Fusion price increase and fiber expansion

[ang]

I expect almost every Sonic customer would happily pay $50/month for fiber. But very few of us are ever going to get that option, and it's not what the great majority of discussion in this thread is about.

I think Sonic is planning a pretty wide deployment of fiber but:
1) they're not going to talk about it until its "shovel ready".
2) Different jurisdictions approve microtrenching (where there is underground utilities).


The first thing I understood from Dane's announcement was that the reason that they were going to raise rates, is because they are going to significantly expand the service area with fiber.
I could be wrong, but I did not take it as "we're just going to add a few more streets in the Sunset District" I kind of feel that a lot of people on this thread did take it that way.
I fully expect that there will be significant expansion in many other cities. Particularly where there are overhead utilities.

As far as the price increase is concerned: $10 sucks. But this is the first rate increase in many, many years. The other ISP's have done that kind of rate hike almost every year.

Finally, at least with AT&T fiber, Sonic customers are already getting the "FTTN" product in neighborhoods served by AT&T Fiber. If you are in one of those neighborhoods, then you can chose: $100+ for AT&T gigapower, or $40-$60 for capped speeds thru Sonic.
Additionally, AT&T and Google are pulling back from fiber deployment. Sonic is the only ISP I know of that is still bullish on this delivery technology. Companies that provide cell service are moving towards 5G.

Sorry for the extremely long post. I just wanted to add some perspective.

Ok, fine. What about the people live in areas that don't have overhead lines and don't even have the option of FTTN because AT&T deemed it not financially viable for the area? Do you really expect a small company like Sonic to have the resources to do microtrenching to an area like this? How do those people justify paying $70/month for 10mbps service?

[pockyken007]

I expect almost every Sonic customer would happily pay $50/month for fiber. But very few of us are ever going to get that option, and it's not what the great majority of discussion in this thread is about.

I think Sonic is planning a pretty wide deployment of fiber but:
1) they're not going to talk about it until its "shovel ready".
2) Different jurisdictions approve microtrenching (where there is underground utilities).


The first thing I understood from Dane's announcement was that the reason that they were going to raise rates, is because they are going to significantly expand the service area with fiber.
I could be wrong, but I did not take it as "we're just going to add a few more streets in the Sunset District" I kind of feel that a lot of people on this thread did take it that way.
I fully expect that there will be significant expansion in many other cities. Particularly where there are overhead utilities.

As far as the price increase is concerned: $10 sucks. But this is the first rate increase in many, many years. The other ISP's have done that kind of rate hike almost every year.

Finally, at least with AT&T fiber, Sonic customers are already getting the "FTTN" product in neighborhoods served by AT&T Fiber. If you are in one of those neighborhoods, then you can chose: $100+ for AT&T gigapower, or $40-$60 for capped speeds thru Sonic.
Additionally, AT&T and Google are pulling back from fiber deployment. Sonic is the only ISP I know of that is still bullish on this delivery technology. Companies that provide cell service are moving towards 5G.

Sorry for the extremely long post. I just wanted to add some perspective.

Ok, fine. What about the people live in areas that don't have overhead lines and don't even have the option of FTTN because AT&T deemed it not financially viable for the area? Do you really expect a small company like Sonic to have the resources to do microtrenching to an area like this? How do those people justify paying $70/month for 10mbps service?

Same way ATT and Comcast increase their prices without any improvement in service speed ?

[Sonic Guest]

I think Sonic is planning a pretty wide deployment of fiber but:
1) they're not going to talk about it until its "shovel ready".
2) Different jurisdictions approve microtrenching (where there is underground utilities).


The first thing I understood from Dane's announcement was that the reason that they were going to raise rates, is because they are going to significantly expand the service area with fiber.
I could be wrong, but I did not take it as "we're just going to add a few more streets in the Sunset District" I kind of feel that a lot of people on this thread did take it that way.
I fully expect that there will be significant expansion in many other cities. Particularly where there are overhead utilities.

As far as the price increase is concerned: $10 sucks. But this is the first rate increase in many, many years. The other ISP's have done that kind of rate hike almost every year.

Finally, at least with AT&T fiber, Sonic customers are already getting the "FTTN" product in neighborhoods served by AT&T Fiber. If you are in one of those neighborhoods, then you can chose: $100+ for AT&T gigapower, or $40-$60 for capped speeds thru Sonic.
Additionally, AT&T and Google are pulling back from fiber deployment. Sonic is the only ISP I know of that is still bullish on this delivery technology. Companies that provide cell service are moving towards 5G.

Sorry for the extremely long post. I just wanted to add some perspective.

Ok, fine. What about the people live in areas that don't have overhead lines and don't even have the option of FTTN because AT&T deemed it not financially viable for the area? Do you really expect a small company like Sonic to have the resources to do microtrenching to an area like this? How do those people justify paying $70/month for 10mbps service?

Same way ATT and Comcast increase their prices without any improvement in service speed ?

That's a BS argument and you know it! People left ATT and Comcast to come to Sonic because of the better value - not necessarily because of better ethics! People are leaving Sonic because there's better value to be had elsewhere, as others here have shown! Also, two of my friends who signed up for fiber are getting the runaround and excuses for downtime right after their installations. I'd support Sonic, but they have to get their act together! Ethics means crap to me if I'm getting 5Mbps. Sonic's service has taken a dive! You think people are complaining because of $10, which they are, but that $10 is the straw that broke the camel's back! I support a business because they offer something I want, not because they may have something I want in the future!

[miken]

That's a BS argument and you know it! People left ATT and Comcast to come to Sonic because of the better value - not necessarily because of better ethics! People are leaving Sonic because there's better value to be had elsewhere, as others here have shown! Also, two of my friends who signed up for fiber are getting the runaround and excuses for downtime right after their installations. I'd support Sonic, but they have to get their act together! Ethics means crap to me if I'm getting 5Mbps. Sonic's service has taken a dive! You think people are complaining because of $10, which they are, but that $10 is the straw that broke the camel's back! I support a business because they offer something I want, not because they may have something I want in the future!

We are always trying to up the value to our services. Our privacy practices, free borderless calling, free hosting, free VPN, local customer support, etc. There are going to be situations where speed is valued over those other features and we are limited to available infrastructure, which is why we are rolling out our Fiber to as many places as we can.

I'm sorry to hear that your friends are having trouble; if they could send me a PM (or if you wanted to send me their usernames) I'd be happy to take a look at the situation and reach out.

[pockyken007]

Ok, fine. What about the people live in areas that don't have overhead lines and don't even have the option of FTTN because AT&T deemed it not financially viable for the area? Do you really expect a small company like Sonic to have the resources to do microtrenching to an area like this? How do those people justify paying $70/month for 10mbps service?

Same way ATT and Comcast increase their prices without any improvement in service speed ?

That's a BS argument and you know it! People left ATT and Comcast to come to Sonic because of the better value - not necessarily because of better ethics! People are leaving Sonic because there's better value to be had elsewhere, as others here have shown! Also, two of my friends who signed up for fiber are getting the runaround and excuses for downtime right after their installations. I'd support Sonic, but they have to get their act together! Ethics means crap to me if I'm getting 5Mbps. Sonic's service has taken a dive! You think people are complaining because of $10, which they are, but that $10 is the straw that broke the camel's back! I support a business because they offer something I want, not because they may have something I want in the future!

See at least SONIC increased their price by 10$ and offered some services in return whereas ATT and Comcast used to increase the price for no apparent reason other than they could ... sure some services that SONIC offers might not be needed by all and the speed of internet connection in 99% of cases is the determinant of weather the service is worth it or not but to say that sonic is in the same boat with the increase as the rest of the ISP is total BS on your part as 1) Sonic is pretty clear and straight forward why they increased the price 2) the price increase will be invested in infrastructure not to line up somebody's pockets 3) The price increase ultimately will benefit end users in the long run ... so tell me again hos is SONIC the same as ATT or COMCAST cause I call BS on your BS !

[sonic guest]

That's a BS argument and you know it! People left ATT and Comcast to come to Sonic because of the better value - not necessarily because of better ethics!

That's not true in my case. I left AT&T because they instituted transfer caps for their ADSL1 subscribers. I can't get Fusion Fiber but have upgraded to Fusion FTTN two years ago.

The Sonic portion of my bill has not increased since then and only recently with the $10 increase.

[sonic guest]

See at least SONIC increased their price by 10$ and offered some services in return whereas ATT and Comcast used to increase the price for no apparent reason other than they could

That's a too simplistic view. Yes when I had ADSL1, the only portion of my bill that increased was from AT&T. But that increase was less than $10. More like $2 or thereabouts. For Sonic subscribers who live far away from the 3 Fiber cities they will probably not get any upgrade for at least a decade unless they are lucky and live in the next rollout.

[andsonic]

"3 fiber cities"
This is what I was talking about in my recent long post. It's simplistic to think that fiber deployment will be limited to those 3 cities. Rather, I expect that we'll be seeing roll outs all over the place. In overhead utility neighborhoods. Sonic isn't mentioning cities anymore, but I expect that that we'll see it in places like Santa Rosa, San Rafael, and others. You'll see it before underground utility neighborhoods in SF are done.

[Sonic Guest]

That's a BS argument and you know it! People left ATT and Comcast to come to Sonic because of the better value - not necessarily because of better ethics! People are leaving Sonic because there's better value to be had elsewhere, as others here have shown! Also, two of my friends who signed up for fiber are getting the runaround and excuses for downtime right after their installations. I'd support Sonic, but they have to get their act together! Ethics means crap to me if I'm getting 5Mbps. Sonic's service has taken a dive! You think people are complaining because of $10, which they are, but that $10 is the straw that broke the camel's back! I support a business because they offer something I want, not because they may have something I want in the future!

We are always trying to up the value to our services. Our privacy practices, free borderless calling, free hosting, free VPN, local customer support, etc. There are going to be situations where speed is valued over those other features and we are limited to available infrastructure, which is why we are rolling out our Fiber to as many places as we can.

I'm sorry to hear that your friends are having trouble; if they could send me a PM (or if you wanted to send me their usernames) I'd be happy to take a look at the situation and reach out.

I don't know what their usernames are, but they're on 15th and 16th Aves. They've been told that either the wires were split or, tell me if you've heard this before, there's a firmware upgrade. Be honest with your customers and don't tell them there's a firmware upgrade causing problems for a small subset of customers when it probably isn't! If it's a problem with your lines, be honest with them! If it really is firmware, like with VoIP or with the ATT Pace modem, then people must have had some really bad luck.

[Sonic Guest]

See at least SONIC increased their price by 10$ and offered some services in return whereas ATT and Comcast used to increase the price for no apparent reason other than they could ... sure some services that SONIC offers might not be needed by all and the speed of internet connection in 99% of cases is the determinant of weather the service is worth it or not but to say that sonic is in the same boat with the increase as the rest of the ISP is total BS on your part as 1) Sonic is pretty clear and straight forward why they increased the price 2) the price increase will be invested in infrastructure not to line up somebody's pockets 3) The price increase ultimately will benefit end users in the long run ... so tell me again hos is SONIC the same as ATT or COMCAST cause I call BS on your BS !

Man, you're so full of Sonic that you're blind to what other people are saying. I call BS on your argument because ATT deployed the FTTN infrastructure that people could move to, and Comcast has steadily increased speeds over time. Before you say that Sonic's gotten better over time, I'll point to everyone complaining about deteriorating speeds unless they upgrade and commit to a new contract, liked you'd have to do with ATT and Comcast. Cheers to everyone who loves fiber or FTTN, but not everyone is in that boat! People are leaving because they see better value elsewhere, plain and simple. ATT and Comcast are entitled to make money, just like Sonic will in the future, so I don't understand why you're knocking on them and putting Sonic on a pedestal. The only difference is Sonic is spending more money on building infrastructure while the others spend much less money maintaining it.