Sonic Could Do A Better Job

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
6 posts Page 1 of 1
by sfjames » Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:52 pm
I have been a Sonic customer for years. As of late it seems like the high quality back end service has been slipping. Little things like the following...

We have copper. Why? We have our own email server and web server.

We don't like or want facebook we will just post to our server if we want anyone to see something. If a service is free you are the commodity. We like having control over our actual email. It does not sit on anyone else's mail server. We have done this for almost 30 years.

When Dane designed and rolled out fiber, he left us out. No fixed IP addresses for fiber. So we do without streaming movies. No big deal. DVD or read a book.

What gets me is the 10 pounds of post cards I have picked up and put into the trash in the last 5 years from Sonic that keep asking us to switch to fiber. And Ask, and ask, and ask. Just the waste of paper is the antithesis of being a good corporate citizen as it comes to waste.

But what really gets me is this. I get a notice saying that I am being switched to fiber. It IS scheduled. My DSL is going to be turned off. So, I call and ask customer service is Sonic telling me I MUST switch. Oh no they say, I can stay with DSL so my email will flow and web page can be seen.

I say that is great, please make sure I am not switched. I am good to go.

A few days later, today, I get SIX emails and a text telling me my switch from DSL to fiber is scheduled in seven days and my DSL will be turned off when that is done. WHAT!

So, I call again. I explain again. I am told that they see I called and do not know why my switch was not stopped. They will stop it. OK, so now I am good to go. But wait! The customer service rep tells me that the switch from copper to fiber is an AUTOMATED process and that it may well happen again. WTF!

So Dane, if you are reading this. Really? Really? You do not have people who have ever heard of a database SQL lookup? Really? The mangers who you pay lots of money to cannot run a query to find all the copper users who are also paying you for IP addresses and not schedule them without asking them first? Really?

Perhaps you can look into this?

James
by dct » Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:46 pm
Thanks for providing your perspective and feedback about your experience. We can and should do better, and with that as a goal, we continually take in feedback like yours to improve.

The issues you bring to light are multi-faceted, as it's not only a pragmatic switch (it's fiber! it's new! it's fast! it's completely our network!), but one that deals with marketing developing services to potential & current customers as well. I'll make sure the folks who are involved on both sides are aware of your experience, as it seems like there might be a misalignment here.

In terms of the conversion not being stopped the first time around, I'll take a look into what happened. We'll find out if there are issues in how requests like these are handled that could have contributed to the mixup.

There's honestly quite a bit to unpack, as it seems like everything that could have gone wrong did, and little about your experience reflects what we set out to provide. Six emails and a text sounds like a bit of a nightmare- sincere apologies for the spam!

I'm confident with feedback like yours we can and will do better moving forward, but I apologize regardless for what sounds like a frustrating experience.
Dan T.
Community & Escalations Manager
707-547-3400
@Sonic
by tamino » Mon Mar 29, 2021 6:32 pm
I, too, am feeling like the fiber thing is kind of a non-starter. Actually, these days, the regular Fusion DSL is a non-starter too as far as internet access goes, because of the lack of native IPv6. I became a Sonic customer in 2010, and nobody had IPv6 in 2010 so I didn't see it as much of a downside, that Sonic didn't, back then. But now it's 2021 and Comcast gives me IPv6 plus a whole /28 worth of static IPv4 space. Why would I use Sonic for internet access, either with fiber or with copper, when the competition is just so much better?

On the other hand, the copper Fusion line still makes a great landline for voice. I'm just a little worried about how long that's going to last -- a Sonic support person told me in December that it wouldn't last forever. Which is why I posted here, too: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16876

To the OP, James -- speaking as a fellow copper customer -- I don't want my copper to be turned off, any more than you want to be "downgraded" to fiber. So I hear you. I think we're coming at this from two different perspectives and ending up in a similar place of consternation. Thank you for posting and sharing your feelings, too.
by msandrof » Sat Apr 03, 2021 12:53 pm
I was in the same boat. I have been running my own email (and other) services for over 20 years with static IPs across a variety of ISPs. When sonic fiber came along, it was a no-brainer that I wanted to switch from copper. I just needed to figure out how to get everything I wanted to continue to work. Setting up DDNS with zoneedit was easy enough, this covered most things I still wanted to do. A bigger problem is that sonic blocks inbound port 25 for reasons that made sense 10 years ago, but not so much now. I set up a small relay in AWS to work around this. This costs about $5/mo which could be reduced by using some RIs or some other shopping around.

All of this gets me everything I need, all over symmetric gigabit fiber. I assume that someday Sonic will get the IPv6 thing working some day too, but the lack of it today really makes not difference to me.
by ewhac » Sat Apr 03, 2021 4:43 pm
msandrof wrote:A bigger problem is that sonic blocks inbound port 25 [ ... ]
Uh, no it doesn't (at least not for me). When I switched from DSL to fiber last year, I didn't turn off my Postfix server. It's still logging spam relay attempts, which means inbound port 25 is open. It's outbound 25 that's blocked. Outbound 465 ('smtps') and 587 ('submission'), however, are open, so if you have an account on a smarthost relay, you can route through that.
I set up a small relay in AWS to work around this. This costs about $5/mo which could be reduced by using some RIs or some other shopping around.
I've been idly considering setting up a Postfix relay on DigitalOcean for the same reason (I seriously need to move my email and hosting off of Verio). OTOH, if Sonic were to offer a static IP option for its VPN service, that would be great.
by msandrof » Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:00 pm
Uh, no it doesn't (at least not for me). When I switched from DSL to fiber last year, I didn't turn off my Postfix server. It's still logging spam relay attempts, which means inbound port 25 is open. It's outbound 25 that's blocked. Outbound 465 ('smtps') and 587 ('submission'), however, are open, so if you have an account on a smarthost relay, you can route through that.
Huh, inbound was blocked last I tried... maybe not any more? For outbound, I've always used an outbound relay because many destinations rejected emails sent from the private MTA enthusiast for any number of reasons (reverse DNS, dynamic IP blocks, etc). But I will try again with the inbound. If that works, you've just saved me $5.
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