Sonic.net

I was recommending Sonic to a neighbor, and noticed that they’re now advertising faster speeds for my address; 50 Mb for $40, 100 Mb for $60, and 1000 Mb for $80. Prices go up after a year by $10. But talking to sales, I can only get the regular non-intro price, which makes 50 Mb about $68 after taxes and rental fees.

Or, I can switch back to AT&T. They offer 100 Mb for $50, 300 Mb for $70, and 1000 Mb for $90. Those prices include the modem and taxes. I can stomach paying a little extra for Sonic, but an extra $456 for a year? ($50 for 100 Mb versus $70+$18) Or an extra $216 for half the speed?

I’m crazy about Sonic, but not that crazy...

I guess maybe I’ll be back next year, at the discount rate again, if I can stomach switching ISPs twice. Unless there’s a way to get the intro rate again?

Each customer gets an introductory price just once, when the account is initially established. We don't re-rate or re-term customers for lower rates, because not only is that not viable financially for the business, it is a headache for both members and staff who would have to take this on every year. Additionally, it is not fair for consumers who don't call and complain, that silent majority ends up bearing the cost, unfairly. It's a bad practice all around.

That all sounds fine, except I guess my point is that the price just isn’t competitive enough for me. Having the intro rate again (after paying full price for 3 years or so) makes it close enough that I might tolerate the higher price next year. Of course, having a permanent competitive price is even better. I have no idea how much Sonic gets squeezed by AT&T for their share of profit, but I’m sure it doesn’t help.

In any case, the bottom line is that I can’t justify the price difference to get a phone line that I use once a year, a VPN I use a few times, better support which I rarely use (and, too often, end up dealing with AT&T anyway), and an occasional chat with the CEO. ;-) Oh, and a warm fuzzy feeling about who I’m paying for my bits.

Can you just solve all my problems and bring your homegrown fiber to the South Bay? AT&T fiber and your resold AT&T fiber are both too expensive for me, but the native Sonic bits seem totally reasonable. I was so disappointed when Google Fiber pulled back after submitting plans in San Jose.

Kshook wrote:Can you just solve all my problems and bring your homegrown fiber to the South Bay? AT&T fiber and your resold AT&T fiber are both too expensive for me, but the native Sonic bits seem totally reasonable.

That's certainly what we are working toward! I do hope you'll stick with us as we work toward that goal.

dane wrote:

Kshook wrote:Can you just solve all my problems and bring your homegrown fiber to the South Bay? AT&T fiber and your resold AT&T fiber are both too expensive for me, but the native Sonic bits seem totally reasonable.

That's certainly what we are working toward! I do hope you'll stick with us as we work toward that goal.

It’s nice to hear that you’re working on bringing your homegrown fiber to the South Bay, but at this point... I guess the bigger question is when - Do you expect to have it up and running in the San Jose/Los Gatos area this year, Dane? Next year? 10 years from now? I’m tempted to go back to Comcast for a while for their gigabit internet, but if you can tell us that it’ll be here within the next 2 years I can wait a little longer