It's called a pre-order for a reason. Tons of industries do it. Usually, they deliver on time; but it's not unheard of for them not to. The car industry takes preorders for new models and doesn't always deliver on time. Tesla's famous for this. The ridiculous Cybertruck took forever (and let's not even talk about true level 5 autonomy). Pre-ordered books, video games, game consoles, etc. get delayed all the time.
In Sonic's case, they almost always offer a discount if you pre-order (I got a month or two free and $10/mo off for a year). The completion date is their best estimate for how long construction will take. However, cities often have permitting delays that are impossible to predict. Just look at how long it's taken Small Change to open up in Temescal. They started in Sept '22, estimated it would open in Dec of that year, and it's still not open in May '24. With that said, I totally understand someone's frustration when they pre-order service and it takes longer than the estimate. But hey, you're also getting a discount for doing so and you're getting incredible service in the end.
Speaking of which, Sonic simply has the best internet service in the Bay Area bar none. All of the new areas are 10G for $50/mo. Best of all, you get a standard ONT which you can plug your own router into; or if you prefer, you can rent a router from them to plug into the ONT. On top of that, Sonic has best in the business privacy protections. They don't sell your browsing history to anyone or log your connected devices. The service is incredibly reliable too.
Now let's look at the competition (FYI, I've had all three services Comcast/AT&T Fiber/Sonic 10G for multiple years at my home):
AT&T Fiber:
Frankly, I've been pretty impressed by their rollout. They're a tiny ISP compared to AT&T and Comcast and they're rolling out seriously impressive fiber service across most of the Bay Area. For comparison, my street has had AT&T Fiber for the last 6 years. Here's the rub, AT&T Fiber only covers part of our block. My nextdoor neighbors can't order it despite the fact the PFP is in eyesight. Also, several of the streets in our neighborhood still don't have it despite the fact our neighborhood is entirely serviced by poles. When Sonic rolled out service in our neighborhood, they hit every single street.
I'm sorry you're frustrated. I do get it. I just want to offer a different perspective on this from someone who's been through it all with Sonic, AT&T, and Comcast. Good luck and enjoy it when it finally does happen!!!
In Sonic's case, they almost always offer a discount if you pre-order (I got a month or two free and $10/mo off for a year). The completion date is their best estimate for how long construction will take. However, cities often have permitting delays that are impossible to predict. Just look at how long it's taken Small Change to open up in Temescal. They started in Sept '22, estimated it would open in Dec of that year, and it's still not open in May '24. With that said, I totally understand someone's frustration when they pre-order service and it takes longer than the estimate. But hey, you're also getting a discount for doing so and you're getting incredible service in the end.
Speaking of which, Sonic simply has the best internet service in the Bay Area bar none. All of the new areas are 10G for $50/mo. Best of all, you get a standard ONT which you can plug your own router into; or if you prefer, you can rent a router from them to plug into the ONT. On top of that, Sonic has best in the business privacy protections. They don't sell your browsing history to anyone or log your connected devices. The service is incredibly reliable too.
Now let's look at the competition (FYI, I've had all three services Comcast/AT&T Fiber/Sonic 10G for multiple years at my home):
AT&T Fiber:
- They sell your browsing data to third parties.
- If you use their gateway as your router, they also log all of the devices that you have connected to it in their central databases. It's unclear if they sell that data.
- They don't install a simple ONT. Instead, you have to use their Gateway which doesn't offer a true pass through mode. For most people who run their own gateway, this doesn't cause any issues. For a small subset, it does. But you still have to waste power running that gateway and it takes up quite a bit more room than an ONT. There's also no simple way to bypass their newer gateway, which is what all new installs are getting.
- Their 300M symmetrical service costs more than Sonic's 10G service. Sonic is $50/mo. AT&T 300M is $55/mo. AT&T 1G is $80/mo. So, even if you're in an older Sonic Fiber area that requires a phone line; it's still cheaper than AT&T 1G fiber. Sonic is also working on upgrading those areas to 10G, upon which time you can drop the phone line.
- It's not all bad though since their fiber service is extremely reliable. Way better than Comcast.
- They sell your browsing data to third parties.
- If you use their gateway as your router, they also log all of the devices that you have connected to it in their central databases. It's unclear if they sell that data.
- Their 1G service isn't really comparable since it only offers 1G download and 100M upload and is by far the most expense of the three services.
- In fact, none of their services offer symmetrical upload, and the upload speeds are a joke on the lower tiers.
- Reliability is vastly inferior to the fiber services offered by Sonic or AT&T.
Frankly, I've been pretty impressed by their rollout. They're a tiny ISP compared to AT&T and Comcast and they're rolling out seriously impressive fiber service across most of the Bay Area. For comparison, my street has had AT&T Fiber for the last 6 years. Here's the rub, AT&T Fiber only covers part of our block. My nextdoor neighbors can't order it despite the fact the PFP is in eyesight. Also, several of the streets in our neighborhood still don't have it despite the fact our neighborhood is entirely serviced by poles. When Sonic rolled out service in our neighborhood, they hit every single street.
I'm sorry you're frustrated. I do get it. I just want to offer a different perspective on this from someone who's been through it all with Sonic, AT&T, and Comcast. Good luck and enjoy it when it finally does happen!!!
