Sonic.net

Well, we thought the Fiber at Berkeley at Francisco Street will be live this month, and we have waited half month already. But there is no any further information update. Not sure should we wait or just cancelled the pre order. We basically live without internet for 15 days, and Sonic does not seems like scheduling our area till end of August or even September as one of the customer representatives says

Yes, we are waiting for a permit now, and there is a backlog so we’ve been told it’ll be about six weeks of delay.

But during that time, we are doing all other work of cable placement and splicing, so once we have access to do that underground project, we’ll catch up a big backlog of neighborhoods.

Regrettably, Berkeley is notorious for delaying enabling action on homeowner permits.
I doubt they're much friendlier to businesses.
But the contractor gossip I hear is they're not holding out for bribes unlike some other cities in the area, they're just, ya know, proud of their power to slow things down and inspect them in detail.
So the gossip says.

Does that mean the delay will be six weeks and it will be back until mid September? Maybe change the availability of that area on website would cause less confusion since it is false info.

dane wrote:Yes, we are waiting for a permit now, and there is a backlog so we’ve been told it’ll be about six weeks of delay.

But during that time, we are doing all other work of cable placement and splicing, so once we have access to do that underground project, we’ll catch up a big backlog of neighborhoods.

Hi,
I am confused by this as well. It was May then July and now September for my area. Is this taking the permit into account or is September now more realistically December ? It should just say this. You can go from May to July as a delay. But if you then go from July to September (after Derek looked up my order and specifically said August a few days before we all got the September mail) is already a little annoying. If September is now more or less December, come out ahead of it now and tell people. If this happens in September, nobody will believe a single date anymore.
I know it takes time but only in this forum do people get any info. All my neighbors who signed up only got the email with little to no real info.
thanks
claus

What is the chance that fiber will be laid for those with underground utilities? I've noticed that many of the streets immediately around us (with overhead utilities) now have Sonic fiber, as close as several hundred feet away in our case, but we have not been so lucky yet. We live on Arlington Ave in Kensington, which is unincorporated Contra Costa.

Is there hope or are addressed served by underground utilities prohibitively difficult to install fiber for?

Thanks

If I recall right, Dane answered this in a different thread and said underground chances are pretty much zero right now not economical. overhead if much cheaper to do. but if I am wrong i am sure he will correct this.

cmeisel wrote:If I recall right, Dane answered this in a different thread and said underground chances are pretty much zero right now not economical. overhead if much cheaper to do. but if I am wrong i am sure he will correct this.

Yes, our deployment focus today is on continuing to scale up aerial construction.

But we are putting R&D and production efforts into underground, operating three directional drilling crews on a daily basis, building new fiber networks to schools, business parks, and other custom projects, and those lessons will serve residential too. (Our Brentwood fiber deployment incorporated over two years worth of underground HDD construction.) And today we are also seeking out municipalities where we can do micro and nano-trench process testing. So, underground service is a part of our plans, but is not yet at production scale the way that aerial is today.

Hi,

First time poster. I live in West Berkeley (Hopkins Ave and Curitis St at a large apartment complex). I had registered for Sonic gigabit installation. I received a phone call today from Sonic saying that that due to access issues the Fiber installation cannot happen for the forseable future. I wanted to ask if you think this access issue is something that can be overcome down the road? Could you elaborate on the nature of the roadblock?

I was excited for gigabit but I understand that these unexpected roadblocks can happen and business decisions have to be made.

Thanks Dane.

-Ivan

We live in Berkeley on Oxford near Cedar. Saw the Solcom crew pass by our building running fiber and then subsequently lashing it. (The messenger cable must’ve gone up without us noticing)

Anyone know approximate timing between when fiber passes by and installation can be done?