by Taw123 » Wed Aug 17, 2016 12:10 pm
I will add another voice to the choir. As a network engineer myself living here in SF that has signed up for Fiber once you finish the Richmond and pull on the east side of 19th, I too would like to see you remove the mandate for voice services.
I understand the reasons posted by Dane and agree with many of them in general. Unfortunately many of your early adopters (in this geographic area) don’t match standard national or even in many cases regional demographics. I strongly suspect that many (though not all) or you early adopters are technically sophisticated. Perhaps not fellow engineers, but they are likely to be more technical and analytic then statistical norm. It’s the intersection of type of product you are supplying (Gig Fiber), product awareness, and local market demographics. Unfortunately this particular customer base has a slightly different set of expectations, and desired features from the “mass market” product (i.e. the 80% customer case if I use the old 80/20 rule) that you are offering.
For this customer segment many, including myself, would like to OPT OUT of any voice services for a clean IP only data link. I have no need for a voice line from anyone, though I am sure there many others who appreciate your call blocking and ease/simplicity of service.
Likewise another feature that comes up consistently in the forums is Static IP assignment. I currently have a static block of 125 addresses (all assigned to my own managed domain). I could can get by with less say about 75 if I needed to but I do still need to be able to get a static block assignment on Sonic’s fiber. Again is something that is certainly not the norm but many of the your technically sophisticated early adopters have asked for static IP assignment. It certainly makes it less efficient/convenient for you in general but as Dane or any other network engineer will tell you there are legitimate reasons for a person wanting this, niche feature as an OPTION for the service and to be honest is not the technically difficult to implement in general (though I of course don’t know the specifics of how you have implemented your current solution). There have been many posts asking for this in other threads.
Sorry for the long post so let me try to sum this up putting on my form Product Manager hat (I was a Product Manager at Apple for nearly 10 years). Sonic Fiber as currently defined is a GREAT product and SHOULD be the standard product offering. You should however be able to
request three custom options.
- Data only (no voice services)
- Static IP assignment (up to 5 IPs)
- Static IP assignment custom (larger blocks of IP address as custom/special request)
They do not have to be promoted. Again customers who need/want these services will/are asking for them you just need to be able to accommodate the request through your order process.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and thanks for all your efforts to raise the bar from both a technical and user experience perspective.
Both are noticed and appreciated. Keep up the good work and if you have any questions or would like further data please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at:
double-u eee y eee R at me dot com.
Tom