Installation woes

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
3 posts Page 1 of 1
by Vic » Tue Jan 08, 2013 9:42 am
I'm writing this post to share my failed experience with installing sonic.net internet service this past 7 days. Believe it or not, after a week of frustration, a sonic.net customer support rep finally called me and said it may be best to part ways, as sonic.net couldn't help. Here is the story. I'm wondering if my situation is unique?

I haven't had AT&T landline service for years. When the sonic tech showed up, he learned that the copper AT&T copper line to my house is dead. No big deal. An AT&T tech will come back the same afternoon and fix it all up. The AT&T tech swung by as promised but said it's a Cable & Maintenance issue, nothing to do with my house. He said dispatch will send a C&M guy over, but has no idea when. Sonic.net rep said afterwards he put in field notes to the effect "dogs in yard, no access". I don't have any dogs.

Day 2 - a second AT&T tech showed up. Is he C&M? Nope. But he did nicely confirm again that indeed it's a C&M problem. When is C&M coming? No idea. "Dogs in yard, no access" again. I still don't have any dogs.

Day 4 - third AT&T tech. Never even saw him, but field notes said "dogs in yard". This time I've had it. I don't have any dogs!!! After being on the phone with sonic.net for an hour with multiple phone calls into AT&T, it was finally noted that indeed I don't have any dogs, and that the issue could be in my neighbor's yard, and they've got dogs. Alright, at least that's new information. C&M will need to come out and access. I'm apparently responsible to ask my neighbor to please be home and put away the dogs during a workday from 8 - 6pm, whenever AT&T shows up. Yeah right.

Day 6 - fourth AT&T tech. Not C&M. I called sonic.net, who said that's right, AT&T sent a regular residential tech. C&M apparently takes 3 - 5 days to schedule, and they can't do anything if dogs are present. So I was asked by sonic.net to please talk to my neighbor and ask them to put away their dogs for the entire week just on the chance that AT&T C&M finally decides to show up. When is that gonna be? 3 - 5 days from now. What time of the day? No idea. From 8 - 6pm. My neighbor didn't tell me to go F myself, but I can see he was thinking it. I was really embarrassed to have to ask to be honest.

So then sonic.net calls me back and said perhaps we should just call it quits, and that this won't work.

Can someone out there confirm that this is the type of experience sonic.net customers ought to have just to get service? Or am I just really really lucky to get this extra attention and treatment ?
by wa2ibm » Tue Jan 08, 2013 10:06 am
Your drop probably goes to a junction point (aerial tap, pedestal or vault) that's located in your neighbors back yard. My guess is that it's aerial, since pedestals or vaults for underground service are usually in the front of homes.

Unfortunately, you AND Sonic are at the mercy of AT&T. Sonic provides great service, but their hands are tied because they use AT&T wire to get to your house. On the other hand, AT&T isn't really excited about doing a lot of work putting in copper wire for anyone anymore, especially a competitor like Sonic.

One thought I had was to order a land line phone directly from AT&T. You'd then be dealing with just one entity instead of two. That might have a little more pull with AT&T. They might be more prone to deal with the neighbor directly in that case. Once the line is in, then you could ask Sonic to take it over.

However, with AT&T's U-Verse direction, you'd probably end up with a line that went only so far as the local VRAD on the street. If that occurs, you're stuck with AT&T, since Sonic cannot take over a line that doesn't originate at the local CO. AT&T knows this so they're going to make it difficult for competitors whenever they can.

Sad but true.
by adame » Tue Jan 08, 2013 8:32 pm
Vic: If you can send me a private message with your Sonic.net username, I'd like to talk to AT&T management on your behalf (or if you have used the message board enough, you can email support@sonic.net to my attention). Your situation is far from typical, but I'd like to try to work on a solution that will accommodate both your neighbor and AT&T.

I apologize for the aggravation you've experienced trying to get the service up and working so far. We should have shown more initiative trying to solve this, and I'd like to correct that going forward.
Adam Martinetti
Customer Experience Manager
Sonic.
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