Fusion price increase and fiber expansion

[andrewlevit]

Dane, while I understand why you are increasing the price I must say that it is a bad idea and is being poorly executed.

I am very happy with my fiber connection and do not mind paying an extra $120 per year for what I get.
However, when I had a 20 Mbps plan with Sonic it was already not worth the $40+ I was paying monthly in terms of speed/price. My speeds were about 4-10 Mbsp in the outer sunset, which was totally unacceptable with several people in the house all trying to use the bandwidth at the same time. This caused me to begrudgingly switch to Comcast for 2 years while waiting for Sonic to finally roll out fiber on my street. I will admit that the excellent tech support and customer service were a huge factor for why I did stay with Sonic for a long time prior to finally making the switch to Concast, and also why I signed up for Sonic the same day they started providing fiber on my street.

It is unfair to charge those without fiber an extra $10 per month on an already bad deal (like many pointed out on this thread). Many of the folks without fiber are likely only sticking around with because they want to support Sonic and its goals, despise ATT and Comcast, or both.

Additionally, a price increase like this needs to be made more public. I only found it on this forum by random chance.

[steelgaze]

I think one of the underlying reasons for a straight up base cost increase is that too many people are 'opting out' of the 10 dollar PACE rental. That service probably has a good margin but not too many people are signing up so they have to just force it down people's throat another way.

[jimstinnett]

I recently signed up for this service, which will be available in my area in March, I authorized a debit on my credit card to confirm my agreement to contract with Sonic.

I stumbled on the announcement of this price increase by pure chance, there was no official correspondence from Sonic on this subject.


It "feels" like a bait and switch deal. Not saying it IS, but it feels like it. Certainly Sonic knew they were increasing the price when. I signed up, but didn't disclose that.

If this is how our relationship starts, it doesn't seem like it will be any better than how Comcast has treated me. Comcast has throttled bandwidth, raised prices and played a lot of games with billing, so it was hopeful to hear there would be an alterrnate source of broadband service in my neighborhood.

Happy New Year?

[steelgaze]

If you just signed up, you are under a 12 month price contract so you will not see the price increase, yet.

EDIT: Oh.. but you dont start until march.. they might lock in the 40/month rate. Might as well join the queue and call support.

[Guest]

I think one of the underlying reasons for a straight up base cost increase is that too many people are 'opting out' of the 10 dollar PACE rental. That service probably has a good margin but not too many people are signing up so they have to just force it down people's throat another way.

I never had an option to opt out of the PACE rental, it's been a required $10/mo since I got X2 a year ago

[pockyken007]

this price increase blows. announcing it in a forum blows.
This is the second unannounced price increase by sonic.
as other threads noted, $3-$4 per MB.
am looking elsewhere.

As a matter of fact sonic announced it in the e-mail as well as regular snail mail ( at least I got it ) so yeah ... and please point the $3-$4 increase per mb would love to see that one .

[pockyken007]

I think one of the underlying reasons for a straight up base cost increase is that too many people are 'opting out' of the 10 dollar PACE rental. That service probably has a good margin but not too many people are signing up so they have to just force it down people's throat another way.

I disagree , I think the underlying reason is the cost of massive scale roll out of fiber and continuation of the said roll out without having to wait for return on the investment ( the fees from subscribers ) , I believe the idea that Dane has is that once the ball is rolling , keep it rolling ( which is why the capital is needed and increase is being implemented ) it makes perfect sense from the business point of view , sadly it's badly implemented and leaves a lot of questions and speculations open for debate.

Dane I hope you will address some of the questions and speculations in coming weeks and hopefully show the community that you listened and took the comments in here as a guideline as to where the sonic community stands on this issue .

[kgc]

As a matter of fact sonic announced it in the e-mail as well as regular snail mail ( at least I got it )

Customers will or have already received notice of the price change along with their invoice or receipt for payment a minimum of 30 days before their price change is effective. That notice referred to this forum post.

[steelgaze]

I never had an option to opt out of the PACE rental, it's been a required $10/mo since I got X2 a year ago

FTTN isthe only service where you are required to rent a modem. You might be able to argue that normal fusion x2 might also fall in this case, but it is possible to use alternative hardware, but more costly than a 'regular' non-bonded dsl signal.

[pockyken007]

The funny thing is that even though people use 3rd party hardware for their internet needs when shit doesn't work Sonic still does it's best effort to help these people out instead of just simply saying " you chose to run with your own shit , you deal with your own shit " ... if they were as strict about the rules and regulations as some of the comments in this thread are ...