Upgrade to 10GB in existing 1GB areas Apr 2023 update?

[dane]

Agree. I waited for over a decade to get Sonic fiber. And now I've been waiting for a few years to upgrade to 10G.

No emails or flyers were ever sent out to gauge interest in 10G upgrades. I think only people who come here on the forums know about the upgrade request button -- that's an extremely small subset of customers.

AT&T is now offering 2Gbps and 5Gbps service all over the Bay Area. As a former subscriber, I have existing AT&T fiber in my home, but their service required the use of their router, which was a big turn-off, so sticking with Sonic would be ideal.

We have only promoted the upgrade option to the sites where the core network is capable and the edge equipment is XGS-PON already. These are mostly sites in Oakland and some limited San Francisco regions. Because the upgrade will take time and planning, we don't want to get lots of customers in queue and waiting when it's going to take a while.

And we haven't seen much competitive pressure from 2 and 5Gbps offerings because those products are just so darned expensive. While 10Gbps is awesome to have, it's not worth paying a huge monthly premium for it while most consumer devices are 1Gbps or limited by WiFi speeds anyway. Don't worry, in the long run we will beat everyone on both performance and price.

[dane]

Their first deployment of fiber is only capable of 1Gb. Even if Sonic wanted to offer 2.5, 5Gb, they'd still need to upgrade their network. Whatever the competitors are offering is irrelevant. So, comparing a monopoly to Sonic is idiotic.

It's not the fiber that sets the speed, it's just the electronics at the end. The optical line terminal in the central office and the optical network unit/terminal in the home. Fiber will last and meet our needs for at least half a century, with the electronics on the ends being occasionally swapped out for faster ones.

But yes, while today the majority of our network is XGS-PON and delivers 10Gbps, the older portion is running GPON equipment while is 1Gbps capable. We've got to swap out those endpoints (and make various supporting core and power and cooling upgrades) to roll out 10G in the rest of the network.

[ken830]

Agree. I waited for over a decade to get Sonic fiber. And now I've been waiting for a few years to upgrade to 10G.

No emails or flyers were ever sent out to gauge interest in 10G upgrades. I think only people who come here on the forums know about the upgrade request button -- that's an extremely small subset of customers.

AT&T is now offering 2Gbps and 5Gbps service all over the Bay Area. As a former subscriber, I have existing AT&T fiber in my home, but their service required the use of their router, which was a big turn-off, so sticking with Sonic would be ideal.

We have only promoted the upgrade option to the sites where the core network is capable and the edge equipment is XGS-PON already. These are mostly sites in Oakland and some limited San Francisco regions. Because the upgrade will take time and planning, we don't want to get lots of customers in queue and waiting when it's going to take a while.

And we haven't seen much competitive pressure from 2 and 5Gbps offerings because those products are just so darned expensive. While 10Gbps is awesome to have, it's not worth paying a huge monthly premium for it while most consumer devices are 1Gbps or limited by WiFi speeds anyway. Don't worry, in the long run we will beat everyone on both performance and price.

Thanks for the reply. Allow me to vent a bit and maybe you could correct any misunderstanding I may have:

I waited over a decade for Sonic. I pre-ordered as soon as possible and waited ~2 years during construction phase and checked in daily with e-mail alerts to my phone. I finally received the e-mail notification on February 10, 2021 4:33PM and I placed the order immediately and by 4:52PM, I had an appointment for a technician to come out. 1G service for $50/mo. With the required voice line fees, it was ~$62/mo. Just months later (later in 2021), I hear Sonic was deploying 10G service in other areas for less (no voice required). That was frustrating to learn, but I resolved to being patient.

Today, my 1G service is $60/mo and the required voice line fees make it $74/mo. AT&T fiber (which I had while waiting for Sonic) is offering 1G service for $55/mo + fees, so probably just a bit cheaper than Sonic. However, their 2G service is $145/mo + fees and their 5G service is $245/mo + fees. Yes, these are significantly more than Sonic's 10G service, but I still can't get 10G from Sonic. And $145+fees is about 2x my current $74 Sonic service for 2x the speed. The 5G service is even better in the speed-per-dollar equation compared to what I can get from Sonic. So, in a way, they are competitive for many of us.

You also say that "in the long run [Sonic] will beat everyone on both performance and price," but what is considered the long run? We've been waiting for 3 years and it would be nice to have some idea of the time scale. Are we talking about within 5 years? 10 years? Or more? Help us understand the hold-up. The only silver lining is that I continue to hold-off on my network equipment upgrades while prices continue to drop, which saves me money.

Finally, I believe what adds to the frustration the most is the fact that we are required to have the voice service on 1G service but not 10G service. Being able to remove that requirement would make the wait much more tolerable to be stuck on 1G. I wouldn't mind paying for it if I can access 10G service. But the way things are, it's the exact opposite.

I will say that I love the service & reliability I get from Sonic. And I love to support a local business over AT&T. So I am willing to pay a premium to stay with Sonic and I have been doing so.

[adambier]

But yes, while today the majority of our network is XGS-PON and delivers 10Gbps, the older portion is running GPON equipment while is 1Gbps capable. We've got to swap out those endpoints (and make various supporting core and power and cooling upgrades) to roll out 10G in the rest of the network.

It feels like this has been stuck in limbo for a couple years, and my neighbors using Sonic (of which there are quite a few!) may not have any idea that they should express their interest in a service upgrade through the member portal.

Is there any possibility of one or more customers "sponsoring" the 1G-->10G GPONs upgrades? It's potentially worth it to me.

Or an ETA would be nice.

[adambier]

Really hoping someone (dane?) can comment further on this. It's a "please take my money!" situation from my perspective.

[mjuster458]

I live in 94707 and an ATT person just came by offering $55/month for 1GB plus fees, $200 gift card and some price lock for 5 years. They said Sonic uses their fiber lines (which isn't true to my knowledge) and they are pretty aggressively selling.

I made the original post over 2.5 years ago and I have to admit to being frustrated with the lack of progress toward 10gb upgrades in our neighborhood. This is an area where Sonic can stand out from ATT. I suspect my neighbors will consider switching for lower bills as-is