Sonic Gigabit Fiber on Lone Pine Road?

[raillard]

I've been a continuous member of Sonic.net since November 1996. I'm still on their grandfathered dial-up plan ($18.95/mo.). Of course I don't use dial-up, but the thought of dropping Sonic has never entered my head, not even for a nanosecond! Their e-mail, webspace, shell, VPN, and eFax services are valuable to me. Even more valuable is the fact that I can LOVE my internet service provider, even if, for now, they are not my only one. I currently have Comca$t for our home's high-speed connection, because I don't hate Comca$t as much as I hate AT&T. Sounds like the lesser of two evils, right? It does explain why I never got the repackaged UVerse service that Sonic offers in our neighborhood. A few years ago we actually tried UVerse direct from AT&T, without dropping Comcast. The free one month trial lasted 2 weeks before I gave up trying to deal with the friendly but powerless techs and customer support people at AT&T. I think Comcast dreams of becoming dysfunctionally large -- AT&T is their shining example of what's possible.

In the nearly 22 years I've been with Sonic their monthly price has gone up twice, I think. Even it if was more than that, it was definitely on par with inflation, and fully justifiable. I've never begrudged these legitimate and rare increases, again not even for a nanosecond! I wish I could say the same for a certain other internet company I pay into monthly -- I don't need to mention any names, because you've already seen me change the "s" in their name to "$" a couple of times. Suffice it to say that if Sonic Gigabit Fiber shows up on Lone Pine Road it will be my great pleasure to consolidate all my internet services back into one provider I truly love.

Earlier this year, when I saw the Sonic trucks on nearby Bloomfield Road, and the big spools of blue and orange tubing, and micro-trenching, I started to drool. It's a little bit like Pavlov's dog. Recently, I've started seeing big spools of blue and orange tubing on Lone Pine Road, and micro-trenching activity. I have not yet seen Sonic logos on the trucks, but forgive me if I start holding my breath! If you see a fellow driving down Lone Pine Road, in his white Fiat 500e, and his face is slightly purple, now you'll know why.

[raillard]

By the way, I'm a freelance computer guru, and most of my immediate neighbors are also my clients. Near the corner of Lone Pine and Fredricks we have a mix of AT&T/UVerse and Comcast/XFinity customers. I think I could easily initiate a mass-exodus from those services towards Sonic Gigabit Fiber. I estimate 7 homes, counting ours. Add 2 more homes nearby on Fredricks if that becomes feasible. Of course, I'm sure Sonic Gigabit Fiber will have no trouble selling itself, wherever it becomes available!

[m.harmon]

I couldn't give you an estimate but you are on the right track. We like to go where we have a good customer basis. Tell your friends!



Though try and avoid going purple in the face!

[dane]

Looking at the map, I'd guess that build is to reach one of the elementary schools in the area. We're bringing fiber to about seventy schools in Sonoma County, which will be used to interconnect them at 10Gbps and above.

These "anchor tenant" builds help us expand our plant, which reduces the costs and increases viability of nearby residential builds. But, the builds are bespoke networks, not general purpose, and they don't provide a direct path to immediate nearby residential builds.

[raillard]

Thank you M.Harmon and Dane for the updates! I'll take your words to heart and continue breathing again. Take some deep breaths, and let my heart rate settle back down -- no need to get overly excited, yet.

Our current situation is quite tolerable, because I don't have to deal with AT&T at all. Comcast speed has been fine, and their up-time is excellent, too. Some of my clients have complained about Comcast e-mail, but I have no firsthand knowledge of those problems, because I use Sonic for my e-mail, and that's close to perfection! If Comcast could only do something about their blatant, unbridled greed, I could learn to respect them. I do look forward to someday calling Sonic my one and only ISP again.

~ Hans

[dane]

We look like forward to that too.

[m.harmon]

Can't wait!

[raillard]

For a couple of recent weeks I've been working on Sundays, which is not normal for me. I'm self-employed, so Saturdays are usually work days, but not Sundays -- those are usually nature days. On Tuesday I decided to take the day off, and went with one of my brothers for a day-hike on Tomales Point Trail all the way out to the tip. My cell phone voicemail system had an away-message, with contact info of other techs, just in case any of my clients had super-urgent computer emergencies, but the phone itself was on airplane mode all day. Tuesday was a beautiful day at the coast! It's what I call a one-day micro-vacation.

The following day (Wednesday) I was back at work, visiting clients, and also dealing with a few pent-up emergencies that were waiting for me.

One more day later, Thursday morning, I woke up and thought to myself, "Man! Yesterday was such a wonderful day!" Of course, I was remembering Tuesday. I quickly noticed my little mistake, and it made me chuckle. Wednesday was okay, too. I was able to help a number of people -- it was pleasant enough, but Tuesday was special. So special, that it made me forget that I had worked pretty hard on Wednesday. I told my brothers about this cute incident, and mentioned that you could really tell how nice that day-off had been, when it makes my appreciation just bubble up like that! My older brother said, "You know what else is nice? There are Sonic trucks near Lone Pine and Fredricks." I had to smile some more!

I keep reminding myself not to hold my breath, because Dane and M.Harmon recommended that I shouldn't, but you'll have to excuse the little pool of drool near my window, because yesterday, just outside the window I could look down and see Tight Access trucks and “Road Work Ahead” signs popping up nearby!

[raillard]

This morning I was helping a client of mine who lives nearby, on one of the small roads perpendicular to Bloomfield Rd close to where Lone Pine Rd connects to it. I was helping her via phone and HelpDesk(Hans), which is my custom TeamViewer QuickSupport module. She was having some trouble with Earthlink webmail, and she currently has AT&T UVerse for her home's connection. I was singing the praises of Sonic's webmail -- specifically how it does not plaster the top and edges with endlessly rotating ads that slow down the whole experience, which is what she has to deal with on Earthlink. She mentioned that she has always wanted to join Sonic, because of what her friends have said, but she had some technical reasons (website related) to stick with Earthlink for her email. I'm hoping to help move both her internet connection and webmail to Sonic. I'm sure the repackaged Sonic/AT&T UVerse will be fine for now, better than what she has now, because her first point of tech support and customer support would be Sonic instead of AT&T. I plan to assist her by carefully moving Earthlink webmail folders into a safe place so that we can move them into Sonic webmail folders later.