Disable Voice to avoid $13 tax

General discussions and other topics.
51 posts Page 5 of 6
by mpv » Thu Jan 23, 2020 10:38 am
It has absolutely nothing to do with the sales team explaining or not explaining taxes - although that is quite obviously not happening, the gigantic ad on the Sonic homepage states "$40/month" and then the "plus taxes and fees" in the small text that nobody reads. Something something marketing, but it's dishonest as heck.

Again, at the end of the day you're charging customers significantly more for FTTN than competitors.

$65 all in for 25Mbps/2Mbps is, frankly, awful. Comcast offers 100Mbps for $55. I can provide my own modem, my own access point, and have full control over my home network without being forced to use the absolutely horrible Pace modem Sonic requires.

So, again, because you are not actually replying to anybody. Let's recap what's available if you do NOT have access to Gig Fiber:

FTTN X1 - ~$65 depending on exact taxes - $50 service, $6.50 modem rental, $6.50 ATA rental, various phone taxes, 25Mbps down
FTTN X2 - ~$90 depending on exact taxes - $70 service, $9.50 modem rental, $6.50 ATA rental, various phone taxes, 50Mbps down

I don't like Comcast nor do I want to use their service. However, 100Mbps for $55 on a non-promo deal, or $35 on promo simply beats the pants off of Sonic's offering. Twice the speed for less than half of the cost.

What's the upside to staying with Sonic?
by amayfield » Thu Jan 23, 2020 11:53 am
Well you are comparing the pricing of our IPBB products (which is an AT&T enterprise product we resell) with Comcast's on network offering. Pricing for our on network 1,000Mbps Fiber is more closely aligned with the Comcast example you've provided. Our overhead for providing a resold service is higher than the company providing service over their own infrastructure. So our pricing for the resold products we offer will likely always be more expensive than the offerings from the incumbent carrier. We price the service as competitively as we can.

Because of this we need to differentiate ourselves from the incumbent's offerings and add value to the product we are providing. The two main ways we are doing that is by bundling a pretty robust voice offering with the internet service, and by providing really good customer service. We also don't have data caps or employ traffic shaping, and provide a VPN service at no additional charge for additional privacy.

The actual added value of those services will vary from customer to customer depending on their wants and needs. Maybe they add no value for you and if that is the case it makes sense for you to consider your options.
Andrew M.
Community & Escalations Manager
Sonic
by mpv » Fri Jan 24, 2020 11:29 am
The entire premise of this thread is that users do not want or need the phone line, yet you still want to say that it's an added value over and over again. How tone deaf.

I am comparing the value of the Sonic offering that is available for the majority of customers to what is also available at that location.
by rg1 » Wed Feb 12, 2020 3:36 pm
mpv -- like several other Sonic folks have observed on these forums over these past couple years, the value of the FTTNx1 offering is significantly weakened/eroded by the added charges for the ATA rental and the monthly service cost for the VoIP service. The fact that it takes the monthly cost up from $40 to $65, i.e. a whopping 62.5% is especially galling to those of us who watch our utility expenses carefully.
But... a credible alternative may be arriving soon!
T-Mobile's $50 for 50Mbps with no hidden fees will be a smash hit for long-suffering folks like us.
And when it does, I expect that many hundreds of Sonic customers will lose their patience and walk out the door.
by claykeer4 » Tue Feb 25, 2020 1:50 am
The distasteful required hardware "rental" policies, both for the AT&T provided "residential gateway" and the separate voice ATA device, are the main things holding me back from upgrading to at 100 Mbps F2 Sonic-resold AT&T FTTH.

----------------------
On the flip side, I do understand that 95% of customers aren't tech savvy, don't really care that much, need to be hand-held through tech support & this is facilitated by standardized hardware (even if it's low-quality.)

The point made in an earlier post rings true:
With Sonic growing as a company and wanting to expand out our Fiber services it would be a lot more challenging if we were only an internet provider to get our Fiber services to locations like Petaluma, Brentwood, Oakland and SF.


Yes, there is a dense and tangled thicket of telecom regulations built up over the past 80+ years of service and the regs haven't kept pace with the technological developments. All customer complaints aside, simply having the status of being "a telecom carrier" (i.e. phone service provider) probably puts Sonic on considerably better footing in many arcane matters surrounding fed/state/local telecom regulations.

Maybe an exhaustive deep-dive 10-page blog post from Sonic explaining some of these dynamics might help the anti-"landline" (if it can even be called that anymore) crowd understand better why Sonic hasn't decided to unbundle phone & internet service yet.
by espier » Tue Feb 25, 2020 6:39 pm
Listening carefully to Dane's interview on the Internet History Podcast a while back, it sounded a lot like Sonic only gets access to the infrastructure if it's a "telecom company" and to be a telecom company it needs to offer phone service.

I'd rather pay less, but I'll take the hit in order to get the fiber service and to support a company like Sonic.
by jonridley » Mon Jun 08, 2020 2:03 pm
The door-to-door salesperson lied to me when I signed up for Sonic Fusion Fiber RG Internet service in Petaluma. My first question was specifically: "what is the out-the-door cost after all taxes and fees?" -- I was told it would cost under $45 after all taxes and fees and would only cost more after 12 months once the modem rental fees kicked in, however, I could provide my own modem to avoid those fees. Our modem won't even send stable wifi signal 40 feet (through one wall) to our bedroom - speeds according to Sonic.net/speedtest are 63.7 Mbps download and 31.9 upload. The wifi upload and download speeds right next to the modem are 190.36 Mbps Download and 128.18 Upload. I ran the tests several times and results are similar in both locations every time. My monthly bill is $59.90 not including the modem rental. I am unhappy with the price difference quoted by the salesperson.
by omerkhawar » Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:15 am
I would like to second this unbundling of voice; where can we 'voice' our concerns; with the FCC? Broadband by itself should qualify as a 'telecom' company. Paying all these fees when as a customer I don't want or need the voice line is def. frustrating. I get that sonic has to work in the space it's given by the FCC - but let's change the rules!
by capincetich » Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:07 am
+1 and bump to the top

Dear Sonic - PLEASE allow us to buy only the internet connection. I do not want or use the Voice feature. I don't want to pay the extra fees associated with it and want to drop it ASAP and get a refund for the months I have continually requested this change. In signing up, the voice option "is free". That's deceptive. Your operation is deceptive and I don't appreciate that. I will follow the advice of the person I just spoke to on the phone and leave lots of messages here, on social media, and on Yelp to alert others of this deceptive business model.
Have a great day!
by ikana » Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:05 am
Maybe Sonic isn't going to debundle this for everyone who don't use it, what are they gonna do for people who not only find it useless but can't make it come into use because they're disabled (being deaf for example)?
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