Dear Sonic Crew,
I've been a subscriber for the past 5 years, you had me at one flat rate when AT&T had multiple tier levels of which never boded well with me especially considering the differences were quite minor. You threw in phone line with it, gave me extras like long distance and extra perks such as caller ID when AT&T wanted to charge $15 extra just to make long distance calls whether or not I did and things like Caller ID, these were nickel and dime enhancements (well $3) at the time, such that AT&T would have cost more than $40 for a phone line with long distance and caller ID. You basically set the bar for how things should be given, those features AT&T was trying to sell don't cost anywhere close to justify their prices and you realized the costs are miniscule and customers shouldn't be "nickeled and dimed" to death. In this world populated by cell phones, things like long distance and caller ID are standard features, not something to milk as long as a company can. To give an analogy, AT&T was selling me that $5 soda in the movies because they new that they could, when you realize that the cup costs more than the cost of the soda that goes in it, and cups don't cost that much so I went to your theater and enjoyed all the free soda I wanted. I even got my parents on Sonic service, and they're old farts who do not like to change, people who AT&T absolute loves, people who AT&T are probably still charging rental fees on a phone from 50 years ago.
But times have changed, nothing you have done has affected this, I'm not upset about modem rental requirements, or 12 month contracts, unfortunately the problem is that nothing has changed. Every week or so I pop into these forums and read about various upgrades Sonic is doing, unfortunately as the weeks went on, I felt more and more isolated and alone, waiting for that email that said something new was coming, instead I got a email talking about upgrading my modem (but no changes in actual service) got lovely emails about how Sonic fights for the customer, and that kept me stringing along the way. But there came a point when that wasn't enough, first there was anger, then frustration, finally acceptance, and I accepted that I would not get what I want anytime soon so it was time to move on, speed was more important than things like customer service, "free" telephone lines, and other things. And I'm not talking a small difference in speed either, I'm talking differences that have a similar feel of going from dialup to DSL.
Now I don't live in some rural area, I live in San Francisco and while I realize as a large city there is some level of red tape that exists beyond that of a smaller city, I felt that things were just not progressing quick enough for me. Unfortunately I don't live in the tiny pocket of a neighborhood that is getting wired for fiber, and I have no illusions that fiber will ever come to my neighborhood. According to your tools I'm 7800 feet from a CO, so VDSL2 is never going to happen. And while there is a Uverse box less than 2 blocks from me, it's either not lit up, or it's supplying houses in a different direction. Houses in this city are crammed tight together too, in the span of 6 houses on my short block you'll have 2 houses in someplace like Brentwood, and I always thought that density was the solution, so enough was enough, 5Mbps was just not enough for me, and the suggestion that I pay $20 more (plus modem rental fees) to double that was laughable at best. So I have moved on, to where is irrelevant I'm not trying to steal customers away after all there apparently are many who post here who do get a fair share of speeds, I will say the speeds I get are so fast that any change after this will probably be a downgrade in speed unless fiber does come to my neighborhood, costs are comparable too minus the phone side of things, and I've decided I don't need a home phone (or some VoiP service may be what I go with).
The purpose of this post is not to brag about how much faster my service is, to give you the finger as I leave, or complain about your policies, although I will still criticize you for using Fusion adoption rates as the metric for deciding where to deploy super fast fiber is dumb ;) The purpose of this post, is to say goodbye, and to thank you for being who you are, and to hope that you continue to be who you are and hope that you become a major player in this region because having choice is a good thing for all consumers. You do everything better than any other company out there, everything except for speed, and I know you're working on upgrades, and I hope in 12 months when my promo pricing is over, speed has come to *MY* neighborhood (I don't care what people in the Sunset can get) then maybe I can once again proudly say I"m a Sonic customer (and then have people still go "who?" :))
Sincerely,
Mike - Happy former fusion customer since 2010.
I've been a subscriber for the past 5 years, you had me at one flat rate when AT&T had multiple tier levels of which never boded well with me especially considering the differences were quite minor. You threw in phone line with it, gave me extras like long distance and extra perks such as caller ID when AT&T wanted to charge $15 extra just to make long distance calls whether or not I did and things like Caller ID, these were nickel and dime enhancements (well $3) at the time, such that AT&T would have cost more than $40 for a phone line with long distance and caller ID. You basically set the bar for how things should be given, those features AT&T was trying to sell don't cost anywhere close to justify their prices and you realized the costs are miniscule and customers shouldn't be "nickeled and dimed" to death. In this world populated by cell phones, things like long distance and caller ID are standard features, not something to milk as long as a company can. To give an analogy, AT&T was selling me that $5 soda in the movies because they new that they could, when you realize that the cup costs more than the cost of the soda that goes in it, and cups don't cost that much so I went to your theater and enjoyed all the free soda I wanted. I even got my parents on Sonic service, and they're old farts who do not like to change, people who AT&T absolute loves, people who AT&T are probably still charging rental fees on a phone from 50 years ago.
But times have changed, nothing you have done has affected this, I'm not upset about modem rental requirements, or 12 month contracts, unfortunately the problem is that nothing has changed. Every week or so I pop into these forums and read about various upgrades Sonic is doing, unfortunately as the weeks went on, I felt more and more isolated and alone, waiting for that email that said something new was coming, instead I got a email talking about upgrading my modem (but no changes in actual service) got lovely emails about how Sonic fights for the customer, and that kept me stringing along the way. But there came a point when that wasn't enough, first there was anger, then frustration, finally acceptance, and I accepted that I would not get what I want anytime soon so it was time to move on, speed was more important than things like customer service, "free" telephone lines, and other things. And I'm not talking a small difference in speed either, I'm talking differences that have a similar feel of going from dialup to DSL.
Now I don't live in some rural area, I live in San Francisco and while I realize as a large city there is some level of red tape that exists beyond that of a smaller city, I felt that things were just not progressing quick enough for me. Unfortunately I don't live in the tiny pocket of a neighborhood that is getting wired for fiber, and I have no illusions that fiber will ever come to my neighborhood. According to your tools I'm 7800 feet from a CO, so VDSL2 is never going to happen. And while there is a Uverse box less than 2 blocks from me, it's either not lit up, or it's supplying houses in a different direction. Houses in this city are crammed tight together too, in the span of 6 houses on my short block you'll have 2 houses in someplace like Brentwood, and I always thought that density was the solution, so enough was enough, 5Mbps was just not enough for me, and the suggestion that I pay $20 more (plus modem rental fees) to double that was laughable at best. So I have moved on, to where is irrelevant I'm not trying to steal customers away after all there apparently are many who post here who do get a fair share of speeds, I will say the speeds I get are so fast that any change after this will probably be a downgrade in speed unless fiber does come to my neighborhood, costs are comparable too minus the phone side of things, and I've decided I don't need a home phone (or some VoiP service may be what I go with).
The purpose of this post is not to brag about how much faster my service is, to give you the finger as I leave, or complain about your policies, although I will still criticize you for using Fusion adoption rates as the metric for deciding where to deploy super fast fiber is dumb ;) The purpose of this post, is to say goodbye, and to thank you for being who you are, and to hope that you continue to be who you are and hope that you become a major player in this region because having choice is a good thing for all consumers. You do everything better than any other company out there, everything except for speed, and I know you're working on upgrades, and I hope in 12 months when my promo pricing is over, speed has come to *MY* neighborhood (I don't care what people in the Sunset can get) then maybe I can once again proudly say I"m a Sonic customer (and then have people still go "who?" :))
Sincerely,
Mike - Happy former fusion customer since 2010.
