Think I'm giving up on Fusion - happy ending!

[jason.lee]

I ordered bonded service in late Dec '11. I was hoping to get at least 10mbps, which is a little under 1/2 of what I get with Comcast. I chose to leave Comcast because they are not a good company in my mind and they supported the SOPA legislation. Sonic's awesome - no caps, static ips, a *real* ISP and not some shady media company trying to lobby for some bs legislation.

However, a month later my service still does not work as advertised. I'm 10k ft. from the c/o and one line is constantly bad, so I max out both at around 7mbps. This is 1/3 of my Comcast speed for more money.

To be fair, I don't think this is really Sonic's fault. AT&T has been out to my place (supposedly) 3 times. 1st time was to set up the 2nd line (which had problems from the get go), 2nd time was to diagnose the 1st problem (they said, of course, it was fine on their end), and lastly the 3rd time was today. However, no one showed up today. I waited all day for an AT&T guy and nothing. So AT&T basically just lies about this stuff I guess. Man, I'm so pissed off that I couldn't leave the house for someone that never even showed up.

I've been on the phone with Sonic tech guys about a half a dozen times with this issue and while they're really good, I don't feel like this is something I should spend my time doing. I've been paying for this service and it's already cost me about $300. I got the modem from Sonic, a Comtrend, which broke, so they sent me out a loaner Zyxel which luckily works.

Anyway, I had Sonic years ago and it always seems to boil down to AT&T being the crap part of the equation. So I think I'm giving up (again), taking a loss and keeping Comcast. Maybe some day I'll qualify for Sonic's fiber - I pray for that day.

Sorry guys, I tried (again)...

(Edit: see my last comment.)

[James]

You should check to see if Monkeybrains will work as an ISP. They're local as well.

[Bob]

I was hoping to get at least 10mbps. ...I'm 10k ft. from the c/o...so I max out both at around 7mbps

This is your issue, 10kft out from the CO, even if you have great cooper does not equal 10Mbps. 7Mbbs is really good for that distance with DSL, even ADSL2+ has distance limitations.

[bhester]

I ordered bonded service in late Dec '11. I was hoping to get at least 10mbps, which is a little under 1/2 of what I get with Comcast. I chose to leave Comcast because they are not a good company in my mind and they supported the SOPA legislation. Sonic's awesome - no caps, static ips, a *real* ISP and not some shady media company trying to lobby for some bs legislation.

However, a month later my service still does not work as advertised. I'm 10k ft. from the c/o and one line is constantly bad, so I max out both at around 7mbps. This is 1/3 of my Comcast speed for more money.

To be fair, I don't think this is really Sonic's fault. AT&T has been out to my place (supposedly) 3 times. 1st time was to set up the 2nd line (which had problems from the get go), 2nd time was to diagnose the 1st problem (they said, of course, it was fine on their end), and lastly the 3rd time was today. However, no one showed up today. I waited all day for an AT&T guy and nothing. So AT&T basically just lies about this stuff I guess. Man, I'm so pissed off that I couldn't leave the house for someone that never even showed up.

I've been on the phone with Sonic tech guys about a half a dozen times with this issue and while they're really good, I don't feel like this is something I should spend my time doing. I've been paying for this service and it's already cost me about $300. I got the modem from Sonic, a Comtrend, which broke, so they sent me out a loaner Zyxel which luckily works.

Anyway, I had Sonic years ago and it always seems to boil down to AT&T being the crap part of the equation. So I think I'm giving up (again), taking a loss and keeping Comcast. Maybe some day I'll qualify for Sonic's fiber - I pray for that day.

Sorry guys, I tried (again)...

I'm sorry to hear about your continuing line issues, and the misfire with AT&T. It looks like we are continuing to work with AT&T to try to clear the problems on your line. If we are able to get your second line performing as well at the first, would you consider staying? We do realize that sometimes due to distance and line quality issues, the service can't meet some users needs, and if that's the case we do understand.

[jason.lee]

You should check to see if Monkeybrains will work as an ISP. They're local as well.

Monkeybrains was actually my first choice because my friend loves their wireless service. However, I cannot install anything on my building, so that ended that.

[jason.lee]

This is your issue, 10kft out from the CO, even if you have great cooper does not equal 10Mbps. 7Mbbs is really good for that distance with DSL, even ADSL2+ has distance limitations.

The 7mbps is bonded. I would be more than happy if each channel could get that..

[jason.lee]

I'm sorry to hear about your continuing line issues, and the misfire with AT&T. It looks like we are continuing to work with AT&T to try to clear the problems on your line. If we are able to get your second line performing as well at the first, would you consider staying? We do realize that sometimes due to distance and line quality issues, the service can't meet some users needs, and if that's the case we do understand.

So, the fact that I've been distracted by both joining a new start up this past week and a newborn, I did not get the chance to cancel the service. The game is still on at this point. There is an at&t guy out now that actually (for some weird reason) seems like he cares and he's "going do the street to another pole" to check some stuff out. If he fixes this today and Sonic tech support can stable my service to at least 10mbps, then I'll stay.

It's all in the lone at&t tech's hands at this point..

[jason.lee]

There is a happy ending to this story.

As I mentioned earlier, I was on the road to cancel my service. Again, it wasn't Sonic's fault and I laid all the blame at at&t. I emailed billing and asked them to cancel. However, they said for security reasons they couldn't. At that point I was like, whatever, I'll call later.

A few days before this I was on the phone with my last tech support guy there and he scheduled an at&t visit to yet again, fix my line. I totally forgot about this and last saturday, the at&t guy showed up (an older guy than my last ones). This time, though, something seemed different. I had a feeling after talking with him for a few minutes that he actually cared to get it fixed. A little while later he was down the street at another pole, called me, and told me to check the speed in the router. Now both lines seemed to be up and I was getting about 9.7mbps.

After he left, I called Sonic and we stabilized the lines at 9.6mbps. A significant downgrade from my comcast line, but I figured I'd give it a try. Funny thing happened throughout the day - I didn't notice a huge speed difference. I thought this whole time I'd have a really slow connection compared to comcast, but in real world use, it's about the same. I can only chalk this up to network congestion in my area and comcast's traffic shaping.

So at roughly 10k ft from the co I have 9.6mbps with no traffic shaping, capping, or anything else. Netflix and my other streaming services work great. My downloads are pretty speedy too. We also have 2 land lines and with a new baby, that makes the rest of the family happy. So, win/win! Maybe in the next year or two there will be a fiber option.

[kenlui]

So you have a new infant and you're starting work at a startup. Brave man.

So being persistent has paid off. Many individuals who have had problems with line speeds that don't correlate with the graphs posted by Dane have had good resolution through persistent collaboration with Sonic support.

[virtualmike]

So, win/win!

Congratulations on all counts.