Fusion price increase and fiber expansion

[jwthomas]

I've been a customer of Sonic from back in the day when they had a small office on 4th St in Santa Rosa. They've made a few minor mistakes over the years but they've never been less than a provider of outstanding services on a day by day basis. Their competitors are giant corporations that seek to monopolize the internet access industry for their own advantage with little care for their customers. There are no Filipinos or Hindustanis answering your telephoned service requests from overseas. I should walk away from this because of a long delayed $10 price increase? Those who threaten to leave have no idea how lucky they have been to be serviced by a solid, honest provider like Sonic.

[oddhack]

I've been a customer of Sonic from back in the day when they had a small office on 4th St in Santa Rosa. They've made a few minor mistakes over the years but they've never been less than a provider of outstanding services on a day by day basis. Their competitors are giant corporations that seek to monopolize the internet access industry for their own advantage with little care for their customers. There are no Filipinos or Hindustanis answering your telephoned service requests from overseas. I should walk away from this because of a long delayed $10 price increase? Those who threaten to leave have no idea how lucky they have been to be serviced by a solid, honest provider like Sonic.

Sonic's treatment of its customers is worth quite a lot to some of us. But it's not apparent that it's worth nearly $500/year, which is what I'm BOTE-ing for my use case, in the vague hope that Sonic might, someday, build fiber where I live. It's not apparent that it's worth being stuck with 6 Mbps or less performance until AT&T's wires rot, as the poor folks stuck on ADSL have noted on the thread. And while it's definitely nice to have local and clueful support, support hours have been dramatically shortened, hold times are sometimes very long, and turnaround time isn't what it was 4-5 years ago. YMMV of course.

[pockyken007]

ATT has a package of 45 MBPS for 60$+taxes and fees and 75 MBPS for 70$ + taxes and fees ... now mind you while that is cheaper and faster then what you have it comes with drawbacks that sonic connection doesn't have ... and the drawbacks are 0 privacy ( ATT will monitor and snoop on your network traffic ) and 1 TB data cap ( I download/upload more then that per month so for me that would be a big no no ) , Sonic on the other hand has amazing privacy and no data caps.

While I do agree that the cost of fiber per month could be higher 60-70$ would be more like it , I believe the 40$ is to sway customers that are on ATT or Comcast to switch to Sonic ( it's nothing more then a business move ) .

So while you do have options to go with the competition you have to ask yourself if data caps and 0 privacy are worth it ?

[Guest]

This weekend I hooked up Comcast for a try. Bought my own equipment and the self install was easy. $40 per month for 25Mbps. Getting 26.8 Mbps down and 6.3 Mbps up. There is a data limit but it's 1TB/month. Sayonara Sonic.

What equipment is needed? Cost?

[Guest]

This is a really weird business plan for a company in a competitive market ... increasing prices on customers of your lower-end products usually drives them to competitors ... claiming that the price increase is intended to pay for capital investment that will bring a better product "someday", that usually results in customers saying "when I see that better product, then I'll think about coming back." Sonic has a lot of customer loyalty, but that only goes so far.

Expected practice here would be for Sonic to borrow a big pile of money, or take on a significant investment from a hedge fund, put that money into capital improvement that hugely expands its fiber footprint, price that premium fiber product at a competitive but premium price, capture market share in its fiber footprint, and use new customer revenues to pay off debt. Risky and hard, but if Sonic really believes that it has the economics and the talent to deliver fiber on a large scale, that's what it should do.

Someone earlier described Sonic's strategy as being like a crowdfunding campaign, but without any insight into what it is that is being funded or what crowdfunders will get or when. Really hard to see that working.

[soncoman]

I just received notice of this in my January e-bill. Here's my favorite part:

"However, we've found it necessary to increase the price by between $10.00 and $10.05 a month for renewals starting in February."

I am now in giddy anticipation of my February bill to see whether I fall in the $10.01, $10.02, $10.03, or $10.04 category.

I agree with most everything said regarding this by others. I particularly resent the "Sign up for Dish and save $10" push. Like I'm going to sign up for the crappiest of television providers to have my bill back where it was. Yes, even crappier than Comcast.

I've liked Sonic. It's been reliable, if not at the speeds advertised. Home phone is nice to have, but rarely used. Not sure what "enhancements" Dane's pushing as "value added" as anything other than my internet being up is valueless to me.

I've been inundated with offers from Comcast over the past couple of months. Simply makes good economic sense to me to examine them more closely now.

[foaxzilch]

This weekend I hooked up Comcast for a try. Bought my own equipment and the self install was easy. $40 per month for 25Mbps. Getting 26.8 Mbps down and 6.3 Mbps up. There is a data limit but it's 1TB/month. Sayonara Sonic.

What equipment is needed? Cost?

Rent from Comcast $10/mo or buy DOCSIS 3.0 modem $65 and Router 450Mbps $30 (many other options)
Optional VOIP phone system: Refurbished Ooma Telo $60 then about $4.50/month for 911 and other fees, or OBi200 for $47 which can use Google Voice.

[danielg4]

By the way, Sonic's billing department said that their new voice-only POTS service ($10/mo + taxes + one-time $150 setup) will not be subject to the rate increase.

[jcroscigno]

May as well add my name to the disappointed list; Living on a N/S street in Laurel Heights, I'm apparently not on the roadmap for anything faster from Sonic. Why should I see a price increase when I don't even receive the FCC standard 25Mbps speeds?

I'll be paying $90/mo for X2 @ 18Mbps; total cost in 2017 will be $1,050.
vs.
$60 for 25Mbps comcast w/voice ($660 for the remainder of 2017 + $100 for modem/router).
vs
$75/mo for 100Mbps comcast w/voice ($825 for the remainder of 2017 + $100 for modem/router)

[pockyken007]

you guys do realize that companies do increase prices ? ATT and Comcast do the same increases as well ... ( that's one of the main reasons why I switched from ATT along with 0 privacy and data cap ) .

Heck SF muni increases prices every year and yet people still use it even though an alternative would be to get a bike or a car depending on your budget ... this is the same exact concept .