Sonic Fiber vs AT&T Fiber offering....

[lasevich]

The answer here is the same everywhere: we are expanding more and more rapidly, and that expansion is driven by the success and uptake of both fiber and Fusion services. So, please stick with us and please spread the word, that is everyone's best hope of us achieving our mission of connecting everyone with our own fast fiber service!

I have been a customer since '97 (even in the year I lived in a place with no Sonic service, I kept my dialup account), and Sonic done right by me many times (including you personally handling consequences of a botched PacBell T1 install back in 99) - so I am not going anywhere I guess the more direct question is - is the presence of AT&T service mean that the priority of coverage in our neighborhood is suddenly far lower, or does it not make any difference in how the service is being rolled out? Honestly my current Fusion service is fast enough for the moment, and I am willing to wait for the real deal service for a while, IFF it is actually coming, but if it is not coming, I would rather have the faster service now, than wait a year to realize that I waited for nothing....

-M

[bmah]

Yep, our VPN doesn't support IPv6 at this time, and yes, it'd result in a significant speed decrease. I also haven't seen any reports of successful implementation of a whole-home always-on VPN solution, for example using a gateway that keeps the VPN up and serves the household behind it. A really intelligent version of this would not send some traffic over VPN, for example streaming video from commercial services maybe goes direct, while browsing would be via VPN.

Instead, folks primarily use the VPN from PC clients, which I suppose achieves some of that - the Roku doesn't VPN, while the browsing PC does.

Has anyone set up a whole-home LAN VPN solution that connects to our VPN server or a commercial VPN service?

I have. Like someone who replied upthread, it was pfSense-based. I did an OpenVPN tunnel to the sonic.net VPN server and routed most of the traffic over that (with a few exceptions coded into some policy-based routing rules within pfSense). Then on top of that OpenVPN tunnel I did an IPv6 tunnel to Hurricane Electric (I had to do this weird thing because AT&T blocks IP protocol 41, which is necessary for a tunnel, and really really really wanted to be able to use my own statically assigned IPv6 addresses on my home LAN). All of what I described basically worked, but for various other reasons I decided to stop doing this.

I'm currently trying to get an upgrade to the Fusion IP Broadband FX3 service, when that happens I might revisit this idea or some variant thereof.

Bruce.

[lasevich]

I have. Like someone who replied upthread, it was pfSense-based. I did an OpenVPN tunnel to the sonic.net VPN server and routed most of the traffic over that (with a few exceptions coded into some policy-based routing rules within pfSense). Then on top of that OpenVPN tunnel I did an IPv6 tunnel to Hurricane Electric (I had to do this weird thing because AT&T blocks IP protocol 41, which is necessary for a tunnel, and really really really wanted to be able to use my own statically assigned IPv6 addresses on my home LAN). All of what I described basically worked, but for various other reasons I decided to stop doing this.

I'm currently trying to get an upgrade to the Fusion IP Broadband FX3 service, when that happens I might revisit this idea or some variant thereof.

Out of curiosity - what sorts of speed do you get out of it with and without the VPN on?

Thanks,

-M

[timyu94]

I have. Like someone who replied upthread, it was pfSense-based. I did an OpenVPN tunnel to the sonic.net VPN server and routed most of the traffic over that (with a few exceptions coded into some policy-based routing rules within pfSense). Then on top of that OpenVPN tunnel I did an IPv6 tunnel to Hurricane Electric (I had to do this weird thing because AT&T blocks IP protocol 41, which is necessary for a tunnel, and really really really wanted to be able to use my own statically assigned IPv6 addresses on my home LAN). All of what I described basically worked, but for various other reasons I decided to stop doing this.

I'm currently trying to get an upgrade to the Fusion IP Broadband FX3 service, when that happens I might revisit this idea or some variant thereof.

Out of curiosity - what sorts of speed do you get out of it with and without the VPN on?

Thanks,

-M

80/8 without

Hardwired in its usually around 60-70 mbps while on wifi its closer to 50-60 mbps.

It's a limitation on Sonics VPN server end as Ovpn on Intel i3 AES-NI CPUs can achieve 300-400 mbps of throughput.

[lasevich]

80/8 without

Hardwired in its usually around 60-70 mbps while on wifi its closer to 50-60 mbps.

It's a limitation on Sonics VPN server end as Ovpn on Intel i3 AES-NI CPUs can achieve 300-400 mbps of throughput.

Sadly what this tells me is that until the real Sonic Fiber service is here, If I want to stick to Sonic's network and increase my bandwidth, my best option is getting the double version of my current service (I am currently getting about 30mbit - so I assume this will get me in the 60Mbit range) - though I no longer see that as an option on the Sonic site (seems to be replaced by "FX2") - so maybe even that is not an option...

[dcristi]

I am using an Asus RT-AC86U and the Merlin firmware to stay connected to the Sonic OpenVPN 24/7. So far it has worked like a charm. It was easy to set up and it can automatically connect when the router boots up (useful if you experience a power loss). Without VPN I get speeds around 950/950 mpbs down/up and with the VPN I get speeds around 200/200 mpbs down/up .

I am only using the VPN for my media streaming devices. I was getting frequent pausing on Youtube TV for various devices. Although I have no proof I suspect that AT&T was throttling the streams. After I put the devices on the VPN the streams seem to be much more stable. It has been about a week and so far so good.

[timyu94]

Has anyone set up a whole-home LAN VPN solution that connects to our VPN server or a commercial VPN service?

@Dane I posted some screenshots my PFSense OVPN config page and the guide I used to successfully implement it on my entire home LAN.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7692

[bubba198]

I know dollars is an important consideration for everyone, IMHO unless one can get "native" Sonic fiber the remaining options are a wash. GigaPower is about $93/month -- that's basically the same as Sonic via AT&T. So what could tip the scale is either you hate AT&T on principle (valid point here) or there's a security concern about domestic surveillance but then who's to say that the Prism program doesn't have a rack in Sonic's data center too?

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[chris90]

When you check availability, will it show Sonic+AT&T?

Thanks,
Chris

[bubba198]

@Chris - yes it will clearly say that and also one can tell the difference by the price, the AT&T is more money per month compared to "native" Sonic fiber.

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