Sonic.net

Guest wrote:

bobrk wrote:So much for that "freebie," LOL.

Sorry!

Well, after that post appeared, I was contacted by Sonic support, and they mentioned that my ATA wasn't registered (I had returned the original one). I sent them the MAC and S/N of my current box, and they responded by charging me rent on my ATA at a 100% discount for the next year.

These types of things are why I love Sonic.

bobrk wrote:they responded by charging me rent on my ATA at a 100% discount for the next year.

Good to hear it worked out for you.

$76/mo for 50Mbps in my area. Yeah I'd rather put up with comcast or att...sigh

Want to chime in with my support - on top of the unnecessary voice line subscriber charges, dropping the rental modem drops the 10$ promotional discount. What? I understand tech support is easier the more people use the standard modem but give us an option to buy it out-right rather than fleecing us each month for it. And this is something I wish I had known before we invested in our own DSL modem (aka wasting 25$).

I want to support a smaller telecom company, but these fees and regulations are making me lose that warm fuzzy feeling fast.

Just chiming in here, I was recently in Europe and really enjoyed being able to use my Sonic phone line anytime I was on Wi-Fi (along with the Sonic VPN) using the Accession app on my iPhone.

I could call within Europe for free but also could call back home for free as well. I realize this may be a bit of an edge case, but just thought I'd share my thoughts.

I agree the phone line should be an optional choice. Renting the modem doesn't bother me as much because modems do sometimes fry or go outdated and it's nice to be able to just request a new one or whatever rather than having to go out and buy one, but I can see where some may not like that too.

sometown wrote:My bill is $61.97. That's a 155% of the advertised price. $9.50 of that goes to the required router, but $12.68 of that is for the phone service that I didn't order and that I don't want. I haven't had a land-line in almost 20 years. The Sonic bill is an insult. The worst is the "Voice Federal Subscriber Line Charge Fee" which sounds like something the government charges, but it isn't. That charge is the maximum amount a company is allowed to add to their bill, by choice, for allowing customers to be connected to their phone lines, even if you don't connect a phone. https://consumerist.com/2007/06/26/what ... i-buck-it/

I really want to like you Sonic, but this is a scam, up and down.

I live in grass valley, CA and have smarter broadband. No fiber but a great local Internet provider. My bill is 49.00 + 5.95 to rent the modem/router, it's not mandatory I have opted-in for the rental. No other taxes, fees, etc. Why can't sonic just make it that simple?

Does your ISP provide service outside Grass Valley?

virtualmike wrote:Does your ISP provide service outside Grass Valley?

I am interested to switch too for very similar reasons.

Just go to their website and check out their service area and rates. They're a WISP with a data cap.

http://smarterbroadband.com/Availability.htm
http://smarterbroadband.com/Pricing.htm

Basic Ultimate: $49; 6 Mbps down; 1.5 Mbps up; 40 GB cap
Basic Plus: $49; 2 Mbps down; 256 Kbps up; 20 GB cap

There's a major difference. That ISP is wireless, so the regulations and taxation are completely different than for Sonic's service, where there's a physical connection.

In addition, that area is a much smaller footprint than Sonic's service territory. Even if the service weren't wireless, it would be much easier to have consistent pricing that incorporates an average cost of taxes/fees within the region.

Also consider the much lower speeds and usage caps.