Fusion price increase and fiber expansion

[moogra]

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.

If I were you I would throw 500 ft of Cat5 over the fence and give your neighbor $35 a month.

[pockyken007]

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..

LOL " Charity " you do realize businesses raise their prices as the business grows

[[email protected]]

Dear Dane.

I have been with you since you started practically, except when I had to move to Sebastopol for six years. Anyway, my rent is going up and up, but am a senior and retired with disability. Do you have any programs for those with fixed incomes in this state of affairs?

Is it possible to stay with what you have now and not be included with the fiber expansion? I am happy with my services the way they are now. And would love not to pay the extra $10 a month due to my circumstances. Do you think you might have a difference price range for those who are with fixed incomes?

I see that for newcomers it is $40 for both phone and internet.

Cynthia Blackstone

[alexz]

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 :roll: :roll: :roll:

Sonic is also hoping that their customers stick with them to support the Sonic vision. On the one hand Sonic is claiming all sorts of differentiation (price, speed, fringe benefits, etc), on the other they're seemingly becoming more and more aligned with the other ISPs policy and implementation-wise. Without the differentiation, why not just go directly with AT&T or Comcast? Especially with something like the resold U-Verse which can't even use Sonic's DNS servers?

For me, the speed was too much to resist. $70/mo for 3Mbit DSL is a joke, so I bit the bullet and have temporarily pointed my MX records at Sonic. The amount of spam that Sonic's servers let through is staggering. I know that they can't afford to enforce blacklists as aggressively as I can, but still.

[alexz]

Also from a spam perspective, Sonic doesn't offer DKIM signing (even for sonic.net mailboxes) nor do they have any DMARC records. Sure, their mail servers aren't on any dynamic IP blacklist and they do have reverse DNS setup... but you can do at least as well on your own.

From an install perspective, I finally got a look at the required modem. Two thumbs down. It's huge (11x7x2) and has no wall mounting options. The UI is mediocre, as expected in this market segment, and offers contradicting information if you've actually managed to disable the WiFi radios.

[pockyken007]

Also from a spam perspective, Sonic doesn't offer DKIM signing (even for sonic.net mailboxes) nor do they have any DMARC records. Sure, their mail servers aren't on any dynamic IP blacklist and they do have reverse DNS setup... but you can do at least as well on your own.

From an install perspective, I finally got a look at the required modem. Two thumbs down. It's huge (11x7x2) and has no wall mounting options. The UI is mediocre, as expected in this market segment, and offers contradicting information if you've actually managed to disable the WiFi radios.

You are the one running the server , it's your job to make it secure not sonic , sonic just offers the service of delivering the signal nothing else. You want to run a secure server , secure it yourself ... soon people will want to have cake and eat it at the same time ...

[parhelia]

For those of you complaining that you are stuck on slow DSL or Fusion DSL connections and are in the Bay Area, ATT is in the process of lighting up a LOT of new neighborhoods with fiber (I'd estimate they cover at least 10x more than 3 months ago). I believe anywhere with ATT fiber should be able to get Sonic FTTN (at least in the Bay Area, maybe SoCal too?). My connection is getting lit up tomorrow. Here's a list of cities in the Bay Area with ATT fiber:

Available:
San Francisco
San Ramon
Dublin
Livermore
San Mateo
Foster City
Redwood City
Mountain View
Sunnyvale
Cupertino
Santa Clara
San Jose

In Progress:
Oakland
Union City
San Carlos

source: https://www.att.com/shop/internet/gigap ... e-map.html

Many of these were not available even a few weeks ago, so if you live in one of those cities, check to see if Sonic FTTN is available where you live.

I sympathize with the people dealing with rate increases for <6Mbps service, but its a lot more palatable with 25Mbps (Fusion FTTN X1) or 50Mbps (Fusion FTTN X2).

[alexz]

Also from a spam perspective, Sonic doesn't offer DKIM signing (even for sonic.net mailboxes) nor do they have any DMARC records. Sure, their mail servers aren't on any dynamic IP blacklist and they do have reverse DNS setup... but you can do at least as well on your own.

From an install perspective, I finally got a look at the required modem. Two thumbs down. It's huge (11x7x2) and has no wall mounting options. The UI is mediocre, as expected in this market segment, and offers contradicting information if you've actually managed to disable the WiFi radios.

You are the one running the server , it's your job to make it secure not sonic , sonic just offers the service of delivering the signal nothing else. You want to run a secure server , secure it yourself ... soon people will want to have cake and eat it at the same time ... :lol: :lol:

I'm assuming you misread.

Running my own server = static IP + reverse DNS + SPF + DKIM + DMARC = good deliverability and minimal spam (save for what came in through my sonic.net mailboxes).

Relying on Sonic for inbound and outbound mail = no DKIM, no DMARC, significantly more inbound spam and a mail-isn't-our-core-competency-mentality.

So yeah, I've run and secured my mail server just fine with DSL. With fiber, unfortunately, you're more reliant on the Sonic servers until(?) static IPs + reverse DNS become available. Not optimal, especially if you're relying on Sonic to host/send mail from a different domain. For me personally, self-hosting mail is a holdover from the days when it wasn't considered viable for Sonic to host an IMAP server (not that long ago). Of course I could run an MTA on whatever cloud provider, but I could do that with Comcast's 2 gig offering or U-Verse just as easily.

Meanwhile I've had a chance to play with the mandatory Sonic router. It's large, not wall mountable, and emits a steady hum that turns into a loud squealing when the 5 GHz radio is used (didn't check the 2.4 GHz one, which can't be turned off). All this for a measly $10/mo. Meh.

[pockyken007]

Some other people have experienced the " hum " and I believe they determined it to be faulty modem ... why don't ya give sonic a call and have them send you a new modem see if the hum persists .

[alexz]

Some other people have experienced the " hum " and I believe they determined it to be faulty modem ... why don't ya give sonic a call and have them send you a new modem see if the hum persists .

It's been replaced by a $30 gigabit switch that doesn't hum, takes up a fraction of the space, has a significantly smaller wall wart, doesn't cost me a monthly fee, and is easily wall mountable. Paying $10/mo to debug Sonic hardware is... charming.

Unfortunately swapping it out doesn't fix that its WiFi (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) is dramatically slower than the 5th gen Time Capsule I'm using. If I can knock the $10/mo rental fee off my list of charges, it goes back to Sonic. Otherwise it's gonna collect dust as a reminder of the new Sonic.