Sonic partners with AT&T, works to ramp up speeds
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/39000 ... -att-works
For years, Santa Rosa-based Internet service provider Sonic has positioned itself as an alternative to corporate giants AT&T and Comcast. Its Fusion service — phone service and broadband Internet — came at a competitive price, along with what many viewed as better customer service.
The problem was, Sonic’s Fusion service only worked if you lived close to one of its central offices.
To alleviate that Sonic has taken several steps aimed at both improving and expanding its Fusion options. These include deploying better broadband technology in Sonic’s central offices, as well as partnering with AT&T to offer the telecommunications giant’s fiber-to-the-node, or FTTN, technology.
Sonic will offer the AT&T service under its own brand and with its own customer service.
“Our goal with Fusion is to present a very simple solution,” said Sonic CEO and co-founder Dane Jasper.
Back in the 1990s, DSL was provided out of central offices, a metropolitan hub used to aggregate and direct telephone calls and data traffic onto the telephone network. Today, however, broadband is served from “node cabinets” that are placed in neighborhoods.
“It moves the equipment closer to the house, and so what this means for our customers is much greater reach,” Jasper said.
Historically, Sonic’s Fusion was only available from one of the 200 central offices the company operates in 125 California cities. Customers who lived two miles or more from a central office were out of luck, Jasper said.
Meanwhile, Sonic has upgraded its central office technology from ADSL2+ to VDSL, which can yield Internet speeds of up to 75 megabits per second — triple the speed of the older technology — for customers who are close to the central office.
Sonic’s VDSL protocol was deployed in its central offices beginning last December and is now available through most of the company’s footprint.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/39000 ... -att-works
For years, Santa Rosa-based Internet service provider Sonic has positioned itself as an alternative to corporate giants AT&T and Comcast. Its Fusion service — phone service and broadband Internet — came at a competitive price, along with what many viewed as better customer service.
The problem was, Sonic’s Fusion service only worked if you lived close to one of its central offices.
To alleviate that Sonic has taken several steps aimed at both improving and expanding its Fusion options. These include deploying better broadband technology in Sonic’s central offices, as well as partnering with AT&T to offer the telecommunications giant’s fiber-to-the-node, or FTTN, technology.
Sonic will offer the AT&T service under its own brand and with its own customer service.
“Our goal with Fusion is to present a very simple solution,” said Sonic CEO and co-founder Dane Jasper.
Back in the 1990s, DSL was provided out of central offices, a metropolitan hub used to aggregate and direct telephone calls and data traffic onto the telephone network. Today, however, broadband is served from “node cabinets” that are placed in neighborhoods.
“It moves the equipment closer to the house, and so what this means for our customers is much greater reach,” Jasper said.
Historically, Sonic’s Fusion was only available from one of the 200 central offices the company operates in 125 California cities. Customers who lived two miles or more from a central office were out of luck, Jasper said.
Meanwhile, Sonic has upgraded its central office technology from ADSL2+ to VDSL, which can yield Internet speeds of up to 75 megabits per second — triple the speed of the older technology — for customers who are close to the central office.
Sonic’s VDSL protocol was deployed in its central offices beginning last December and is now available through most of the company’s footprint.
