AT&T fiber install status and some pricing questions

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
8 posts Page 1 of 1
by joss » Fri Aug 05, 2022 10:55 am
I am currently on the AT&T FTN service delivered by Sonic. Through that I get 75Mbs down. I just noticed the 'snowshoe' fiber optic cable slack storage one street over, up the hill from me. I checked an address on that street and they have 1000Mbs available, also AT&T delivered by Sonic.

Is there some way I can find out when and if AT&T is going to be building out their fiber offering in my neighborhood? I would like to upgrade my Sonic connection to this new speed.

Also: I appreciate Sonic's support in general. It's why I stay a customer. But you can imagine how frustrating it is to know that I am paying a premium for slower service when I see other customers getting as much as 10Gbs service. Is Sonic ever going to split the pricing tiers so slower customers don't pay the freight of faster ones? I know that this probably won't help me, as Sonic is bound by contracts with AT&T, but still....

Ah, heck, let me pile on: I also am stuck with a higher rate for that FTN than is currently being offered. This is because I signed up before Sonic's current contract with AT&T. This is another thing that is starting to irk me. The current price for FTN is $49.99 per month (base). I am paying $69.99 per month. I was told by tech support over a year ago that the only way to get the lower price was to drop my internet service and reapply. But I would lose my connection for the time it would take to get an installation scheduled by AT&T and for the installation to take place. Even though nothing would technically be installed.

Can anything be done to fix that last situation?
by jessieandrob » Tue Aug 09, 2022 5:04 pm
joss wrote:I am currently on the AT&T FTN service delivered by Sonic. Through that I get 75Mbs down. I just noticed the 'snowshoe' fiber optic cable slack storage one street over, up the hill from me. I checked an address on that street and they have 1000Mbs available, also AT&T delivered by Sonic.

Is there some way I can find out when and if AT&T is going to be building out their fiber offering in my neighborhood? I would like to upgrade my Sonic connection to this new speed.

Also: I appreciate Sonic's support in general. It's why I stay a customer. But you can imagine how frustrating it is to know that I am paying a premium for slower service when I see other customers getting as much as 10Gbs service. Is Sonic ever going to split the pricing tiers so slower customers don't pay the freight of faster ones? I know that this probably won't help me, as Sonic is bound by contracts with AT&T, but still....

Ah, heck, let me pile on: I also am stuck with a higher rate for that FTN than is currently being offered. This is because I signed up before Sonic's current contract with AT&T. This is another thing that is starting to irk me. The current price for FTN is $49.99 per month (base). I am paying $69.99 per month. I was told by tech support over a year ago that the only way to get the lower price was to drop my internet service and reapply. But I would lose my connection for the time it would take to get an installation scheduled by AT&T and for the installation to take place. Even though nothing would technically be installed.

Can anything be done to fix that last situation?
I would also be interested in some kind of solution to this pricing problem and am in the same boat. I can't have down time as I work from home.
by joss » Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:16 am
I'm replying just to raise this up in the list for a bit. I was hoping for a reply from Sonic, at least to the pricing questions. But to keep it interesting (IMO), let me add a new question.

If Sonic fiber service is only currently available through AT&T fiber, is that the case in perpetuity? Meaning: is Sonic precluded from supplying fiber internet service when AT&T already has fiber installed on its poles?
by brandonc » Mon Aug 29, 2022 10:37 am
Hey Joss,

I'm sorry that your neighborhood is limited to the 75mbps service currently. Unfortunately, there's no way for Sonic to know when AT&T will or is planning to build out Fiber in any given location as they do not share that information with us. However, you should notice a surplus of AT&T trucks and contractors working on the poles if they do.

If AT&T does bring their gigabit Fiber to your neighborhood/address, then "upgrading" to it is unfortunately still not simple and straight forward like you mentioned in your original post. Because the resold AT&T Fiber is under a new contractual agreement with Sonic, different than the contract we had with AT&T for the FTTN service, AT&T does not allow us to upgrade customers to the new service. Instead, we would still have to cancel your account, wait 30 days for it to disconnect completely, then place a brand new order, which would cause ~7-10 business days of downtime. We have tried requesting for AT&T to allow us to streamline the process, but unfortunately didn't have any luck.

As for the pricing, we unfortunately don't have much control over the pricing of our services provided by AT&T infrastructure since we have to pay AT&T a contracted amount to lease their infrastructure/equipment to provide the service. However, you could try applying for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and if you're eligible, you can receive up to $30 off your internet bill every month, which could help. The link to apply is : https://www.checklifeline.org/lifeline/ ... &ebbp=true

If you're eligible, you can apply the discount by entering in the "Application ID" provided by the ACP website into your Member Tools (members.sonic.net).

Hopefully, we can bring our own Fiber Optic infrastructure to your area soon and offer better pricing than our resold AT&T services!

Kind regards,
Brandon C.
Community and Escalations
Sonic
by brandonc » Mon Aug 29, 2022 10:45 am
joss wrote:I'm replying just to raise this up in the list for a bit. I was hoping for a reply from Sonic, at least to the pricing questions. But to keep it interesting (IMO), let me add a new question.

If Sonic fiber service is only currently available through AT&T fiber, is that the case in perpetuity? Meaning: is Sonic precluded from supplying fiber internet service when AT&T already has fiber installed on its poles?
Sorry, didn't address your comment here. No, it is not in perpetuity. It's only "temporary" until we are able to build-out our own infrastructure to provide service, then we will stop offering resold AT&T service in that area and only offer our own Fiber service.

Kind regards,
Brandon C.
Community and Escalations
Sonic
by lyser » Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:59 pm
brandonc wrote:
..., there's no way for Sonic to know when AT&T will or is planning to build out Fiber in any given location

Because the resold AT&T Fiber is under a new contractual agreement with Sonic, different than the contract we had with AT&T for the FTTN service, AT&T does not allow us to upgrade customers to the new service. Instead, we would still have to cancel your account, wait 30 days for it to
disconnect completely, then place a brand new order, which would cause ~7-10 business days of downtime.

Hopefully, we can bring our own Fiber Optic infrastructure to your area soon and offer better pricing than our resold AT&T services
Could these workarounds avoid that unpredictably scheduled, 7~10 day, dead time?

* Buy new Sonic gigabit service, including a second fiber line into the home and a second RG, to run concurrent with the final month of the Sonic FTTH 50 mb service?

* Or start gigabit service direct from ATT to run concurrent for that final month and the foreseeable future, until Sonic gets fiber to my neighborhood in Sacramento?

The delay after Sonic requests line repairs or an upgrade from ATT is really not an acceptable level of service.

I was down many times with DSL from ATT, then from ATT via Sonic, over many years. In every case the ATT tech that came out discovered my DSL line had been tapped again to piggyback a new customer voice line multiplexed onto 'my' copper, as it was explained to me. Or simply shut down and sold to the new voice customer because voice and DSL installers don't share a common database. So a 'voice' installer didn't know the wire he found on the pole was in use. Something like that. Every 2~3 years, down. After I went to Sonic out of respect for what Sonic is trying to accomplish, ATT's delay in responding to a Sonic repair request made this repeating, periodic problem much slower to resolve.

How soon will Sonic fiber reach Sacramento?
by placebo » Tue Oct 04, 2022 4:12 pm
joss wrote:Ah, heck, let me pile on: I also am stuck with a higher rate for that FTN than is currently being offered. This is because I signed up before Sonic's current contract with AT&T. This is another thing that is starting to irk me. The current price for FTN is $49.99 per month (base). I am paying $69.99 per month. I was told by tech support over a year ago that the only way to get the lower price was to drop my internet service and reapply. But I would lose my connection for the time it would take to get an installation scheduled by AT&T and for the installation to take place. Even though nothing would technically be installed.

Can anything be done to fix that last situation?
This irked me as well. Initially, I thought I could just live with it, but $20 a month is a pretty big fraction of the cost. I ended up canceling my Sonic service, used cable for about nine months, and then returned to Sonic at the lower price. Given that in almost two years, Sonic's situation hasn't changed, I think it's safe to assume there's nothing Sonic can do to help you out.
lyser wrote:Could these workarounds avoid that unpredictably scheduled, 7~10 day, dead time?

* Buy new Sonic gigabit service, including a second fiber line into the home and a second RG, to run concurrent with the final month of the Sonic FTTH 50 mb service?
I was a little confused by what brandonc wrote above. At the time I left Sonic temporarily, my understanding was you could do exactly this to avoid any downtime when switching from FTTN to FTTH. AT&T would have to run fiber to your house and wouldn't be using the phone lines, so you could have both connections simultaneously. The problem was changing IPBB service from the old contract to the new contract. AT&T doesn't allow Sonic to upgrade customers from the old contract to the new one, so you have to follow AT&T's inane rules, which results in the downtime.
by joss » Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:38 am
I'll jump back in here to grouse some more; just to keep the conversation going.

I originally signed up with Sonic because "Someday, fiber!". It's been over a decade. That someday is beginning to look like the Tesla Roadster and Cyber truck.

OK, then I got the FTTN service at 50Mbs. It was going to be an interim fix, because "Someday, fiber!". Each time I would check, "is it fiber, yet?". Then I saw: "Lookee! 75Mbs, for a little more." So I upgraded. No loss of service, but more out-of-pocket expense. And as noted in my original post, and the replies below it: I'm paying more for service than I would if I were to quit and rejoin. And: I'm paying more for 75Mbs than some are for 10Gbs. So I get less than 100th of the speed for more than 1.5x the price. Or, to be charitable and compare it to 1Gbs, less than a tenth of the speed. At the time I got the 75Mbs, I asked Sonic support how much the AT&T supplied gigabit fiber would set me back if it became available, and it was $30-40 more than the 75Mbs. That, with the taxes and fees would take me to over $1200 per year.

I agree with all that Sonic's customer service is exemplary. I say that to fend off the inevitable user who will tell me, "then leave, get crappy AT&T/Comcast service". I get that. I had both before Sonic and do not miss them one bit.

But: when is "someday" coming? I don't particularly need the download speed. I can do quite a lot of internet stuff with 75Mbs. But the slow upload (6-7Mbs) is preventing me from storing my backups in the cloud. It would take literally (that's 'literally' literally, not 'figuratively' literally) days to upload system backups so that I have an off-site data storage for that "someday" when/if a major fire hits San Rafael.
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