Renting a Sonic gateway is not required, but replacement is strongly discouraged, with a notable scarcity of information on compatible equipment. Sonic benefits from the rental revenue, and the use of Sonic equipment does make support easier, but the equipment is not really standard. The overwhelming majority of ADSL deployments and retail ADSL equipment are ATM, and that previously was the case with Sonic, but since the partnership with AT&T in 2015, Sonic has been deploying PTM, which isn't supported by most retail ADSL modems.
What will work on Sonic Fusion x1 service in PTM mode, as a replacement for the Sonic/Pace 4111N Gateway, is the Netgear DM200 Broadband High-Speed DSL Modem. The trick is to (1) manually put the DM200 in VDSL mode rather than ADSL (ATM) mode, and (2) have Sonic Support put the line into VDSL/ADSL mode rather than ADSL mode. On such a switch recently, it was possible to increase sync by 40%, a huge improvement. The wireless router part of the replacement is an ASUS RT-AC68U AC1900 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router, which has greatly improved speed and range over the 4111N.
Hope that helps,
John Navas [technical contact posting from client account]
email: jn2ATnavasgroupDOTcom
p.s. Be sure to update both the DM200 and RT-AC68U to the latest firmware.
What will work on Sonic Fusion x1 service in PTM mode, as a replacement for the Sonic/Pace 4111N Gateway, is the Netgear DM200 Broadband High-Speed DSL Modem. The trick is to (1) manually put the DM200 in VDSL mode rather than ADSL (ATM) mode, and (2) have Sonic Support put the line into VDSL/ADSL mode rather than ADSL mode. On such a switch recently, it was possible to increase sync by 40%, a huge improvement. The wireless router part of the replacement is an ASUS RT-AC68U AC1900 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router, which has greatly improved speed and range over the 4111N.
Hope that helps,
John Navas [technical contact posting from client account]
email: jn2ATnavasgroupDOTcom
p.s. Be sure to update both the DM200 and RT-AC68U to the latest firmware.