Actual costs

[jeff]

I'm considering switching from comcast to sonic.net. But I'm confused about what my total cost would be. Sonic says it is $39.95 a month. Now, I assume that does not include the cost of having AT&T phone service, which one must have in order to maintain a DSL circuit. Currently, I don't have AT&T or any other kind of phone service. Therefore, what is the cost of establishing service and monthly cost of AT&T? And, would the AT&T charge show up on the Sonic billing, or would I receive a separate bill from AT&T?

Also, Sonic's $39.95 does not include monthly modem rental, and that is an extra $6.95. Can I buy my own modem and avoid the monthly rental fee?

So, what will my monthly cost ACTUALLY be, including both Sonic and ATT, with and without modem rental?

--
Jeff

[thulsa_doom]

There are no fees from AT&T on a Sonic.net Fusion line.

For a residence, your total monthly cost should end up at $39.95 plus applicable taxes & fees ( http://sonic.net/solutions/home/interne ... /taxesfees typically about $11) plus the equipment rental ($6.50, I don't know where that $6.95 number came from).

It works out to about $57 per month, though the taxes and fees range from place to place (e.g. $9.54 in Yountville, $12.55 in San Francisco).

[Guest]

If you go with sonic.net then you are completely AT&T-free. Sonic would be your telephone provider (POTS, not VOIP) and they're much better than AT&T anyway. Sonic don't charge you $2.95 for this and $3.95 for that. Local phone, unlimited long distance, call waiting, caller ID, voicemail, call forwarding, etc etc etc. All for $57 or so per month including taxes.

[Sonic Fan]

Yep, I pay about $57 to Sonic which is an approximate $10 savings from AT&T as well as more features and faster speeds.

[andrewthomason]

I was able to realize an additional $10/mo savings by canceling my MyFax.com account and taking advantage of the free "FaxLine" service that Sonic offers as a "Labs" feature.

[Potential Customer]

Why not just tell customers up front what the real cost is, instead of making them dig into your forum to discover that the REAL price of Fusion is almost $20 more than $39.95 you advertise! I guess you guys want to be like the "big boys" which means false advertising and forced rental of equipment. Might as well stay with ATT.. they have horrible customer service but I can get DSL without having to pay $10/mo in taxes on a phone line i'll never use..

[dane]

We are very clear about all of the costs of the product, not just here in the forum but on the Fusion product web page.

Unlike any of our competitors, the equipment fee is on the main page, clearly called out, and our tax and fee linked page includes complete explanation on every item and a per-city current estimate of the total for every city we serve so you easily determine your true total cost. Other carriers won't even estimate the tax items if you call, and you will see cryptic items like "CA DDT" on you bill. We don't hide or obfuscate these line items - that one would appear on your Sonic bill as "Fusion California Deaf & Disabled Telephony Fee".

All of that said, if the phone line has no value for you, and you are satisfied with ADSL1 performance as opposed to faster ADSL2+, Fusion may not be the best value for your household. Our goal is to add as much capability to the product as we can in hopes that it meets the needs of as many as possible. For example, Fusion not only includes nationwide calling, voicemail and caller ID, but voicemails arrive in your email (/Voicemail folder), notifications are available via SMS and Twitter DM, and there's an iOS app. For those making international calls, we include eight hours of calling to our top destinations: England, Japan, Australia, etc. Finally, we include lots of ISP features: static IP, unix shell access, Usenet, VPN for roaming secure access, FaxLine electronic fax send/receive, a personal website with free domain name, etc.

We have lots of new items coming too, so the product keeps improving as we add more customers. There are SR exciting goals in the road map.

[gourmetgirl]

Am thinking about switching from comcast but am worried about download speed in my area (Windsor, CA). I have ATT for my cell phone but there are "dead spaces" in my house so I have a bundle with comcast that includes a land line phone, internet and TV. Will I receive reliable connectivity with sonic?

[adame]

Am thinking about switching from comcast but am worried about download speed in my area (Windsor, CA). I have ATT for my cell phone but there are "dead spaces" in my house so I have a bundle with comcast that includes a land line phone, internet and TV. Will I receive reliable connectivity with sonic?

Download speed will depend on where in Windsor you live, but if you give us a call and provide us with an address, we can give you a rough estimates of the speeds you can expect.

You should receive very reliable connectivity from us. Network outages are very rare and published at http://corp.sonic.net/status when they occur. Network congestion is a non-issue, so you will never experience slow-downs because of peak usage in your neighborhood.

[Bruce]

Sorry to go off topic, but I am interested in knowing how much is for an email service for about 5-7 users initially. This is for a startup company and later it may expand to internet service, voice, possibly hosting, etc. (Fusion??)