Sonic.net

This post is prompted by getting an email from Sonic “Start earning $50 for each referral now!” recently, more than a year after I pre-ordered Sonic Fiber at my Mountain View home (back in March 2023). My status page still shows I'm in the "Planning" phase, and I'm aware of this earlier thread viewtopic.php?t=17763&start=17 where dane says

Yes, unfortunately the City of Mountain View “allows” construction of fiber, but not the placement of safety bypass poles. Because there are 112 unsafe poles there today, this policy effectively stops any deployment of new fiber by Sonic.

The City requires instead that we wait until PG&E replaces or repairs the poles, which could happen any number of years in the future. And we won’t be unformed if and when that finally does occur, PG&E doesn’t notify anyone who has been “waiting” because nobody is supposed to wait, the standard process is to set temporary safety bypass poles until PG&E fixes theirs. The irony is that setting a temporary pole starts a shot clock for resolving the safety issue, versus denying us which means there is no deadline for resolving the existing safety issues there.

and concludes “We are working now the cut down the project to a smaller segment of the City, in hopes we can at least build some portion of it where the poles are safe.”

Inspired by Sonic's urging me to refer more customers to sign up for the non-existent service, I asked the Mountain View Public Works department about utility poles and got this response back:

The City’s policy has always been to not allow temporary poles for any telecom carriers. The City has the authority to regulate the terms and conditions for the use of public right-of-way for the construction, installation, and maintenance of fiber optic network facilities by telecom providers.

We will defer to PG&E for their evaluation of unsafe poles within the City. Sonic will have to work with PG&E to replace existing poles that cannot accommodate additional loads. PG&E is in the process of replacing their older joint poles as we have seen many excavation permit applications to remove an existing pole and install a new pole. Other telecom companies such as AT&T and Comcast are able to install their fiber network without utilizing temporary poles within the public right-of-way and continue to do so.

and it's true, I could schedule AT&T fiber to be installed at my house this week.

I'm wondering if there's any hope of breaking this impasse. Obviously Sonic is a much better service at a much better price, but should I give up on ever getting it at my current location and just resign myself to what AT&T and Comcast are willing to give me?

Hello,

We apologize for the delay in getting our infrastructure out to you. Unfortunately, we don't have insight into AT&T or Comcast Fiber builds. It's more likely that they already have existing infrastructure on said poles so they're technically not "adding" infrastructure, just replacing old with new. This would be our best guess anyway. With Sonic being a new entity, we have to do this for the first time and if there is no room for our lines due to existing weight limits, temporary poles would then need to be used.

Since the city has mentioned that they have many excavating permits for removing of the old poles to replace them with ones that can handle the added weight, then this would be something that we would have to wait for to have them complete first. Sadly, there is no way for us to rush or expedite this process and we'll have to wait for that to be done first.

In the interim, we do have a contract buyout program that will reimburse you (up to $200) for switching to Sonic once we have our Fiber installed at your location. For now, you can switch to AT&T or Comcast to improve your service. When our Fiber is in your area and you need to switch, you can sign up with us and break your contract with them then. After you've signed up and have paid your ETF (early termination fee) with Comcast or AT&T, just send us a copy of the final bill you paid showing this on the last invoice and we'll add the contract buyout credit to your account straight away. We hope this information helps. Take care.