Fusion price increase and fiber expansion

[L3g3nd]

A few months ago when those dish ads start popping up on facebook for Sonic, i was thinking, "...oh, hereee weee gooo"

I rarely look at my Sonic bill, because I assume it will always be around $80. For some odd reason I decide to look thoroughly today and caught the message.

Despite all the shit Att and Comcast does, I personally never had issues. Going to Sonic I really had no gains, but I wanted to support fellow consumers. I got a friend to join Sonic who got Fiber right off the bat.

$10 is no big deal, but that is also $10 that I work to earn. I live in D10 of SF one of the poorer neighborhoods, so I know I will never see that service come. I will not be cancelling immediately, but for sure looking at other options and most likely leaving once things settle down for me.

Keep up the good work Sonic. I will keep reccomending you guys to others who can benefit from the faster service.

[mpedroia]

Wow, what a surprise, I had no idea....I receive MOTD e-mails from Sonic for every hiccup that occurs but when a 25% price increase is enacted, I don't receive anything. If not for the additional text in the monthly billing receipt, I wouldn't have known until my credit card had an increased charge. I would ready the telephones, not many people read their billing statement with all the PUC required information so you are likely to have a lot of customers asking "what's up?"

Sonic recently sent me a survey. There are A LOT of great things to say about Sonic. Having been a customer since 1996, I've benefited from them but I still have an issue with the modem "rental" fee for Fusion. The response to my survey caused a response from Sonic and I bantered back-forth with them over the justification, the need, the cost, etc... Basically, it's called a "rental" but you are really paying enough to buy it outright, many times over.

NOTE TO SONIC, with your 25% price increase, which surely took a lot of internal evaluation and maneuvering before you (quietly) rolled it out, maybe it's time to re-evaluate the "rental" fee because (I feel) that for $120.00 a year, I should be getting a new modem every year. Or, better, perhaps your "rental" fee should be rolled back to something a bit more reasonable since in my case, this modem has been in operation for years and has not needed replacement (one of the reasons they say we need to pay a rental fee) OR you could let your customers pay for the "rental" for a certain amount of time or until you collect a certain amount of $$ and then it becomes the customers modem (problem/risk).

If you call and discuss buying your own, Sonic is quick to tell you how they will not configure it for you and there is NO support for the modem and you'll even lose your "inside wiring" support in your house which actually is just a linkage they have made as an incentive to keep paying the "fee".

Here is another way to solve this. What if Sonic had a bin of these Pace 4111n modems in their lobby, they were configured by Sonic staff. Sonic buys them in bulk for $100.00 (probably less) and then charges a 25.00 fee for their local configuration, to pay for the person who has to inventory and stock the bin and a portion of the $25.00 goes for admin staff to update the modem info on our accounts.

Sonic would be compensated for their time to administer this program and the customers who were willing to risk it, could buy their own Sonic Provided Modem and self-install. If your Sonic Provided Modem dies in 9 months, you need to go to the bin and buy another. If it dies in 4 years, you need to go to the bin and buy another.

The difference between the current "rental" system and the bin system is that for those of us who are willing to risk a hardware failure, we are relieved of this "fee" On my end, this Pace 4111n has been in service for 3-4 years meaning Sonic has collected $360-$480 dollars and they will be collecting $10.00 month additional until it craps out.

Sonic needs to be compensated for their reasonable costs however, IMO, the modem rental fee has turned into a profit center and it is probably subsidizing other expenses.

How about giving a bit of that back to the customers? We could use it to pay the 25% rate increase.

Thanks for all the great things you do, you could do a bit better here.

[Guest]

"$10 is no big deal."

That's exactly what affluent executives say, sitting around the conference table. I know.

It looks like all I'm doing is paying 25% more to subsidize someone else's fast fiber. Well, good for them. Some of us are old enough that we'll likely be dead before it ever rolls out to our neighborhoods.

Sonic's starry-eyed little business model fails to take into account one variable - humans. Read these comments. Maybe the model is sustainable with such a growing undercurrent of dissatisfaction (about the 25% jack-up as well as just the general corporate change). Or maybe it isn't, and in three to five years, when those executives have to decide to sell, they'll wonder what happened.

But if the dissatisfaction was in fact incorporated into the model as acceptable loss, then You became Them.

And after all, Sonic got away with it with the forever modem rental scam. Lots of comments then, but to no avail (this is being posted over a modem I've now paid 500% of retail for).

On the other hand, a company that has to suddenly increase prices by that much is in trouble and has discovered it can't afford to be who it wanted to be. And of course, it will present its rationale otherwise, else everyone splits and the cash flow collapses further, faster.

15-year Sonic customer. My loyalty thus rewarded, I'll be reconsidering alternatives now.

[phr]

I never would have found that "notice" connected with the autobill email except that people here mentioned it. It's really buried. Compare against other email Sonic sends out now and then like those surveys. There will be a lot of surprised subscribers.

For people in apartments, Monkeybrains has to get permission from the landlord to install anything, which doesn't sound promising in rent stabilized buildings since they like tenant attrition. I expect I'll stick with Sonic for at least another month while I check out alternatives, but it's annoying. What I think everyone has figured out is that the neighborhoods getting the slowest DSL service will in all likelihood also be the last ones to get fiber.

I guess I gotta find out whether Verizon LTE works in here. Yeah it's a lot less bandwidth per month but I'm online way too much anyway. When I want a big download I can do it at the library or whatever. The rest of the time it will be good to get outside more.

[[email protected]]

Like others, I only accidently stumbled upon the price increase notice when going to archive my emailed invoice. I normally don't bother reading my invoices--fortunately, this time I did. I live in SF in the Upper Haight / Cole Valley area on an east-west street, so I presume that means I will not be getting fiber anytime soon. Because of my distance to the CO, I only get about 4mbs down, which is barely passable.

Okay, confession time--14 months ago, my roommate finally tired of our abysmal speeds and signed up us for a 100 mbs package with Comcast. I secretly kept the Sonic.net account because I wanted to continue to support this company and its expansion plans. The DSL modem has been disconnected for months. Anyways...

With the increase, I will now be paying another $120 (about $750 total) per year for a service that I am not even using. I would like to continue to support Sonic, but I really can't justify it. When fiber comes to my area, I will happily switch back and pony up a rate that is justified by the service and competitive (when other factors are taken into account) with the competition. However, after 5 1/2 years of support, I think it's time for someone else to carry this torch.

[pockyken007]

Paying an extra $120 a year so some rich nutter can cruise at fiber speed just isn't in the cards, Dane.

let me fix this for you ... paying 10$ extra while having fiber so some poor peasant can hope to get his fiber just isn't in the cards Toddfx. See I can say the same thing about my price increase ... and yet I am actually happy to help out with the roll out of fiber to new neighborhoods if everybody thought like you then no progress would be ever made ...

[Loophole]

Ive tried supporting Sonic even they I could get a faster speed for less money elsewhere. Ive been with sonic for 10 or so years ( probably longer) now- but with this latest increase I will have to go elsewhere.
Id gladly pay the increased rate for fiber- or even faster DSL service- but I am currently paying almost $90 for a bonded business account and the rate is going up to $100 /per month plus fees. and since I am quite a distance from a central office my download speed is 4.04gb

Id probably stay with Sonic if I knew I would be able to get fiber, or even faster DSL speed soon, but Im afraid I will have to go elsewhere as $100 for 4.04gb with no light at the end of the tunnel makes no sense to me at all

[pockyken007]

4 gigs for 100$ makes no sense ???? I want whatever you are smoking ....

[customerInExcelsior]

Paying an extra $120 a year so some rich nutter can cruise at fiber speed just isn't in the cards, Dane.

let me fix this for you ... paying 10$ extra while having fiber so some poor peasant can hope to get his fiber just isn't in the cards Toddfx. See I can say the same thing about my price increase ... and yet I am actually happy to help out with the roll out of fiber to new neighborhoods if everybody thought like you then no progress would be ever made ...

pockyken007, just because you have fiber doesn't mean that toddfx does - or a realistic hope of getting it anytime, soon. If I had Sonic fiber (or FTTN or VDSL > 6Mbps) - or even the promise of it relatively soon - I'd be defending the increase as vigorously as you. But Vallejo won't be getting Sonic fiber anytime soon. Price increases are part of life, like death and taxes, but I can't blame toddfx for criticizing the crappy optics. The City of Vallejo is bankrupt while SF is flush with money and the affluent. Also, the areas of SF getting fiber are more affluent areas, as opposed to the southeast section of the City. Those "poor peasants" would not be able to sustain Sonic, and therefore they won't be getting fiber anytime soon. Directly investing in Sonic, rather than subsidizing someone else's service, so that Sonic can serve those areas in 10 years is more likely to bear fruit.

If you want to see true altruism and populism, see Monkeybrains' Indiegogo campaign, where someone truly subsidized another customer's link. I'm glad that you're happy with Sonic - I wish I could still be. But all the altruism in the world won't overcome the poor value some people get from the crappy - and increasingly crappy (see the VoIP degradation thread) - service offerings. I understand where you're coming from, but I definitely understand where toddfx is coming from, too. They're both equally valid positions.

[[email protected]]

See I can say the same thing about my price increase ... and yet I am actually happy to help out with the roll out of fiber to new neighborhoods if everybody thought like you then no progress would be ever made ...[emphasis added]

There are some problems with your logic here. First is the presupposition that the only way for Sonic to progress its fiber roll-out is by raising prices to all its customers by $10. This is obviously not true, both in the general case (companies have a plethora of ways to expand that don't involve a direct price increase) and in the specific (the fact that Sonic has grown its business to this level IS the case in point). Second, is that the cost / benefits analysis is the same for everyone. If someone is paying more for substandard performance (as compared to the competition) and the rates for that service increase, that customer must choose to continue paying an increased premium for the same poor performance. This can be balanced by other factors: whether a performance increase is imminent, whether one feels the need to support a cause, whether there is a need for greater performance now, etc.

For example, in my case, my (roommate's) need for greater performance now led us to switch to Comcast; however, I was in a position that I could continue to pay for a service I was not using in order to support a company I (still) believe in. Now, with the price increase, I feel I can no longer justify this-- $65/month (including taxes) for 4 mbps (that I don't actually use) is not as good as $100/month (approximate) for 100 mbps (peak). On the other hand, if I had received an email that Sonic expected to expand in my area with an approximate timeframe, I would probably continue paying this premium.

When Netflix increased their prices, I didn't even have a second thought about whether I would pay more. When they added a higher price point for a family plan, I also didn't hesitate to pay a premium for service that better fit my needs. I don't mind paying for good service. And, in point of fact, Netflix advised its customers loud and clear regarding their rate increase and also advertised the additional (premium) services. Search "Sonic.net price increase" (I used Bing, but checked Google too) and even filtering for the last month brings you to this forum and no official announcement; in point of fact, Sonic is still advertising a $40/month price. Try signing up for new service and you see exactly the same thing. The choice by Sonic to implement the rate increase quietly and without an increase in performance or service is simply unpalatable to me.

Lastly, can you think of another service where the price has increased 25% in one month with no change in performance or service? At the moment, I cannot. For over five years, I have paid a static price for static performance, yet in that same time, the competition offers an increasingly better price / performance ratio. I don't want to give up on Sonic, but the business decision they have made provides me little incentive to stay on board.

(Oh, and I think @loophole mean 4.04 mbps not gbps, as he mentions DSL and I know of no DSL that gets gb speeds.)