10Gbps Availability Makes No Sense

[chrisfocht]

So I've been a fusion fiber customer with Sonic for many years. They have rolled out 10 GB in my neighborhood, which I was very excited about. I called to upgrade and have been informed it's available...for a one time $300 fee. Yet my neighbor across the street can sign up today, pay no additional fee and receive the same 10GB internet. Why is Sonic punishing loyal customers?

[artakamoose]

They're not "punishing" you. You already received a free install and equipment with your original service. If you want to upgrade to 10G, they'll have to roll a truck, install new equipment, and pay for the labor to do so.

Keep in mind that 10G will also allow you to downgrade to internet only if you don't need or use the phone line. In that case, all of the related taxes and fees for phone service go away (you'll end up at a flat $49.99) and the install will pay for itself in a year or so.

[sonic.boom]

Thanks for your interest in our 10GB fiber. As mentioned in the last response, there are a lot of expenses to upgrade your service including dispatch fees and new equipment that needs to be installed. That being said, the amount of money saved each month by upgrading to internet only will be enough to pay for the upgrade after less than one year.

[ngufra]

Switching from 1 to 10 Gbps means swapping a card at the central office which has a cost that sonic is not willing to absorb at this time. When they install new lines, they install the latest tech so they install 10 Gbps cards.

As a user, the workflows where you will see the difference are probably rare and it's more about bragging right than anything else.
10 Gbps equipment (router/switch) is also fairly more expensive.

[dane]

As other customers here have said, the equipment serving your home and in your home is all 1Gbps. So the one-time fee covers a portion of the cost of swapping out all of that gear.

We debated for a long time having different pricing for 10Gbps versus 1Gbps, like most carriers do. Actually, most are offering different rates for 2, 5, or 8Gbps, with very few even offering 10Gbps. But for us the actual costs after the equipment is paid for are the same regardless of speed, so we decided instead on a one-time charge to upgrade older installations to new equipment. I hope we can find ways to explain this so that it is clear we're not trying to take advantage or harm earlier adopters, but rather we'd like to keep pricing the same for all products, which should be a better long-term financial outcome for customers.

[ngufra]

How much of the $300 is related to the equipment vs labor?
If it's mostly labor it may make sense to upgrade all the card in a cabinet together as it's probably cheaper to come once than once per card.
But then you end up with a bunch of perfectly good 1 Gbps card that nobody wants whilst most customers will not see the benefit of the additional speed.

[dane]

How much of the $300 is related to the equipment vs labor?
If it's mostly labor it may make sense to upgrade all the card in a cabinet together as it's probably cheaper to come once than once per card.
But then you end up with a bunch of perfectly good 1 Gbps card that nobody wants whilst most customers will not see the benefit of the additional speed.

There's no allocation for labor - it's all equipment. And doesn't completely cover the cost, so we eat a portion of that.

And yes, it is variable, because when a single CO card is upgraded, that's 8 PONs x 32 customers per PON all at once. Some end-users will then upgrade, and some will not. The portion that goes into the home is nearly $250, so even if 100% were to upgrade, we're not right side up, and of course many will not upgrade.

Tricky process. Thankfully XGS-PON should last a long long time.

[chrisfocht]

Thanks for your interest in our 10GB fiber. As mentioned in the last response, there are a lot of expenses to upgrade your service including dispatch fees and new equipment that needs to be installed. That being said, the amount of money saved each month by upgrading to internet only will be enough to pay for the upgrade after less than one year.

Still seems odd to me that I'm currently paying more than my neighbor who receives 10Gbps, so that doesn't really jive with what Dane said about making the decision to charge all users the same. Add this to the fact that my cost used to be what the 10Gbps costs now and Sonic raised the price, with out notice I might add. Makes it hard not to feel like I'm being squeezed to pay for sonic to upgrade equipment. I love the service, but any time I need to interact with the support team it feels like there's a game with my money.

[ngufra]

The price increase in in the bill but most people --including me-- do not read it as it's unmetered.
Note that those that are still on DSL pay the same price too.
For sonic, i think they find it simpler to have a single SKU whether VDSL, 1 Gbps fiber or 10 Gbps fiber.
You can see it as "it's expensive for DSL", or "it's cheap for fiber".
What would you do if you had 10 Gbps instead of 1?
If you really need speed, remote desktop to a vm in a data center. for most other cases 1 or 10 should not make much difference.
It's like the difference between ship vs flying and you can fly commercial at 600 mph or a concorde at mac 2.
Going to europe will take 4 or 9 hours compared to weeks. Yes it's 5 hours fewer, but it's still the same day.

[joeyyung911]

I'm pretty sure there were/are DSL users who paid the same as your 1Gbps, so stop complaining. They subsidized YOUR 1Gbps, now pay it forward. Sounding like a kid crying about your friend's toy that you can't/don't have.