end of service Smith Ranch Road San Rafael

[joss]

I'm asking for a less technically oriented friend. They live east of 101 in a housing development off Smith Ranch road in San Rafael. They are currently a Sonic DSL customer. I note that Sonic now lists "We're sorry, no service is available. --Yet!" when I query using their address. They have already received a letter that Sonic service will (may?) not be available in the future.

In another Access topic (17989), Dane indicated copper loops shared with AT&T will (again, may?) not be available after February 2025.

So the questions are:

• Will their DSL service be unavailable when there is no longer a requirement for AT&T to share the copper?

• If AT&T does share, will my friend's DSL cost, if even supported by Sonic, go up significantly?

• Can they draw any hope from the "--Yet!" in the "...no service..." message? i.e. will Sonic fiber someday make it out to the area around McInnis Park?

[joss]

Any reply from Sonic would be appreciated. Even if to say: we don't talk about planning. Although, I'm not sure how that applies here, since San Rafael is being fit for fiber all over town.

[spencerw]

So the questions are:

• Will their DSL service be unavailable when there is no longer a requirement for AT&T to share the copper?

Based on our experience with AT&T, it appears they are not interested in maintaining/leasing copper infrastructure anymore so we believe they will continue increasing the price to lease the copper lines. Eventually the price will become unsustainable for us to provide DSL services to our customers.

• If AT&T does share, will my friend's DSL cost, if even supported by Sonic, go up significantly?

As the price increases to lease the copper lines, our cost to provide the service will also increase. This increased cost will result in the monthly price of our DSL services increasing. In addition to that, as our DSL customer base shrinks the cost to provide the service increases as well.

• Can they draw any hope from the "--Yet!" in the "...no service..." message? i.e. will Sonic fiber someday make it out to the area around McInnis Park?

To be honest, I cannot confirm whether or not our fiber service will become available in that area. We would certainly like to reach all of our existing DSL and IPBB customers with our fiber services however there is no guarantee we will. We offer pre-orders in areas where we are building fiber so that message means we are still very early in the process of deployment for their area.

[dane]

The short answer is, we don't know. The FCC set aside regulatory certainty in late 2020, and now we're headed into an unregulated future where competitive carriers have no assured and cost-based access to the legacy copper infrastructure. We'll keep things going as long as we can, and at prices as low as possible, but neither of those things are in out control anymore for copper DSL.