Sonic Gigabit Fiber in Richmond CA 94805 area?

[knewman]

I preordered a month or so back, and has an estimated go live month of August. It's now saying September, but I'm curious if anyone has seen them doing installs in 94804.

My status page updates every month, and now says "Your forecasted fiber live date is: October 2023". It seems that the fiber status page just prints the name of the current month, with no regard for actually estimating the installation date. It feels a little bait-and-switch-y.

[deraps]

I preordered a month or so back, and has an estimated go live month of August. It's now saying September, but I'm curious if anyone has seen them doing installs in 94804.

My status page updates every month, and now says "Your forecasted fiber live date is: October 2023". It seems that the fiber status page just prints the name of the current month, with no regard for actually estimating the installation date. It feels a little bait-and-switch-y.

I think that's definitely what's happening here, mine switched over to October yesterday. I was so excited for the fiber when I moved over from SF.....but back in SF Sonic was "Coming Soon" to my neighborhood for 10+ years

[senaka]

I live in the 94805 zip code area. My status page updates used to display "Your forecasted fiber live date is: November 2023" for the last couple of months, and now it says "Your forecasted fiber live date is: February 2024". Not sure why the date got pushed back.

[jhattersley]

While I'm also excited for the rollout in 94805, delays are just the nature of a new infrastructure rollout. Dane posted a great reply that's also relevant here in another thread asking about delays. I quote it below. But the tl:dr; is patience is appreciated and folks should consider availability estimates to be squishy until they're not

The unfortunate answer is that the causes of delays vary widely. We are building the first all-new residential utility infrastructure to be deployed since back when Cable TV was installed. It is a very complex process behind the scenes. And it has become more difficult due to regulatory changes in the last five years, as well as staffing and workload levels at various agencies we interact with.

But I can assure you that a large group of people here are looking at the progress and challenges daily, up to and including myself. I get a daily report with any FDA schedule changes, as well as any reasons for delay. Here are a few examples excerpted from a recent copy of the report that I get each morning, so that you have an idea about the level of scrutiny we place on every project:

...
FDA 34 / Concord / PM - Brandon P
Project Delays changed from: None
to:
Cannot close Cx apps without needed bypass poles placed. This will impact Go Lives / Met with POCs for the City of Concord. They provided criteria for bypass pole installation approval. Following the steps to receive bypass pole authorization. Will update when the first bypass poles have been approved to be installed.
...
FDA 45 / Concord / PM - Brandon P
Project Delays changed from: None
to:
Aerial construction stopped until we have bypass pole installation approval from the City of Concord. Go-Lives impacted and delayed as result. / Met with POCs for the City of Concord. They provided criteria for bypass pole installation approval. Following the steps to receive bypass pole authorization. Will update when the first bypass poles have been approved to be installed.
...
FDA 19 / Los Altos, Mountain View / PM - Travis D
FDA 20 / Los Altos, Sunnyvale / PM - Travis D
AIR changed from 2024-05-13 to 2024-04-29
FDA 3 / Los Altos, Palo Alto / PM - Travis D
FDA 4 / Los Altos, Palo Alto / PM - Travis D
AIR changed from 2024-05-31 to 2024-05-17
...
FDA 28 / Inglewood / PM - Brandon P
Project Delays changed from: On Hold. No bypass poles allowed. Legal thought there may be a path forward in the next two weeks
to: Legal Status – Trading Redlines. Inglewood accepts the pole replacement timeline and the low number of bypass poles required. Hope to have a resolution in two weeks.

The project management team's goal is to keep the dates which are then displayed in our Member Tools fiber status section as accurate as we can. If they say it is forcast to be done in a month, it could be, at least by us - but if it then gets pushed a month out, and then a month out, and then again - this would be because of a delay generally outside of our control but that based upon the information we have at the time, that we think can be surmounted within a month, but then for reasons generally outside of our control, we cannot and it slips again. This is generally delays related to permits or approvals from cities or agencies. Could be CALTRANS, the City, a water district, Caltrain, Union Pacific, PG&E or SoCal Edison, etc, etc.

Delays can also be caused by weather and by crew availability, by errors in engineering or fieldwork as well as issues like a parts or materials delivery issue, where we think the supplies are all here but then it turns out something was mislabeled or mispackaged or inventory is inaccurate and items must be re-ordered and there is a resulting delay.

-Dane

[deraps]

Yesterday I saw 8 or so sonic trucks parked at the Safeway parking lot next to the El Cerrito Del Norte Bart......so they're potentially getting closer to Richmond.

Or maybe they're just renting it for overnight parking and installing far from here.

[deraps]

A few hours after I posted that I saw a Sonic truck on my street, working on a pole about 6 houses down. No updates on my fiber availability page, but seeing the trucks is a good sign!.

(this is near Santa Clara & Merced in the Richmond Annex)

[knewman]

No updates on my fiber availability page, but seeing the trucks is a good sign!.

I thought so too, but I saw trucks on my street months ago and still continue to have my estimate changed every month, as if by a short shell script.

[fobkai99]

Just a update for my fellow 94805s. I just received an email that construction is complete and given a Jan 3 2024 install/upgrade date. I live in North & East, a couple blocks away from El Tucan on San Pablo. That's a nice Christmas present even if "delivery" isn't until next week!

[deraps]

Just a update for my fellow 94805s. I just received an email that construction is complete and given a Jan 3 2024 install/upgrade date. I live in North & East, a couple blocks away from El Tucan on San Pablo. That's a nice Christmas present even if "delivery" isn't until next week!

Wow, congrats! Still no news in 94804(in the annex), and my fiber status page still says December.

[knewman]

Just a update for my fellow 94805s. I just received an email that construction is complete and given a Jan 3 2024 install/upgrade date. I live in North & East, a couple blocks away from El Tucan on San Pablo. That's a nice Christmas present even if "delivery" isn't until next week!

I'm nearby and also have an installation date of early January! Finally! Very excited to stop paying Xfinity and to get decent upload speeds, especially as cell coverage from Verizon has gone downhill in this neighborhood.