Sonic $40 or $60 per month? How much are the total fees?

[QueryGuy]

Hi,

Looking at the Gigabit internet price of $40 it was attractive to me.

But after I punched in my address on the Sonic site, it gave me a *new* price of $60/month + ADA rental + $10 modem rental requiring one year contract. Using Fusion FTTN X2. And only 50Mbps. NOT Gigabit speed at all.

I am in San Jose area.

What's going on?

And how much are the total fees and charges per month?

[Guest]

When you open their products page at https://sonic.com/home-products, note towards the bottom in the Gigabit Fiber box it states "Only available in certain locations... " and there's an additional link which points to https://sonic.com/gigabit-fiber-internet where it tells you what cities are in construction. Areas where fiber isn't available are served by either their CO product or resold AT&T U-verse (anything with FTTN in the description).

The fees are not as obvious but can be found when you click on the ? next to Total monthly cost when you check availability. A popup will come up and clicking on Details will inform you of that specific product's fees in section 17. The base URL https://www.sonic.com/taxesfees appears to show taxes and fees for Sonic's regular CO-based offering (Sonic Fusion). In your case, the bonded FTTN X2 product goes to https://sonic.com/taxesfees?p=fttn_x2#example.

[QueryGuy]

So 50Mbps costs 50% more than the Gigabit internet service? This doesn't make sense to me at all. Or it's just a scam?

And $10/month for a modem rental? I want the option to own modem.

I'm going w/ ATT/Comcast -- until Sonic gets their pricing right. I can use own modem w/ Comcast/ATT.

[dherr]

The fiber service runs entirely over Sonic owned stuff where the CO product runs "the last mile" over AT&T wires. The FTTN service uses much more AT&T infrastructure since you get an AT&T IP address and only run to Sonic for mail, VOIP etc.

The speed of gig fiber does not make it more expensive. The limiting factor for Sonic is that they first need to run the cables but after that it is a pretty easy product to support for them.

The historic pricing models don't really show it but the speed that the customer receives does not have a great impact on the cost to provide the service. The "transit" cost does increase when the customer uses more bytes but this cost has come down over time.

[Guest]

So 50Mbps costs 50% more than the Gigabit internet service? This doesn't make sense to me at all. Or it's just a scam?

And $10/month for a modem rental? I want the option to own modem.

Reread what I posted: FTTN is resold AT&T U-verse. AT&T dictates the speed tier and price.

I'm going w/ ATT/Comcast -- until Sonic gets their pricing right. I can use own modem w/ Comcast/ATT.

Haha. You're just not informed of how things are. Go ahead and subscribe to AT&T/Comcast. You'll pay the same rental and you'll be subject to a transfer cap w/ AT&T--unless you subscribe to their TV bundle or pay them an extra $30/month. Try to buy the gateway from AT&T and get back to us when you're able to. Don't worry, transfer caps are coming from Comcast, too. But if it makes you feel better, go with them.

[QueryGuy]

I already own an ATT gateway and several different Motorola modems to use with Comcast. Just subscribed to Comcast 'low speed' internet service of 10Mbps Performance starter. Use own-modem, no modem rental required.

And not like $16+ fees/month to pay.


Consumers should not have to pay close to a hundred bucks per month -- just to get to the internet.

Practically speaking for general purpose internet usage (including 1080p youtube), 6Mbps is sufficient. Yet many are forced to pay 2x the prices (after all the rental/fees) compared to 5 years ago (for the same internet speed),

and there is no affordable option available -- unless you're below poverty level I suppose.

And I don't see FCC doing anything about this to help consumers.

[Guest]

Once you use the AT&T gateway they will start charging you the rental fee.

The FCC, unbelievably, is helping. But the laws are written by ILEC lobbyists with lots of money.

[miken]

I already own an ATT gateway and several different Motorola modems to use with Comcast. Just subscribed to Comcast 'low speed' internet service of 10Mbps Performance starter. Use own-modem, no modem rental required.

And not like $16+ fees/month to pay.


Consumers should not have to pay close to a hundred bucks per month -- just to get to the internet.

Practically speaking for general purpose internet usage (including 1080p youtube), 6Mbps is sufficient. Yet many are forced to pay 2x the prices (after all the rental/fees) compared to 5 years ago (for the same internet speed),

and there is no affordable option available -- unless you're below poverty level I suppose.

And I don't see FCC doing anything about this to help consumers.

Renting a modem for FTTN is a limitation of AT&T Uverse infrastructure, unfortunately. You would be looking at about $80 a month after all taxes and fees for Fusion FTTN X2. With that, you get an award winning privacy policy, highly rated customer support and stable pricing (that package you got almost doubles in price after 12 months, and Comcast is known to raise prices gradually afterwards).

If you don't need 50Mbp/s and would like to see if we have something slower for a lower price, feel free to give our Sales team a call at: 1-888-766-4233.

[msako]

Sonic does not cap and does not traffic shape. ATT/Comcast has and does. The Comcast cap (250G) is temporarily suspended. I called them and it is subject to becoming unsuspended anytime at their whim.

Think about this. There are no sat/cable full-suite packages offered over IP right now. Most of them are very limited like Hulu, Netflix and Sling. Don't kid yourself. Once this whole thing gets sorted out and a full-suite package is available purely over IP (meaning your Internet connection) with no tethering to your ISP, how long do you think Comcast is going to keep temporarily suspending their 250G cap?

So 50Mbps costs 50% more than the Gigabit internet service? This doesn't make sense to me at all. Or it's just a scam?

And $10/month for a modem rental? I want the option to own modem.

I'm going w/ ATT/Comcast -- until Sonic gets their pricing right. I can use own modem w/ Comcast/ATT.

[Guest]

Here is some detail from my first invoice. I have X2 and it is a true 50Mbit service where I am, approximately 1200' from the fiber node. I get about 5.5Mbit up, BTW.

As you can see, it is $60 for Data and Voice, 9.50 for the mandatory modem rental, 6.50 for the ATA rental and pennies here and there for various inescapable and annoying fees.

Most importantly, there are no data caps, no threat (i.e. temporarily suspended) of data caps and the service has been pretty rock solid since it was provisioned.

For inside wiring I ran my own cat-6 from MPOE to the location in the house where the modem is located. The installer took care of everything else from there. The modem has 4x1Gbit ports, I believe. I used those ports to connect my internal wired TCP/IP connections.

I couldn't be happier with this service and with Sonic. I do not work for them, I do not have any financial interest in Sonic and I was not paid for this testimonial, just in case it sounds suspicious. Trust me, you will not get a better deal out of Comcast or ATT, all things considered, especially the data caps, suspended or otherwise and the alleged traffic shaping that goes on.

Monthly Bandwidth Quota Protection 0.00 0.00
Voice Federal Universal Service Fund Fee - 0.63 0.63
Voice California Lifeline Telephone Service 0.53 0.53
Voice California Deaf and Disabled Telecom 0.05 0.05
Voice California High Cost Fund-A Surcharge 0.03 0.03
Voice California Teleconnect Fund Surcharge 0.10 0.10
Voice California Advanced Services Fund 0.04 0.04
Voice California 911 Emergency Surcharge - 0.07 0.07
Voice California Public Utility Commission 0.02 0.02
Voice FCC Interstate Telecom Service 0.01 0.01
Property Tax Allotment Surcharge - 0.17 0.17
Voice Regulatory Recovery Surcharge - 0.43 0.43
Fusion FTTN Phone Service - 408554xxxx - 0.00 0.00
Fusion FTTN Residential X2, STI-015xxxx-0 - 60.00 60.00
Data $47.50 Voice $12.50
Fusion FTTN Modem Rental - SIID 9.50 9.50
ATA Rental - STI-015xxxx-0, Order ID 12xxxx 6.50 6.50