by
loherj » Wed Mar 12, 2025 7:34 am
Hello and thank you for reaching out. You are more than likely correct that we can not service your address due to the poles being in the backlot as it does not appear we can access them (I have poked our fiber engineering team to confirm this).
Micro-trenching in SF has also been an enormous obstacle for Sonic due to the guidelines and specifications set by the CPUC and the City. The reason for this is that the specs for micro-trenching are set differently by both entities and the requirement must be agreed upon before permits are granted and evaluation can begin. I will link below a post that has some good details on Micro-trenching in SF and I will quote below a post from our Director of Customer Care.
viewtopic.php?p=65672&hilit=microtrenching#p65672
First of all, we appreciate yours (and other’s) interest in the availability of Sonic’s internet service for your service area. As you have seen in this thread, the issue of building out fiber networks through underground conduit paths or microtrenching can get complicated. To piggy-back on what you were sharing from the Department of Public Works representative in San Francisco, the specifications do allow for a range of depths. I would add that municipalities have discretion under the current rules to agree to alternative specifications under certain circumstances.
However, the key word is “discretion”. As the DPW representative outlined for you, the composition of some of the streets within the city may simply not allow for microtrenching. Furthermore, the issues around microtrenching go beyond the agreed upon depth of the trench, the requirements around restoration can vary and potentially add significant cost to a project. Cities can also impose additional conditions with respect to allowing ISPs in their rights of way for deploying network facilities if they are applying them in a non-discriminatory manner to all providers. From the service provider perspective, there is a junction point where the cost of microtrenching to facilitate the build exceeds the thresholds that we need to maintain to continue to bring our service to customers at the competitive pricing we strive for.
Sonic will explore all feasible options when working with a city (including San Francisco) to deploy our network to provide as many customers as possible access to our suite of services. Unfortunately, in some cases, there is not a solution that can be found that works for both the city and Sonic and we are unable to serve certain areas.
For the sake of candor, currently I am not aware of any recent movement on the issues where Sonic and the City of San Francisco are still apart, but we are continuing these discussions with the city and will remain engaged as long as those discussions remain productive.
- Eli Caul
Director of Customer Care
Sonic.net, Inc
