In July 2017 I upgraded from Sonic Fusion X1 DSL to Sonic fiber. So far, so good! And so fast!
Updated 9/3/2021
I use the home phone and its voicemail, so I want to describe what I reconfigured in Sonic Member Tools to provide the same functionality that I had before. The fiber home phone Comm Portal settings look completely different from the old settings.
Previously, I had my Fusion X1 home phone line configured to take voice mail messages after 5 rings and then send me an email. I had checked the box to block anonymous calls.
At first, my fiber had a temporary phone number and my own number was in limbo, but within half an hour of the completion of the fiber installation, my usual home number was on the fiber.
I think all of this applies equally if you are switching from Fusion X1 DSL to either fiber or FTTN DSL.
Look on Sonic's wiki for their instructions, or you can call Sonic support for help with this:
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... CommPortal
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... -Voicemail
From Sonic.net, click Member Tools and log in. On the left side, click Voice and in the middle, click your phone number. If both the temporary number and your own number appear, log off and come back later when only your own number is there.
At the bottom of the screen, I clicked the big button to enable voicemail.
Home > View account settings (in lower right corner)
I set the password and the two PINs. Click Apply.
Sonic's Commportal wiki page explains their use.
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... CommPortal
Home > Call settings > Call blocking
If you plan to dial 011 International calls, uncheck the box that blocks making International calls. Click Apply.
Home > Message settings
I checked "Forward messages as emails"
I clicked "add an email address" and added mine
Click Apply.
Home > Call settings > Mailbox access
I had later set Auto-play voicemail using the voicemail settings menu on the phone (4-2-1), but it looks like you can also set this by checking the Auto-play voicemail box here.
Home > Advanced > Open Call Manager
I enabled rejecting anonymous callers from the options that slide in from the right.
Click Apply.
Home > Advanced > Open Call Manager
If there is no answer
Send to voicemail after 25 seconds, which is about 5 rings. I reduced it from 30 seconds, which is about 6 rings.
Click Apply.
Next, I dialed *99 from a home phone. The system made me record my name and a greeting. After doing that, all of the other options you can set are listed here:
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... -Voicemail
I set 4-2-1 to enable Auto-play of new messages and 4-2-3 to play the message only and not the number and not the date/time. I had it skip those because I usually have already seen that information in the email notification (or even heard the message from there) by the time I listen to messages by dialing *99.
FYI, the email notification from Fusion voicemail used to indicate the duration of the message, but the email notification from FTTN and fiber voicemail does not.
I had programmed my Panasonic cordless home phone system to dial into voicemail and play messages with one button. You program that feature by pressing Menu then #331 and then entering the codes. See your phone's manual for more on this.
For Fusion voicemail, my string of codes was : *99P1234P1 (assuming my PIN was 1234)
(dial *99, pause a few seconds, enter the voicemail passcode, pause a few seconds, press 1 to play new messages)
Now for fiber or FTTN voicemail and with Auto-play enabled, my string of codes is *99P1234#
(dial *99, pause a few seconds, enter the PIN followed by #)
IP addressing changes:
This isn't about voicemail, but it's another change I had to make. My old DSL router issued IP addresses in the 192.168.1.1 range, but the Sonic Pace 5268AC Residential Gateway and the Sonic Eero units issue them in the 192.168.42.1 range. I caused most of my hardwired devices to get a new IP address by power cycling the switch they were connected to. I manually changed the fixed IP address of my two network-attached printers. For one of them, the PCs found the new printer by themselves, and for the other I had to reinstall the driver.
I configured my Pace Residential Gateway to have the same custom 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz SSIDs and key that I had set on my old router so that Wi-Fi devices would reconnect. Sonic describes how to do that here:
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... ace-5268AC
Thanks, Sonic!
Updated 9/3/2021
I use the home phone and its voicemail, so I want to describe what I reconfigured in Sonic Member Tools to provide the same functionality that I had before. The fiber home phone Comm Portal settings look completely different from the old settings.
Previously, I had my Fusion X1 home phone line configured to take voice mail messages after 5 rings and then send me an email. I had checked the box to block anonymous calls.
At first, my fiber had a temporary phone number and my own number was in limbo, but within half an hour of the completion of the fiber installation, my usual home number was on the fiber.
I think all of this applies equally if you are switching from Fusion X1 DSL to either fiber or FTTN DSL.
Look on Sonic's wiki for their instructions, or you can call Sonic support for help with this:
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... CommPortal
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... -Voicemail
From Sonic.net, click Member Tools and log in. On the left side, click Voice and in the middle, click your phone number. If both the temporary number and your own number appear, log off and come back later when only your own number is there.
At the bottom of the screen, I clicked the big button to enable voicemail.
Home > View account settings (in lower right corner)
I set the password and the two PINs. Click Apply.
Sonic's Commportal wiki page explains their use.
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... CommPortal
Home > Call settings > Call blocking
If you plan to dial 011 International calls, uncheck the box that blocks making International calls. Click Apply.
Home > Message settings
I checked "Forward messages as emails"
I clicked "add an email address" and added mine
Click Apply.
Home > Call settings > Mailbox access
I had later set Auto-play voicemail using the voicemail settings menu on the phone (4-2-1), but it looks like you can also set this by checking the Auto-play voicemail box here.
Home > Advanced > Open Call Manager
I enabled rejecting anonymous callers from the options that slide in from the right.
Click Apply.
Home > Advanced > Open Call Manager
If there is no answer
Send to voicemail after 25 seconds, which is about 5 rings. I reduced it from 30 seconds, which is about 6 rings.
Click Apply.
Next, I dialed *99 from a home phone. The system made me record my name and a greeting. After doing that, all of the other options you can set are listed here:
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... -Voicemail
I set 4-2-1 to enable Auto-play of new messages and 4-2-3 to play the message only and not the number and not the date/time. I had it skip those because I usually have already seen that information in the email notification (or even heard the message from there) by the time I listen to messages by dialing *99.
FYI, the email notification from Fusion voicemail used to indicate the duration of the message, but the email notification from FTTN and fiber voicemail does not.
I had programmed my Panasonic cordless home phone system to dial into voicemail and play messages with one button. You program that feature by pressing Menu then #331 and then entering the codes. See your phone's manual for more on this.
For Fusion voicemail, my string of codes was : *99P1234P1 (assuming my PIN was 1234)
(dial *99, pause a few seconds, enter the voicemail passcode, pause a few seconds, press 1 to play new messages)
Now for fiber or FTTN voicemail and with Auto-play enabled, my string of codes is *99P1234#
(dial *99, pause a few seconds, enter the PIN followed by #)
IP addressing changes:
This isn't about voicemail, but it's another change I had to make. My old DSL router issued IP addresses in the 192.168.1.1 range, but the Sonic Pace 5268AC Residential Gateway and the Sonic Eero units issue them in the 192.168.42.1 range. I caused most of my hardwired devices to get a new IP address by power cycling the switch they were connected to. I manually changed the fixed IP address of my two network-attached printers. For one of them, the PCs found the new printer by themselves, and for the other I had to reinstall the driver.
I configured my Pace Residential Gateway to have the same custom 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz SSIDs and key that I had set on my old router so that Wi-Fi devices would reconnect. Sonic describes how to do that here:
https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... ace-5268AC
Thanks, Sonic!
