Lower rates for new customers, but higher rates for long time customers???

General discussions and other topics.
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by cakewalk » Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:30 am
Sonic is offering the same (DSL - 10mbps down/1 mbps up internet for $39.95 per month (before taxes and fees) for new customers.

Except my bill is now $70.95 per month.

I've been with Sonic for over 10 years. How about some incentives to try to keep long-term customers?

Yes... I know... Fiber (much like winter) is coming... I expect Fiber to the house in maybe 10 more years so the promise of Fiber is coming has gotten real old. @
by ngufra » Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:28 pm
One of the issues I think is that for old customers still of DSL, sonic does not control all the costs as it has to pay AT&T for using the copper etc.
Hopefully they don't decide to just drop the customers on DSL until they have fiber available.
by cakewalk » Fri Feb 02, 2024 5:59 pm
Nope. They're just raising prices on them. My bill is now more than $100 per month. Fiber ain't coming fast enough. I think they're just trying to price long-time users out of their existence. I supported and encouraged others to join Sonic for so many years and this is the pat on the back that I get.
by ngufra » Fri Feb 02, 2024 6:32 pm
My latest bill for fiber service in Albany was $75. 55.
Using my own router. If you stop renting it your can save a little but then they may charge you if they need to come and find the issue is in your equipement/wiring after the ONT
by cakewalk » Fri Feb 02, 2024 11:16 pm
I understand the pricing breakdown. I've been with Sonic continuously since 2010. I've recommended their service to friends and neighbors. I used to happily post on ND, etc about how happy I was with the service.

Given the extensive problems we've had here, there's no way I'd not rent the modem from them. Renting the modem gives you 'inside the house' repairs because they will charge to do any work inside the house. But most importantly, it helps because otherwise AT&T can just say "Oh.. it's the modem. Case Closed." I know. They have done that in the past. Inside the house repairs at least gets Sonic on-site on the phone with AT&T, saying "Nope. It's not the modem" which, depending on the experience level of the AT&T tech, sometimes helps a bit. Sometimes.

Sonic actually stopped selling DSL because AT&T's lack of support was the source for all their negative reviews.

The problems are *not* with the modem and we've had to have the homerun replaced multiple times. The problem is the equipment that AT&T doesn't want to maintain that gets freaked out if it rains. Or if it's windy. Or if it's the least little bit damp or if it gets too hot. And AT&T places the blame on Sonic because some of the equipment is theirs but in AT&T's locations.

Even removing the $9.50 modem rental, $55 per month for DSL that hasn't been able to maintain a steady connection for over a year is beyond reasonable. We get at best, 10mbps down / 0.8mbps up and that's on a good day, with no wind, no rain, etc.

Sonic has had so many techs to our place that I know how they like their coffee, their preferred setting on the massage chair, the way they like their eggs cooked, etc.

I guess I'll be able to say "I knew Sonic when..." because they're still "just a few miles away with their Fiber rollout."
by brandonc » Mon Feb 05, 2024 2:44 pm
cakewalk wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2024 5:59 pm Nope. They're just raising prices on them. My bill is now more than $100 per month. Fiber ain't coming fast enough. I think they're just trying to price long-time users out of their existence. I supported and encouraged others to join Sonic for so many years and this is the pat on the back that I get.
I understand the frustration there. In your case, you're paying for our Fusion DSL and an additional phone service, which doubles the voice taxes, resulting in the $100/mo bill. The price for the Fusion DSL + Voice did increase by $5/mo (for $49.99/mo to $55/mo + taxes/fees). This is due to the fact that over time, more of our customers are upgrading their service to our Fiber service or leaving to another provider until our Fiber service reaches them, however AT&T doesn't bill us on a per-line basis. Rather, we still pay them a fixed amount to use their copper infrastructure and the less people we have using that service results in Sonic needing to overpay to continue to provide that service to our customers.

For the sake of example, let's say we had 10,000 customers using our DSL service and paid AT&T $500,000 for access to their infrastructure. By charging each customer $49.99/mo + taxes/fees for service, we could make a small profit per customer. However, in current day, let's say we now only have 9,000 customers using our DSL service at the same price point, but still need to pay AT&T $500,000. This means were now losing money for each DSL customer we have, which isn't sustainable for us long-term.

(Keep in mind these are only fictional numbers I made-up for the sake of example, but at scale that's what's essentially happening.)

Instead of just retiring the service altogether and leaving our DSL customers in a tough situation, we decided to raise the prices on the service as a whole to continue to attempt to make it a viable option for those who want to keep us as their ISP until we can eventually bring our Fiber to the area.

I do sincerely hope we can bring our Fiber to your area in the near future, so that we can migrate you over to our Fiber service and decrease your monthly bill. However, we completely understand if you need to look at cheaper options with other service providers in the meantime.

Kind regards,
Brandon C.
Community and Escalations
Sonic
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