Business Fiber w/ Fixed IP

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
4 posts Page 1 of 1
by braininlaw » Mon Oct 25, 2021 4:58 pm
I don't want to beat a dead horse, here, but I was told (after getting nowhere with sales or support) that this forum is the correct place to suggest that Sonic reconsider offering fiber service with a fixed IP address.

I am currently still limping along on DSL for my business, largely because my business has only survived the pandemic thanks to being able to VPN into my office. I'd love to have a faster fiber connection, but without the fixed IP address, I'm concerned that any kludgy workaround (which relies on some third-party service) will fail me at a critical juncture.

I've asked about this before, as have many, and the answer has always been that it's not something Sonic offers or is planning to offer. The difference now is that AT&T (whose service Sonic is still reselling in my area) does offer this option, at least for business customers. (This is not vaporware: my landlord has purchased it for his own use.)

All other things being equal, I'd really rather not have a business relationship with AT&T, but at some point my DSL will either become too slow for my needs or be discontinued, and I'll have a difficult choice to make unless Sonic reconsiders.

Alternately, and forgive my naive lack of understanding of the underlying technology, it seems to me that if there exists somewhere a table linking a particular IP address with my physical equipment, it shouldn't be so hard to offer a service where [my_username].sonic.net resolves to my IP address, irrespective of dynamic changes.
by ngufra » Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:27 am
Just curious: what is your use case that requires a static ip ?

What you are asking in your last paragraph (have [my_username].sonic.net resolves to my IP address) is not very different from any dynamic dns service except it requires a client running in your network to keep the dns up to date.
I use the free service of noip.com that requires monthly confirmation.

Sonic does have a dynamic dns but i could not figure out how to use it.
by braininlaw » Tue Oct 26, 2021 1:24 pm
The only thing I'm using the static IP for right now is my VPN connection, but that's a pretty big thing given how much work we've been doing from home.

I am aware that DDNS services exist in the world, but as I said I'm trying to avoid having to rely on some third-party service. Most of them either require payment or have some sort of practical limitation, and any of them could go away at any time. My thought is since Sonic necessarily has a record of which IP address I'm assigned at any given moment, why can't they eliminate the middleman?

Unless I read wrong, Sonic's service (which is under "labs," and therefore offered without support) is not so much a DDNS service per se, but rather an API that allows a user to programmatically modify the DNS records held by Sonic. Which means I'd need to a) have a domain registered with Sonic whose records I could modify, and b) rely on some third-party service to determine my actual IP address at any given time in order to update the record.

In theory, not particularly difficult; I've seen scripts to do that sort of thing on other services, and may try to go that route if all else fails, but still: Sonic already knows what my IP address is, so why am I relying on some outside company to tell me?
by ngufra » Tue Oct 26, 2021 2:00 pm
i have a domain purchased at godaddy.
It is managed by a hosting company (hostdime) through cpanel.
In the zones editor i set a cname record for home.<mydomain> to point to <myaccount>.ddns.net
ddns.net is where i set the dynamic dns (from noip.com)

So i own the domain and manage where it points to. if ddns ends up not being a good option, i can change provider and just update the cname entry.

You can keep waiting for sonic to offer static ip, or get AT&T but this solution works for me for openVPN.
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