I guess it's time to leave sonic

[eyeballpress]

I'm afraid I'm in the same boat. Long-time Sonic customer in Santa Rosa. On a good day I get 3mb down- for $66.44/mo. I could get almost 6mb for another $20 or $30... I love Sonic but it's really frustrating to hear of all their fast new connections and sit here in the slow lane for so long. I could get a much faster connection for much cheaper from Satan, and I'm thinking about it...

[dane]

Have you checked upgrade availability? It’s at https://members.sonic.net/connections/serviceupdate/

[wwwdrich]

I hate to say it, but I'm in the same boat in San Jose and considering switching providers after over 10 years with Sonic. The service I get from Sonic over two lines isn't even enough for me to get timely notifications from a Ring Doorbell (I typically get the notice on my phone 30-60 seconds after the doorbell rings) and makes working from home difficult as video conferencing can be a challenge. The only options on the serviceupgrade page are two downgrades. Even though I am in the 10th largest city in the US and the third largest in California (San Jose), I have no fibre to the home, no FTTN, and only DSL to a CO that is nearly 10,000 feet away.

I love Sonic's service and support and I stand behind everything Dane and his company are doing to protect and preserve free access to the Internet. I'm amazed when I hear about areas getting GB Fibre, as I know what an investment that is. However, like the original poster, I feel like I am being left behind in the expansion, as my service speeds are actually *slower* than they were 10 years ago due to the degrading telecom infrastructure in San Jose.

For the same price that I am paying for 12/2 Mb/s from Sonic, I can get Comcast (ick) Business Service through my company that will give me 75/15 Mb/s.

[dennish]

I feel like I have finance their expansion and received zero in return. I like sonic too but it is now too slow for modern times for me.

[dane]

I feel like I have finance their expansion and received zero in return. I like sonic too but it is now too slow for modern times for me.

Clearly we haven't gotten to everyone yet with our gigabit service, and I wish I could say that we had. But today we've got 1/3rd of our members on symmetric gigabit fiber, and we're expanding the fiber network faster and faster. Please, stick with us, we're working hard at it!

[dennish]

Do you have an ETA for my neighborhood?

[dennish]

Several months ago, maybe 6, a couple of ladies from sonic walked down my street. They said they were inspecting the poles. That sounded to me like something big was going to happen. Then I had a conversation with a sonic salesman at my local gym and he said I will never see fiber on my street.

[dane]

Several months ago, maybe 6, a couple of ladies from sonic walked down my street. They said they were inspecting the poles. That sounded to me like something big was going to happen. Then I had a conversation with a sonic salesman at my local gym and he said I will never see fiber on my street.

You will actually see backbone fiber on your street, very soon: we are building new dedicated fiber to about seventy schools in Sonoma County, with the result being a huge increase in our overall backbone footprint. This, along with builds to business parks and custom fiber builds for enterprise users all serve to broaden our reach and lower the cost of entry for our residential distribution overlays.

Sonic is building in many ways and directions today, and each success compliments our overall goal of bringing fiber to every community. From our partnership with SMART for their railroad signaling to City municipal fiber to schools and businesses, each expands the backbone network, opening the door for us to more opportunities.

Put another way, it takes a village (of users and use cases) to raise a fiber network from the ground up. It's not a simple or instant process, but we are making good progress and I am really excited about that.

[dennish]

Will this backbone fiber be above or below ground? Someone just finished running something underground down my street. Two tubes were drilled underground, one pipe looked to be 2" blue ploy pipe and I can't remember the color of the other. I really didn't close enough to see actually what it was. Just assumed some type of fiber.

[dane]

Will this backbone fiber be above or below ground? Someone just finished running something underground down my street. Two tubes were drilled underground, one pipe looked to be 2" blue ploy pipe and I can't remember the color of the other. I really didn't close enough to see actually what it was. Just assumed some type of fiber.

Yep, good point. I just checked the geospatial system and there are two bad poles on your street, right across from your home. They're douglass fir, 45' tall poles, and both are tagged as unsafe and pending replacement. As a result, we were forced to bore underground for that segment.

So while what we are building there today is backbone to the nearby schools, and residential distribution would come later, it actually will only be possible to reach your home if those two poles are replaced by that time. We can't control when bad poles are replaced by PG&E, so it's an unknown. It's also unknown at this point when we'll be building residential fiber to the premise there, but the backbone is in the neighborhood which certainly helps!