Fusion price increase and fiber expansion

[So long]

And by the way, this is especially infuriating because of the "one price" doctrine that Sonic operates under. I live on Arguello Blvd in San Francisco. My neighbors behind me on 2nd Ave have Gigabit internet from Sonic. However, because the utilities are underground on Arguello, Sonic is unable to string fiber to me and will have to wait until SF allows them to microtrench.

That is not Sonic's fault and I'm not mad at them for that.

What IS Sonic's fault is charging me the same price for my 3 Mbps connection as they do for my neighbor's gigabit connection.
Let's be charitable and assume I average around 5 Mbps. So I'm now paying $70 a month for 5Mbps = $70/5 = $14 per Mbps. Let's assume my neighbor gets, I don't know, 750 Mbps (I don't know how much Gigabit speeds vary so bear with me). So that's $70 / 750 = $.09 per Mbps.

Neat!

That, and the fact that Dane says they're done with the Inner Richmond sadly means that Sonic just doesn't make sense for me any more. Why should I pay $10 more a month for terrible speeds when I know I am very unlikely to get anything better for a very long time?

And to end my rant, this price increase should not have been buried in a monthly invoice, it should have been sent out to all customers in its own email.

[aznalan15]

I'll throw my 2 cents in. I don't even remember how long I've been a Sonic customer. Came over from their competitor when they told me they couldn't upgrade my 1.5Mbps dsl to 3. Sonic, yeah, no problem. It was rock solid while their competitor was all over the place.

Fast forward, get an email that says, switch over to FTTN. That was almost 2 years ago. I was paying $35 for dsl and $35 for ATT. Couldn't have naked dsl, so the voice portion was metered and I never used it as meter voice is useless. So I had 3Mbps for $70/month.

FTTN? $55/month with Sonic VOIP voice. So for almost 2 years I've saved $240 and my speed increase 6X+.

ATT started out at $18/month for standard voice and they kept nickel and diming to have me change to metered and a useless land line to $35/month 2 years ago. I can't imagine what metered voice costs now and standard dsl on top of that.

Am I happy to get hit with a $10 increase? No. The alternative? Screw ATT, they were broken up back in the 80's and they're back with a vengeance because they keep buying off politicians. Screw the local cable companies. They advertised their prices as a way to keep commercials off cable tv back in the 80;s. How has that worked out? Most don't realize how the cable system came about because you're to young but they're screwing you royally because they buy politicians too.

The knee jerk response to jumping ship is due to people not remembering or caring. Go for it. You want the hassle to play retention games. Me, it's not worth it.

I was a cord cutter back in the 90's, don't miss cable, satellite or even the local news. They all suck.

You want to watch programming? Go to your local library, you can order almost any show on dvd. Oh the heresy, plastic round disk in a player

For you young bucks, you're getting screwed by corporate America and you don't know it and it sounds like you don't care. Me I'm as conservative as they come but I support local mom and pop shops and not corporations. Why? Because small business is what makes America work. Large corporations are nothing but extensions of government. Lack of motivation and inspiration. Small guys are brilliant. If not, they die out.

Rant off.

I would like to be a cord cutter too, but with internet speeds unable to support more than 1-2 streams, what options do we have?

Let us assume a household of 4 using youtube/netflix/etc each taking ~5mbps, you need at least a 20mbps down to even keep up. Sonic does not provide anywhere close to that as shown by many customers (some as low as 2mbps...I don't even know how people work with that, I had free dsl back in 2001 with 2mbps...)

As I've said before I don't mind paying more money for a superior product/supporting the small guy. I am paying ~$90 for 18mbps down/2mbps up (realistically 15 down 1.2 up). My neighbor pays $90 for 200mbps down/10mbps up...

As the household grows and more internet connected devices added (TVs, Phones, Tablets, Security Cameras,etc) , broadband bandwidth should/has to grow too.

Also I've said before, seeing them at oracle arena made me think they made it to the big times and happy for Sonic. They do seem to be adopting the big corporation's shady practices though, like many people stating, I didn't know of the price increase until I checked my Credit Card Account...

[hpchen408]

Never heard anything about fiber coming to San Jose area, the $10 increase is like asking me to pay more for nothing. What's your plan of having fiber in San Jose? any estimated time frame? Thank you

[ankh]

When people ask me how much Sonic costs per month, my honest answer is "oh, about $100/month"
-- now I'll be rounding down rather than rounding up. But honestly, that's about what we have been paying Sonic for Fusion x2. Finally got an ATnT short circuit fixed last week and see the benefit of it.

Well, hey, it's better than the 2400 baud modem I was using with Sonic originally.

[Cal535i]

Isn't it normal for a business to finance their own expansion?
Whats next, a Go Fund Me page to beg for money?

[pockyken007]

Isn't it normal for a business to finance their own expansion?
Whats next, a Go Fund Me page to beg for money?

LOL yes and one way the businesses do it is to raise prices of services ... #Economy101

[cal535i]

Isn't it normal for a business to finance their own expansion?
Whats next, a Go Fund Me page to beg for money?

LOL yes and one way the businesses do it is to raise prices of services ... #Economy101 :roll: :roll: :roll:

Lol, usually you raise the price because you have something better to offer. Sonic must be broke or have no investors that believe in their business model. Plenty of dupes that buy into their pie in the sky business model here though.

[sfjames]

Then you must be very lucky when I was with ATT DSL I have had my price increased at least 5 times and had to play the retention game ... calling in , threatening to leave etc ... just to get it back to intro / promo rate . Then they instituted data caps and that was it for me ( I used to use a ton of traffic downloading and uploading VM's for school projects ) .

I am not saying that paying 10$ is a guarantee of fiber being rolled out in your hood ... what I am saying is that 10$ is an increase due to A ) Company growing b ) bigger overhead C ) Increased cost of doing business and the company trying to grow it's fiber footprint ... NOT JUST 10$ INCREASE SO LUCKY PEOPLE IN FIBER ROLL OUT AREAS CAN GET THEIR FIBER ( sure that's part of it as well ) ... heck I have my fiber already and could as easily say " fuck those who don't why do I have to subsidize the roll out for them ? " but I am not I am actually more than happy to contribute to the roll out , not because I already have fiber but because I see what Dane is trying to do and ultimately I wish for everybody ( or as many people as possible ) to have fiber as well ( I guess I am an altruist ) . Not to mention the fact that I personally attended few City Hall meetings where I voiced my opinion about fiber networks being available in SF , and pushing my district reps to support fiber build out , spreading the word to my neighbors and generally being active in the technology scene of SF to get things going ( not sure how much my involvement in this mess actually did to help out but hey I tried ) . So maybe I am an optimist and see things differently but 10$ is not the end of the world like some of the people here on this post seem to think ( sure you vote with your money and all that ) to me it's a valid increase given the reasons Dane listed and I am more than happy to support it .

I have had Sonic since my "little" ISP got out of the little guy business about 15 years ago. Up until the last couple of years I have been happy with Sonic.

My Sonic service here in San Francisco (Richmond District) has been fine and I know of at least 12 households that are using Sonic on my personal recommendation. Now days, I wonder...

Customer service has slipped as had the actual service.

In the last few months I have had my physical service fail. My in house wiring as well as the drop from the poll is better then most. In fact it is near perfect. The problems are all between the "B" box and the central office.

I would like to move to fiber, but, I have run for 20 years my own personal email server. Call it a privacy thing. When someone sends me an email, it does not sit on others servers at some ISP. It sits in my hall closet.

Sonic has made it clear that there are not enough of people who value their email privacy that are running their own email servers to give us fixed IP addresses on Fiber. I also think that once Sonic gets the majority of their customers onto fiber here in San Francisco that they will drop copper. We will be forced to switch or loose service. This is inevitable, as why would Sonic want to pay AT&T for the copper once they have their own infrastructure of fiber.

At that point, those of us who run our own home servers that require fixed IP addresses will be screwed.

I am a retired CIO. Since I have the time, I have decided to make this a cause here in SF. Infrastructure decisions should not take away folks rights to have private email servers on premises if they wish to. So, I have started asking for copies of the right-of-way agreements that allow Sonic to string the fiber. I am going to open a complaint with the SFPUC and the state PUC.

Since copper is going away, we do not need to be forced to give up fixed IP addressing.

As to those that say use DDNS, it does not work as most major email providers will not longer accept and email from a DDNS email server...and I see no reason why I should be forced to have my outgoing mail have to sit on some ISP servers before being forwarded.

I have a few friends that also run their own in house email servers and when we send email it is very secure. It will not be if the Sonic's of this world have their way.

JD

[pockyken007]

Then you must be very lucky when I was with ATT DSL I have had my price increased at least 5 times and had to play the retention game ... calling in , threatening to leave etc ... just to get it back to intro / promo rate . Then they instituted data caps and that was it for me ( I used to use a ton of traffic downloading and uploading VM's for school projects ) .

I am not saying that paying 10$ is a guarantee of fiber being rolled out in your hood ... what I am saying is that 10$ is an increase due to A ) Company growing b ) bigger overhead C ) Increased cost of doing business and the company trying to grow it's fiber footprint ... NOT JUST 10$ INCREASE SO LUCKY PEOPLE IN FIBER ROLL OUT AREAS CAN GET THEIR FIBER ( sure that's part of it as well ) ... heck I have my fiber already and could as easily say " fuck those who don't why do I have to subsidize the roll out for them ? " but I am not I am actually more than happy to contribute to the roll out , not because I already have fiber but because I see what Dane is trying to do and ultimately I wish for everybody ( or as many people as possible ) to have fiber as well ( I guess I am an altruist ) . Not to mention the fact that I personally attended few City Hall meetings where I voiced my opinion about fiber networks being available in SF , and pushing my district reps to support fiber build out , spreading the word to my neighbors and generally being active in the technology scene of SF to get things going ( not sure how much my involvement in this mess actually did to help out but hey I tried ) . So maybe I am an optimist and see things differently but 10$ is not the end of the world like some of the people here on this post seem to think ( sure you vote with your money and all that ) to me it's a valid increase given the reasons Dane listed and I am more than happy to support it .

I have had Sonic since my "little" ISP got out of the little guy business about 15 years ago. Up until the last couple of years I have been happy with Sonic.

My Sonic service here in San Francisco (Richmond District) has been fine and I know of at least 12 households that are using Sonic on my personal recommendation. Now days, I wonder...

Customer service has slipped as had the actual service.

In the last few months I have had my physical service fail. My in house wiring as well as the drop from the poll is better then most. In fact it is near perfect. The problems are all between the "B" box and the central office.

I would like to move to fiber, but, I have run for 20 years my own personal email server. Call it a privacy thing. When someone sends me an email, it does not sit on others servers at some ISP. It sits in my hall closet.

Sonic has made it clear that there are not enough of people who value their email privacy that are running their own email servers to give us fixed IP addresses on Fiber. I also think that once Sonic gets the majority of their customers onto fiber here in San Francisco that they will drop copper. We will be forced to switch or loose service. This is inevitable, as why would Sonic want to pay AT&T for the copper once they have their own infrastructure of fiber.

At that point, those of us who run our own home servers that require fixed IP addresses will be screwed.

I am a retired CIO. Since I have the time, I have decided to make this a cause here in SF. Infrastructure decisions should not take away folks rights to have private email servers on premises if they wish to. So, I have started asking for copies of the right-of-way agreements that allow Sonic to string the fiber. I am going to open a complaint with the SFPUC and the state PUC.

Since copper is going away, we do not need to be forced to give up fixed IP addressing.

As to those that say use DDNS, it does not work as most major email providers will not longer accept and email from a DDNS email server...and I see no reason why I should be forced to have my outgoing mail have to sit on some ISP servers before being forwarded.

I have a few friends that also run their own in house email servers and when we send email it is very secure. It will not be if the Sonic's of this world have their way.

JD

You do realize that Sonic is working on static IP for fiber right ? Also in most ISP's as far as I know ( now mind it's been a while since I did business with an ISP aside from SONIC so things might have changed ) static IP's are usually assigned for business level accounts ... so there is that . You want to run a server , THAT IS YOUR CHOICE ... not SONIC's , sonic provides service and they are upfront about what kind of service they provide and what is and isn't included int he package ... good luck with your complaint I wouldn't hold my breath your case will be thrown out because it's plainly RIDICULOUS

[Elano]

Ok so new users are grandfathered at $40/mo for the first year. Existing (non fiber) customers get to pay a 20% surcharge to subsidize Dane's expansion plans. Hmm. I'm not running a charity here. Time to find an alternative.

Dane ya blew it, man. So much goodwill and trust just evaporated..