Don't use Sonic.

[SF_3]

Sonic is such a f***ing joke.

I advise anyone who's considered to get sonic to RUN To AT&T or Comcast. Seriously.

Sonic can't do **** if there's the slightest problem. All their lines are serviced by AT&T anyway, so if you have a problem with the infrastructure, you're calling sonic who then has to call AT&T. Good luck being without internet for 4 days minimum.

Also, if it's a service problem, sonic is so poorly staffed that the most recent availability I was given to fix their shitty service was 15 days away! 15!

Their customer service is pleasant. Totally useless and unable to help, but pleasant.

Do you know how totally f****ing incompetent and awful you have to be as a company to make Comcast look good? Whoever runs sonic should be ashamed of this piece of garbage company. What a fraud.

[amayfield]

It certainly is frustrating being without internet and phone service. And we want to resolve your issue as fast as possible.

Through troubleshooting we try to determine where the trouble exists and take appropriate action to resolve the issue, dispatching AT&T if there is trouble on the outside lines or dispatching a Sonic technician if it's an inside wiring issue. Sometimes it's not obvious where the trouble lies and so we have to make an educated guess whom to send out. And sometimes we get it wrong, I'm sorry about that!

Fifteen days for a Sonic dispatch is a very long time. We are actively working to reduce the wait time for dispatches by hiring more field technicians and stream lining our scheduling processes.

I wasn't able to locate your account but if you log in with your Sonic username and respond to this post I'll look into getting you a earlier dispatch. Alternatively you can PM me your Sonic account info.

[Guest]

I was thinking of converting the business I work for from comcast to sonic, using the VDSL product, since we are close to the central office. I've used sonic for my home for over a decade.

However, if there were to be an issue, a 15 days wait would be intolerable for my business and I could not in good faith convert knowing that such an extreme wait could happen. We run everything of our internet connection now, include VOIP.

This is very worrisome and I'm seriously rethinking this.

[virtualmike]

You really should be looking into business class services, for which you can get service level agreements. Residential service generally does not have such guarantees.

That being said, consider how many customers that Sonic has, and then look at the number of complaints posted in this forum. Most people don't post in the forum when they're satisfied.

[Guest]

I'm not sure which business product you are referring to. I see from the homepage that the business product starts at the same price as residential. Is this right? I can't find clear info on this.

We don't need an SLA. Our budget for internet is $100 and we aren't expecting zero downtime. We can handle intermittent downtime as we have a cellphone hotspot for backup.

The difference here is: with Comcast, if the connection is completely down, they will escalate the ticket and a truck should roll out within 4 hours. We can handle that kind of downtime.

If the issue is on sonic's end, like say the modem goes bad, will it really take 15 days for a truck to roll out? Or multiple days if a replacement modem needs to be mailed out?

Does sonic not prioritize trucks to service existing customers who have a down connection?

[Guest]

Does sonic not prioritize trucks to service existing customers who have a down connection?

They do but sometimes they can't fix the issue because it's an AT&T problem. You'll read about how some customers have to wait at least a day before an AT&T truck roll could be dispatched due to the time when things aren't working. The nice thing about POTS is AT&T is required per government regulation to ensure it works and has minimal downtime. When I was on legacy ADSL1 and our DSL affected POTS, AT&T escalated quickly to get the line corrected. Not 4 hours but within 12 hours. They didn't have the same sense of urgency when POTS was working but DSL was out.

This regulation doesn't cover IP-based services, and the ILECs will fight tooth and nail to keep them exempt, so you probably won't get the same kind of response as POTS outage.

[amayfield]

We are working towards next day / same day dispatches & we're making progress but we still have a ways to go. A 15 day wait for a dispatch is not acceptable & we're not complacent with that kind of turnaround time.

For modem replacements we don't actually do dispatches, we ship them out & generally they'll arrive next day (depending on where it's being shipped to). Technician dispatches are for repairing internal wiring when we determine / suspect there is a physical fault or impairment present.

[pockyken007]

I have never ever had a bad experience with sonic customer support , they are super friendly , knowledgeable and responsive ! The most I ever was without working net was 2 days and on the 2nd day a tech came in and fixed the problem !

Said that nowadays the queue is a bit longer and tech roll outs take a bit longer ( growing pains ) but the service remains the same , yes you might experience a slightly longer downtime and whatnot but if you are residential there is no business level SLA ... if you want a business line with SLA get just that !

[Guest]

I can attest that the wait time has increased to almost an hour. But this is after I called the support after 3 years (I don't have alot of issues with Sonic!).

When they announced the $10 increase, I was looking how to increase the value of my subscription. This opened the idea of going VDSL. Within the required 3-5 business days processing time, my speed now is 42 DOWN/22 UP! this is a very huge increase from 16 DOWN /1 UP before. I get that not all will get this speed but my point is it only took me 1 call and a follow-up email (since I am very persistent) to get to this point.

Before I did this upgrade, I browsed through the forum and saw a few complaints, but I think for most part it was a good experience. I am a very picky customer and can sense how bad my experience will be but Sonic has pleased me ever since 2010.

Like others said, we should know what to expect for a standard residential service

[pockyken007]

I can attest that the wait time has increased to almost an hour. But this is after I called the support after 3 years (I don't have alot of issues with Sonic!).

When they announced the $10 increase, I was looking how to increase the value of my subscription. This opened the idea of going VDSL. Within the required 3-5 business days processing time, my speed now is 42 DOWN/22 UP! this is a very huge increase from 16 DOWN /1 UP before. I get that not all will get this speed but my point is it only took me 1 call and a follow-up email (since I am very persistent) to get to this point.

Before I did this upgrade, I browsed through the forum and saw a few complaints, but I think for most part it was a good experience. I am a very picky customer and can sense how bad my experience will be but Sonic has pleased me ever since 2010.

Like others said, we should know what to expect for a standard residential service

Sonic might have it's flaws ( what company doesn't ) but they are really good at addressing them in a professional manner and strive to always improve themselves to better serve the end user / customer. I have been with Sonic through ages and even though now they are going through tough transition time ( growing pains ) I wouldn't put my business with any other ISP out there.