Dane - for real, what's the deal with Sonic fiber in Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito?

[dane]

Well that's interesting. Will look into it!

[dane]

BTW, did you get an email from us to let you know that fiber was coming?

[ankh]

Yes, we got the email November 10th (and passed it on to our neighbors who've been waiting to dump Comcast).

Question -- we now have the bonded Fusion service.
Will the fiber installers give us a connection automagically, I presume adding another drop from the nearby pole to our house?

And then what -- does Sonic come by and trade modems and hook up the fiber service to the home network?

Shorter: will we have to do anything, and if so, what, to connect via fiber when available?

I've been assuming we don't need to pre-order.

[dane]

Yep, nothing to do for now. When the fiber construction is complete, you will get an email inviting you to schedule your upgrade.

[ankh]

OK. And for those of us with single-line Sonic DSL (neighbors) and for us with 2-line Fusion, what will the pricing be for the upgrade? I'm assuming the "First Month Free" US Mail postcards sent to us were a mistake.

[dane]

OK. And for those of us with single-line Sonic DSL (neighbors) and for us with 2-line Fusion, what will the pricing be for the upgrade? I'm assuming the "First Month Free" US Mail postcards sent to us were a mistake.

No price change - same as your current Fusion X1 Service. If you’ve got X2, there will be a cost reduction. =)

[ankh]

Great!

Tell your pole-climbers not to trust our phone poles. They were rotten at the center 20 years ago.

PacBell had people going around putting pesticide down around the base of the poles to try to extend their service life. (I went out and asked what they were doing). Two out of the closest four poles on our street have been replaced because they were hollow wooden shells not likely to survive a strong wind or the next earthquake.

That leaves a whole lot of gray, cracked, hollow-core phone poles around Berkeley/Albany and likely other places.
Deferred maintenance at work.

[dane]

Quite true - there are many bad poles in the area, and the result will be some gaps in coverage.

[mar]

i doubt Sonic climbs polls. even att mostly uses bucket trucks. those polls may look old, but they rarely run into stability issues. they are heavily regulated especially since they are usually shared w PGE.

whats inside of the boxes on the polls is a whole other can of worms, especially since ATT is having their UVerse technicians service them.

question for Sonic: is all of your fiber being run from the CO? i live a a couple blocks from one in the Oakland Hills. we'd love Net Neutral internet here, but no postcards :(

[dane]

question for Sonic: is all of your fiber being run from the CO? i live a a couple blocks from one in the Oakland Hills. we'd love Net Neutral internet here, but no postcards

Our optical network is PON - passive optical network - so fiber from each home goes to a neighborhood local convergence point box where there are passive optical splitters, then from there to the central office where our core network (and current DSLAMs) are housed.

And yes, most of the work on poles is done with bucket trucks, but during initial construction there is also a lot of climbing. The poles are tested within the last five years for soundness, and "blown" poles are not built - we must omit sections with these overloaded poles, until they are reinforced or replaced.