abysmal speed

[kcrsl]

I'm up in the oakland hills, and I've been a customer for 2 years. Currently seeing speeds of 2.46 Mbps down/.74 up, never hit anything faster than FOUR Mbps down, and I just can't take it anymore. As much as I hate the idea of going to Comcast, I'm don't think I can stomach paying around 60$ a month for this abysmal service out of principle any longer... Isn't there anything I can do? How can I be a conscientious consumer and support a great local business like Sonic when I'm getting such terrible service in return?

[Guest]

Sonic just released a new service called FTTN. It's essentially reselling AT&T's U-Verse product but without datacaps and with 1 telephone line (VOIP). If it's supported in your neighborhood you will see much better speeds, although your telephone line will depend on your internet connection being up. You can call support and see if it's available.

[Guest]

I'm up in the oakland hills, and I've been a customer for 2 years. Currently seeing speeds of 2.46 Mbps down/.74 up, never hit anything faster than FOUR Mbps down, and I just can't take it anymore. As much as I hate the idea of going to Comcast, I'm don't think I can stomach paying around 60$ a month for this abysmal service out of principle any longer... Isn't there anything I can do? How can I be a conscientious consumer and support a great local business like Sonic when I'm getting such terrible service in return?

Fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) is widely available from AT&T, if you are close enough to an AT&T VRAD. Typical speeds for FTTN are up to 45mbps for two wire pair service, and about half that for single wire pair service.

Sonic.Net and DSL Extreme both offer AT&T resold FTTN service. They each apparently use the AT&T wire line distance database to determine your eligibility for FTTN service (as well as for CO service). Each of them have different rules for which services to offer to you. Sonic.Net also has faster services to offer one from the CO, using VDSL2+, if one is sufficiently close to the CO. (From the speeds that you report, it appears that your location would not qualify for VDSL2+ service.)

Sonic.Net's online availability tool is currently somewhat misleading in that regard, inasmuch as Sonic.Net will NOT OFFER ONE the FTTN VRAD service that one might be physically capable of receiving, unless you are ALSO far enough away from the CO (apparently roughly 8,000 feet or more by wire distance). Apparently, even if you contact Sonic.Net directly, they may not inform you that you could benefit from FTTN service, simply because they do not (currently) offer it to those less than about 8,000 feet or so from the CO. (If and when Sonic.Net may change its eligibility rules for FTTN service is a matter of speculation.)

Therefore, you should what determine what speeds the AT&T site and the DSL Extreme site show are available to you. If either of those sites show, say, 12mbps or more, then you are (almost certainly) able to be served by FTTN. (On the AT&T site, you may need to click on "show all plans" available to you, or something like that, to see the higher speed plans that are available at a given address.) (On the DSL Extreme site, be sure that you click on the right arrow to see the higher speed plans available at a given address.)

From the speeds that you have reported, it seems likely that you are over 8,000 feet from the CO. You should see what Sonic.Net shows for you at the Sonic.Net availability tool, at https://www.sonic.com/availability . Also, call Sonic.Net to see what the sales rep says is available to you, i.e., from Sonic.Net.

Also, check the various sites for other addresses in your neighborhood. If you have neighbors that have AT&T UVerse internet service, find out their speeds. Check your neighborhood to see if their is a nearby VRAD.

Of course, there is Comcast. That is somewhat like marrying a velociraptor. You do get more speed. However, on the other hand, you do get eaten.

[Christopher Guest]

Of course, there is Comcast. That is somewhat like marrying a velociraptor. You do get more speed. However, on the other hand, you do get eaten.

I'd liken it more to marrying Ron Jeremy, but the associated analogy is left to the reader.

[leeep]

As much as I hate the idea of going to Comcast, I'm don't think I can stomach paying around 60$ a month for this abysmal service out of principle any longer... Isn't there anything I can do? How can I be a conscientious consumer and support a great local business like Sonic when I'm getting such terrible service in return?

I totally feel your pain... but I'm trying very hard to stick to my guns and talk with my money sent to Sonic. I'm still dreaming one day they'll do a FTTH roll-out in my neighborhood... or perhaps Google Fiber might show up to save us all. I was hoping FTTN might bridge the gap in the near term, but so far, no love (5646' from the CO). I need to make a phone call to Sonic sales again to see if there is anything they can do for me, but X2 is probably the only option (which isn't a tremendous improvement by any measure...).

It's getting harder and harder every day though... I'm still chunking along at 4Mbps down on a good day, and barely 1Mbps up... it's pretty frustrating sometimes when I'm seeing my friends on Comcast with their 100Mbps download speeds.

[hhwong]

I totally feel your pain... but I'm trying very hard to stick to my guns and talk with my money sent to Sonic. I'm still dreaming one day they'll do a FTTH roll-out in my neighborhood... or perhaps Google Fiber might show up to save us all. I was hoping FTTN might bridge the gap in the near term, but so far, no love (5646' from the CO). I need to make a phone call to Sonic sales again to see if there is anything they can do for me, but X2 is probably the only option (which isn't a tremendous improvement by any measure...).

It's getting harder and harder every day though... I'm still chunking along at 4Mbps down on a good day, and barely 1Mbps up... it's pretty frustrating sometimes when I'm seeing my friends on Comcast with their 100Mbps download speeds.

If you really are only 5646 away from the CO, your speeds are lower than they should be. I'm over 9K+ from the CO and I am getting those download speeds (though my upload is lower).

[leeep]

It's getting harder and harder every day though... I'm still chunking along at 4Mbps down on a good day, and barely 1Mbps up... it's pretty frustrating sometimes when I'm seeing my friends on Comcast with their 100Mbps download speeds.

If you really are only 5646 away from the CO, your speeds are lower than they should be. I'm over 9K+ from the CO and I am getting those download speeds (though my upload is lower).

At install time, I was closer to 7Mbps, but a couple years back, my line degraded internally somehow and my modem only negotiates at 4Mbps now. I had Sonic tech support out on-site a couple times and they concluded it is still 7Mbps at the box, but something internal in the building has been damaged or otherwise degraded. Being in a condo complex, it is simply not practical for us to dig out the wiring between my unit and the telco closet to figure out what happened.

The joys of multi-unit dwellings.

[virtualmike]

Being in a condo complex, it is simply not practical for us to dig out the wiring between my unit and the telco closet to figure out what happened.

If the building was built after 1970 or so, there's a good chance there are multiple pairs of wires running from the telco closet to your unit. Those pairs likely also go through other units, too.

It's very possible that some other resident inadvertently compromised your pair. That happened to me when I lived in a multi-unit building ~10 years ago. I swapped my line to another pair and that resolved my situation.

If you don't have the experience and tools to do the pair swap yourself, you should be able to find someone who works for a telecommunications company who could complete the job in less than an hour (it took me about 20 minutes). If you're renting a modem from Sonic, that may be included in the service.

[leeep]

Being in a condo complex, it is simply not practical for us to dig out the wiring between my unit and the telco closet to figure out what happened.

If the building was built after 1970 or so, there's a good chance there are multiple pairs of wires running from the telco closet to your unit. Those pairs likely also go through other units, too.

It's very possible that some other resident inadvertently compromised your pair. That happened to me when I lived in a multi-unit building ~10 years ago. I swapped my line to another pair and that resolved my situation.

If you don't have the experience and tools to do the pair swap yourself, you should be able to find someone who works for a telecommunications company who could complete the job in less than an hour (it took me about 20 minutes). If you're renting a modem from Sonic, that may be included in the service.

Thanks for this info. I will check into it again with our property manager... sometimes maybe you just have to know the correct questions to ask. When I inquired about it a couple years back, they talked about how it would require expensive diagnosis equipment and access to the other units to trace the wires, yadda yadda yadda... I dropped the topic at the time since it was clear it would be prohibitively expensive.

Perhaps I need to revisit this with a bit more earnest.

[virtualmike]

It's not something that most condo management companies have the expertise and tools to handle. This used to be a "call the phone company" task, but now the "phone company" charges for it at rather high rates.

If the management company still balks, ask for permission to hire a qualified contractor on your own.