10g network is a punishment for existing, loyal clients

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
18 posts Page 1 of 2
by qiuwn002 » Tue Mar 07, 2023 12:10 pm
Having lived in the Sunset district for several years, I have seen the ongoing competition between Comcast and AT&T. When Sonic came to the area, I was delighted to become a customer. However, after being with Sonic for 4-5 years, I learned that some of my neighbors had upgraded to the new 10g service. I posted a request for an upgrade on this forum and was advised to wait. However, when I called Sonic's sales team today, I was informed that they would not be able to upgrade my existing service. The 10g service was only available to new customers who had not previously used Sonic.

I am confused and frustrated. I pay more for my service, which includes a "mandatory" landline fee which nobody use, than my neighbor who had never been a Sonic customer before, yet they receive ten times the speed that I do. Additionally, I have recommended Sonic to many people, and I feel let down by this response.

Dane, or anyone on the management team, could you please provide me with a sincere and detailed explanation for this situation?
by gbrivkalns001 » Tue Mar 07, 2023 4:52 pm
I know it's small consolation about the price issue, but I would bet that few, if any, of your 10gbps neighbors are actually having a meaningfully different internet experience than you are at 1gbps.

About the only place you'd likely notice it is downloading very large files. Other than that, their web pages are not flying up on their devices noticeably faster, nor is their 4K streaming experience any better.

Realistically, even 1 gbps is overkill for probably like 99% of residential internet users.

I mean, I obviously don't know your needs or situation but the 10gbps thing is most likely just a FOMO issue.

But, I have seen Sonic promising upgrade paths for existing users so very curious about what the sales person told you.
by virtualmike » Tue Mar 07, 2023 5:10 pm
gbrivkalns001 is right... there are plenty of conversations in the forum about upgrading, and the consistent response from Sonic employees and the CEO is that it will be coming, but the process to do so is still being developed. There are multiple things that need to happen.

Also to gbrivkalns001's point, many of the people who have 10GB aren't fully able to leverage it, as most consumer equipment can't handle that speed.
by qiuwn002 » Tue Mar 07, 2023 6:08 pm
Thanks for sharing the info. According to the sales associate, there's no timeline for upgrading current customers. As long as you have an existing ONT, you won't get the 10g service. The focus is solely on providing 10g for new customers.

I have come across various posts about the upgrade to 10g, and I have been eagerly awaiting it for quite some time. However, it sucks to hear the "update" from an associate, yaknow?

And the funny thing is, Sonic is providing 10g to many customers who would be content with 1g, while those who work from home and require high-speed internet for downloading and uploading numerous files would prefer to have 10g, but are not getting it.

When it comes to pricing, unless Sonic is willing to offer the option of making the landline service ($10/mo) optional, the price is no longer competitive with other major carriers like AT&T or Comcast.

I guess I am just feeling upset upon hearing what the lady told me, it sounds like I am getting dumped.
by qiuwn002 » Tue Mar 07, 2023 6:13 pm
Additionally, they mentioned that the monthly cost will remain the same, but customers will incur a one-time upgrade fee. It seems more reasonable to me to have those who want the 10g plan pay the one-time fee, while new users are offered the 1g plan.
by kgc » Tue Mar 07, 2023 6:21 pm
Customers who have 1g service on XGSPON network segments will be able to upgrade via the member tools relatively soon for a one time fee. The back end workflow and process has been developed and tested and it's just a matter of clarifying some remaining policy questions and rolling out updates to the front end. But please note while all new network has been XGSPON capable for some time, earlier network deployments are not. Users on GPON network will be able to place a pre-order, if you will, for an upgrade to 10G at a later date. Upgrading the older infrastructure to support 10G services is a big project.
Kelsey Cummings
System Architect, Sonic.net, Inc.
by artakamoose » Tue Mar 07, 2023 6:33 pm
I get your gripe about not being able to dump the voice service and related taxes if you don't need it. I totally understand that.

I wouldn't lament not having access to 10G yet though. I had 1G for over 4-5 years with AT&T, and we never fully utilized it even with 3 people working from home full time .The use cases for 10G are very few and far between. Also, our neighborhood was build using AT&T's GPON hardware, and they still haven't upgrade the equipment here; so, we don't have access to the new 2.5/5G tiers which run on XGS-PON. It's not trivial for AT&T or Sonic to upgrade a neighborhood since they have to upgrade both the distribution points in the neighborhood and the ONTs in every dwelling. That's why they're talking about charging the old GPON customers an upgrade fee. They have to replace all of the equipment in the neighborhood and at your house in order to upgrade your service.

Frankly, all of that is secondary to the price of the network equipment you need to get 10G to the devices in your home. I'm starting to build this out and even used equipment isn't cheap. The switches are expensive, and a "simple" USB-C to 10G ethernet converter will set you back $200-300. The routing solutions are really poor right now too; even PFSense and OPNSense struggle with 10G from what I've read. On top of all that, 10GBASE-T uses a lot more energy and generates a ton of heat. If you want to avoid that, you have to run fiber all over your house instead of plain ethernet cable and add in the cost of SFP+ transceivers too. Also, you'd better have Cat 5e at a minimum or you're SOL. Even then, you're limited to 45m with Cat 5e. I applaud Sonic for rolling out 10G now and staying way ahead of the curve, but we're still a minimum of a couple of years away from having cheap, capable 10G networking gear.
by gbrivkalns001 » Tue Mar 07, 2023 7:16 pm
artakamoose wrote:
Frankly, all of that is secondary to the price of the network equipment you need to get 10G to the devices in your home. I'm starting to build this out and even used equipment isn't cheap. The switches are expensive, and a "simple" USB-C to 10G ethernet converter will set you back $200-300. The routing solutions are really poor right now too; even PFSense and OPNSense struggle with 10G from what I've read. On top of all that, 10GBASE-T uses a lot more energy and generates a ton of heat. If you want to avoid that, you have to run fiber all over your house instead of plain ethernet cable and add in the cost of SFP+ transceivers too. Also, you'd better have Cat 5e at a minimum or you're SOL. Even then, you're limited to 45m with Cat 5e. I applaud Sonic for rolling out 10G not and staying way ahead of the curve, but we're still a minimum of a couple of years away from having cheap, capable 10G networking gear.
Yeah I was gonna say something about that equipment cost as well, but wasn't sure so I left it out.

Every time I hear those stupid ATT 5gbps "giggillionaire" commercials I want to tear my hair out. It's like Ferrari telling you one of their cars would be ideal for backing down the driveway to check your mailbox every day.
by joeyyung911 » Tue Mar 07, 2023 7:24 pm
qiuwn002 wrote:When it comes to pricing, unless Sonic is willing to offer the option of making the landline service ($10/mo) optional, the price is no longer competitive with other major carriers like AT&T or Comcast.
Their product is competitive. People expect a small company like this to just snap a finger and instantly be competitive against two giant monopolies.
Excelsior, Sonic Fiber
by artakamoose » Tue Mar 07, 2023 11:10 pm
gbrivkalns001 wrote: Every time I hear those stupid ATT 5gbps "giggillionaire" commercials I want to tear my hair out. It's like Ferrari telling you one of their cars would be ideal for backing down the driveway to check your mailbox every day.
Hahahaha!!!

Plus, you can get 2.5/5G ethernet adapters relatively cheaply now but there aren't a lot of switches out there that support it and they're more expensive than their 1G counterparts.

1G: mature, cheap, tons of offerings
2.5/5G: still a nascent market, pricey but not terrible, few offerings
10G: mature, expensive to very expensive, lots of offerings
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