So long and thanks for all the fish

[jthon]

It's a sad day I didn't see coming, but after avoiding the evil empire for 12 years I've just put in an order for Comcast internet. With the price increase earlier this year I could no longer justify the cost to maintain 17Mbit DSL.

I was hoping that Sonic would have FTTN available to me, but that wasn't an option, and the extra cost for X2 just isn't worth it and VDSL wouldn't have helped much (and cost even more due to a modem rental). I was even thinking about keeping a voice line with Sonic, but sadly I can't just drop DSL from my service but instead would have to order a new line with a $150 install fee.

So this is good bye for now. I hope Sonic decides to eventually deploy fiber down here in Santa Clara, but until that day comes I'm going to be stuck with Comcast .

Going to miss Sonic, but I'm also looking forward to tripling my bandwidth for 1/3 of the cost.

[dane]

If you were getting 17Mbps on ADSL2+, you are pretty close to the CO, and I'd expect a pretty nice jump in speed with VDSL2. Note also that VDSL2 upload speed is also much better. And don't want to rent a modem? Just buy one and opt out! Result is no change in cost, but a performance increase. It's an easy upgrade.

While Comcast's intro rate might seem compelling, long term rates are quite costly.

[jthon]

I did inquire about my options and was told by Sonic reps that a VDSL2 upgrade was unlikely to increase my speed at all and that I'd have to now rent a modem. I'm at ~3,300 ft and from everything I could find 17Mbit is on the limit where the VDSL2 and ADSL2+ curves match.

(Also finding a VDSL modem that supports Sonic is non-obvious and the rental modem is pushed hard. I spent a lot of time researching VDSL modems.)

While I wouldn't mind giving VDSL2 a shot my understanding was the upgrade came with a 1-year contract and if speeds didn't really improve I'd still want to move to Comcast. But I'd be in a 30-day race to cancel Sonic and get Comcast setup. If this isn't the case then I would give Sonic another chance.

The Comcast breakdown isn't as bad as I'd thought. $29.99/month first year + buying a modem ($60-100) + voip service to port out my phone. After that it's $60 a month which is about what I pay now for Sonic but I'll get 55Mbit instead of 17.

[chantmagick]

I'd love the CEO to respond to this. Also, could you tell me more about how having my own modem vs. renting one from sonic would improve performance. I didn't know that.

[miken]

While I wouldn't mind giving VDSL2 a shot my understanding was the upgrade came with a 1-year contract and if speeds didn't really improve I'd still want to move to Comcast. But I'd be in a 30-day race to cancel Sonic and get Comcast setup. If this isn't the case then I would give Sonic another chance.

It's hard to tell exactly what speeds you'd get on VDSL - the speeds tiers are even more prone to distance than ADSL. If you wanted to try the upgrade, we could get you switched over to VDSL and get you one of our Pace modems and as soon as the switch happens to the VDSL equipment, we could see your sync speeds. If they are along the lines of what you'd like to see, then as Dane mentioned you could find a suitable VDSL modem and opt out of renting ours. If the speed after the upgrade isn't enough of an improvement, you have 30 days to look around for another ISP before the one year contract sets in.

Also, could you tell me more about how having my own modem vs. renting one from sonic would improve performance. I didn't know that.

I think there's some confusion here. Dane meant the upgrade to VDSL would be no change in cost and an increase in performance.

[jthon]

Hi MikeN,

Thanks for the information. Since I'll have 30 days to cancel I've gone ahead and decided to give VDSL a shot in parallel with setting up Comcast. Both have a 30 day trial so we'll see which ones comes out ahead in the end. I should know how VDSL works out as soon as the circuit swaps and the PACE modem arrives and syncs up.

If I do drop Sonic I'll be porting my phone number out, and I hope that can be accomplished within the 30 day window... The thread over at viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4449 is a bit alarming.

Also I do appreciate the quick service and knowledgeable sales team so I'm hoping the VDSL works out.

[miken]

If I do drop Sonic I'll be porting my phone number out, and I hope that can be accomplished within the 30 day window... The thread over at viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4449 is a bit alarming.

Your number is in our pool, meaning there shouldn't be any porting problems. The rare occasion we run into problems usually involves the number being in XO's pool and the winning carrier not knowing how to properly port a phone number out of there.

[jnation2000]

I want to add my feedback with the same sentiment as the OP right up to the thread title

I like the Sonic philosophy and goals but in my case I was only getting about 3.5 mbps down which was getting very painful along with the Sonic price increase which made it very expensive for what I was getting, so Comcast just completed the install yesterday. I really want Sonic to be successful today and for the future but unfortunately the premium on resold AT&T services versus cable internet is just too high for me and I suspect many others. My feedback below is likely no different to many others but wanted to at least document it along with thanks for the problem free service over the years. Oh ... and you've had 6-7 months of extra charges for the fiber rollout from me so spend those dollars wisely

My only option to upgrade from Sonic prior to committing to Comcast was x2 Fusion if I recall the naming correctly, which was going to be up around $90, including the unwanted landline taxes, ATA and modem rental. This made Comcast at $30 x 12 mnths intro with ~$65 thereafter plus ability to purchase modem for ~$70 a no brainer; although there may also be some taxes I haven't seen listed yet to add to this. I really didn't need the 55mbps down from Comcast (approaching 70mbit/s with over-provisioning in my tests) but the relatively small saving for the slower 10mbps option didn't make any sense. I really wish there were "sensible" service options from someone with after-intro periods of sub $40 per month. DSL Extreme's resold AT&T at 18mbps would be ~$58 with hardly any saving versus Comcast at triple the speed. We truly suffer from a lack of competition and/or regulation to encourage it, hence my wish for Sonic's success.

I just re-checked the Sonic service availability and I see a resold AT&T FTTN at 50mbps with up to 2 data lines plus one phone line with 12 mnth intro at $60 and $70 thereafter. This appears to be the same x2 service that previously offered 45mbps but with just a change in branding/naming? Because of the landline it would still mean an additional $10+ of taxes where I live plus the modem rental at $9.50 and ATA rental at $6.50 which would make it ~$86 per month during first 12 months and $96 thereafter. I like Sonic but I just can't justify a monthly $30 premium after the 12 month intro period for both services.

I really hope you are strongly marketing through every means at you disposal your fiber benefits to every dwelling you pass in order to maximize service sign ups and your revenues. While Sonic fiber in San Jose may be blue sky dream, any competition in this market is to be applauded.

[formally jthon]

I thought I'd follow up with my final decision and a resulting (not great) experience at the end. I think Sonic has some room for improvement when it comes to billing/customer service to continue to stand out over the other providers.

At Miken's urging I decided to give VDSL a go to see the speed increase option. I called in, and confirmed with the phone representative that I could upgrade try the service for 30 days and cancel without an ETF.

So I gave it a go. Sonic shipped the Pace modem promptly, and my service upgrade was completed July 20th. After the upgrade I did see a bump in speed from 17->25-27ish Mb/s. It was a nice boost, but I had also had Comcast out and was on their 50Mb/s plan. While the 27 was a nice boost it still wasn't the same as the 50Mb/s I was getting from Comcast, and the Comcast plan after the subsequent price jump would be $10-20 less per month than Sonic to boot (it's actually half the price for the first year).

While I do appreciate Sonic's mission and would pay a small premium if everything were comparable, Sonic's current DSL offerings just can't match what the cable providers have. (I look forward to Fiber, someday.)

So after porting my phone number out to save it, I cancelled my Sonic service as of August 4th 2017, 15 days after receiving the upgrade. At this point I hit a snag. It seems that unlike I had been informed by multiple Sonic representatives including Miken earlier in this thread, my cancelling was "subject to an ETF" as I was "under contract" until July 20th, 2018. Looks like that 30 days to cancel option wasn't real for some reason.

The person I spoke to about cancelling did end up "bringing it to a supervisor" and "got an exception" to waive the fee, but no one would acknowledge that the fee shouldn't have been charged in the first place and was a mistake.

Subsequently when I receive my account closure notice/final set of charges, guess what was there? The ETF of course! Silly me to expect it to actually be waived/taken care of.

I called back and it's supposed to be "fixed" as there was a note in my account about receiving a credit, but I'm awaiting the appropriate refund on my credit card so we'll see how that turns out. There was still no acknowledgement or attempt to check why the fee was charged in the first place.

Frankly, such billing errors are what I come to expect from company's like Comcast and I expected a higher standard from Sonic.

(Note: I couldn't post under my old login since that's disabled due to the closure of my account.)

[steelgaze]

It sounds like from most wording to me about Sonic, any sort of 'deal' you can get, including the 30 day money back offer is subject to NEW customers only. If you have existing one and change your service, your first '30 day money back' period has long past.