Disappointing PSA: 18% price increase on 1GIG Fiber Service in Bay Area. Check your bills people!

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
35 posts Page 1 of 4
by sonicnetsev » Sun Mar 05, 2023 10:04 am
All,
Really disappointed to learn I'm getting a close to 20% price increase on my 1GIG fiber service even though I was a customer for barely 2 years. The change was announced on a TINY little line that I assume most people will miss on their bills. Fiber will now be $73 including all of the cursed taxes for a voip line that I don't want or need.

@danejasper I have been your greatest fan and customer from Slickdeals, Reddit, everywhere. I have personally enrolled 2 customers for you guys without even asking for referral bonus and advertised to at least 100 people at my work.
Needless to say, I love Sonic Fiber but this disappoints me greatly. As early as last year, you mentioned you hadn't raised prices for 10 years and now a price increase comes 2 years after I've settled with Sonic Fiber. The other aspect of this that irks me is the notification came 1 month prior in tiny little text that most will miss on their bills. Maybe announce it several months ahead and make the pricing more prominent.

That gives customers like me the opportunity to switch to another provider who is offering a better deal (potentially for non-fiber service). This is not the kind of world class service I expected with Sonic.

The other thing I am really tired of are these god damn taxes. I don't want, I don't need a phone line. I WANT INTERNET. New customers are being offered 10GIG service while your loyal 1GIG customers are forced to pay these exorbitant $13 State & Federal Telecom taxes.

Please don't turn into other companies that languish and don't care what their customers say. That certainly seems like where Sonic is headed and, frankly, it's disappointing.
by sonicnetsev » Sun Mar 05, 2023 11:12 am
Called Sonic Sales, got someone within 30 seconds. He said he couldn't help me and transferred me to billing.

On hold for 30 minutes and waiting. Hanging up and finally giving up. This is the last straw. Going to start looking at other providers. Never thought this day would come.
by chantelegram » Sun Mar 05, 2023 7:31 pm
Thank you for posting.

I am a new customer, did a ton of research before pulling the trigger. The sales people were great, helpful, and convincing to make me migrate from Comcast. Support, could improve.

As a customer and a remote worker I depend on my internet and voice (that I pay for) to have pretty good uptime.

I have had trouble with my voice since I migrated to Sonic, with calls having lots of static, dropping, and other issues. I have spent hours trying to trouble shoot it, and still sounds terrible. I just don't have any more time to invest into it. On Saturday my internet downtime was about every minute, for about 20 minutes, and I called Support on Saturday.....it's Sunday night and no word from Sonic. Internet is still spotty....

The most frustrating thing as a customer is that no one EVER picks up at the Support line or calls back (even when you enter a callback number). I have sat and waited for up to an hour, then finally gave up. If you submit via email, you will be waiting days before a response.

I have been told since I started as a customer that the weather and floods are to blame for the technical issues and lack of support--- maybe I should blame the floods for not paying my bill. Excuses are never a good idea....aligning with customer business needs and ensuring they are heard and handled is the direction I would suggest.

In any event, 2 months in, I might start looking around as well -- and I don't want to, it's too disruptive.

Frustrated
by soniclvr » Mon Mar 06, 2023 1:58 pm
Price increases suck, but given the price of everything else this rise make sense in the context of the current inflation rates. Even at ~$80 all-in 1gig fiber is still a pretty good deal given my only other option being cable with horrendous CS and crappy upload speeds + insane transfer caps.
by gbrivkalns001 » Mon Mar 06, 2023 2:01 pm
sonicnetsev wrote: As early as last year, you mentioned you hadn't raised prices for 10 years and now a price increase comes 2 years after I've settled with Sonic Fiber.
Honestly... ONE $10 price increase after 10 YEARS of no price increases is not raising my pulse in any major way.

Sonic is a business. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Now, if we start seeing yearly bumps, then I'll start to get annoyed.
by sonicnetsev » Thu Mar 09, 2023 10:49 pm
gbrivkalns001 wrote:
sonicnetsev wrote: As early as last year, you mentioned you hadn't raised prices for 10 years and now a price increase comes 2 years after I've settled with Sonic Fiber.
Honestly... ONE $10 price increase after 10 YEARS of no price increases is not raising my pulse in any major way.

Sonic is a business. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Now, if we start seeing yearly bumps, then I'll start to get annoyed.
I haven't had them for 10 YEARS. I've had them for barely 2 years and getting an 18% increase in addition to paying 20% taxes on a phone line that I don't even use.

I wouldn't be complaining if I didn't have to pay these cursed taxes for no reason.
by artakamoose » Thu Mar 09, 2023 11:59 pm
It's still a great deal. I'm paying $39.99, which goes up to $49.99 after one year. I'm perfectly fine with that.

AT&T's symmetrical 1G service is going to cost you $80.

Comcast 1G will cost you $65 initially and then you can have fun with them when your contract is up. Not to mention the fact it's almost impossible to figure out what your upload speed is before you order. Best I can tell is that it might be up to 35M, which is insulting compared to FTTH. Cable latency is awful compared to FTTH also.
by gbrivkalns001 » Fri Mar 10, 2023 2:04 pm
sonicnetsev wrote:
I haven't had them for 10 YEARS. I've had them for barely 2 years and getting an 18% increase in addition to paying 20% taxes on a phone line that I don't even use.

I wouldn't be complaining if I didn't have to pay these cursed taxes for no reason.
Yeah, I've only had them like 13 months myself. Point still stands. Based on Sonic's track record of price increases (or lack of), I am not gonna freak out because I have not had enough "no increase" years. Just how it worked out.

Still a good deal for symmetrical gig fiber with no data cap. AT&T is like $80, which really means like $90-95 probably. Xfinity is about the same. And you are guaranteed to see outlandish "Sorry that was the introductory price" price hikes after a year or 2 from them.

As an ex-Xfinity customer, the gear you get is better as well (IMHO). A couple eeros gives me better coverage for fast wireless than the xfinity gateway ever did.
by psireau » Mon Mar 13, 2023 8:43 pm
I've been a happy Sonic customer since fiber was first available in my neighborhood back in 2016, have had relatively little reliability issues in that timespan, and I think it's still great value for the service I'm getting compared to most areas in this country. So the price hike is unlikely to make me switch to a competitor, at least for now.

That being said, I'm disappointed for two reasons:

1. When I first subscribed, the price for fiber before taxes and fees was $40 a month (with no introductory offer). So I am now paying 50% more for the same service I had 7 years ago. I know there is inflation, but in the world of technology, that sounds pretty crazy.

2. My understanding is that 10gbps customers have an option for "Basic Fiber" which does not include email, VPN or voice but is $20 cheaper and doesn't come with the associated phone taxes and fees (representing over $15 on my bill). Assuming their price will go up $10 as well, that means they will be paying $40 when my next bill for 1gbps service will be close to $80 (including taxes and fees). So I am paying double that of other customers with service that is 10 times slower. Again, that sounds pretty crazy.

I understand the reasoning for this from a technical perspective, but from a customer perspective that makes no sense. I can't help but feel like I'm paying for others to be upgraded to 10gbps despite being stuck with 1gbps service for likely several more years (since my CO has not been upgraded with XGS-PON combo cards), and that is pretty frustrating to think about. Would it not have made more sense for this price increase to only apply to 10gbps customers, considering the 1gbps customers already get the short end of the stick?
by joeyyung911 » Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:53 pm
psireau wrote: I can't help but feel like I'm paying for others to be upgraded to 10gbps despite being stuck with 1gbps service for likely several more years (since my CO has not been upgraded with XGS-PON combo cards), and that is pretty frustrating to think about.
There's plenty of customers who subsidized YOU so you can get 1Gb. I was paying for 6mbps DSL when others had 1gbps for the same price. Skinny people shouldn't be subsidizing the obese that's on the same plane, but that ain't changing.
Excelsior, Sonic Fiber
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