muni electric line runs down it) that might make it impossible for them to install it. So I asked their tech support if it was going to someday come, or never come. Sonic would not give me any information. They wouldn't confirm or deny that…

Sonic, though, has encountered the same problems. For example, some San Francisco utility poles are too crowded to attach Sonic fiber-optic cables onto them. Yet, neither PG&E nor AT&T have a timetable when those poles will be replaced, Jasper said, leaving areas in certain neighborhoods where Sonic cannot reach potential customers. There have been advances in placing lines underground, specifically through micro-tre…

Sure,there are all kinds of problems and all kinds of things that could/should be done to fix them. Micro-trenching would be wonderful.

None of that excuses withholding information from customers to prevent them from being able to make an informed decision.

By the way, the "crowded utility pole" issue was the problem on my block. The way I worked around it was to get PG&E to admit that they were also overloaded even for the wires they were already supporting. Then, when they are replaced the new pole has more capacity for some extra fiber.

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