Sonic.net

I recently did some research on how far my home is from the nearest AT&T CO in Daly City (on Washington and Sullivan streets) and it comes down to 4,088 feet. When I run a speed test on a local server over at Monkeybrains across town I get good ping and around 3.4-3.5Mbps up and a little under 1Mbps down

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2180283927.png

Is this speed normal for my distance from the CO? If not should I get my wires checked? My home is in a relatively old part of town where the houses are over 100 years old and I don't know what kind they are and where they run.

Check your wire distance via the Fusion sales prequal page, by address here: http://fusion.sonic.net/

At 6,280 feet I get numbers like

5586 Kbps 865 Kbps California, USA sonic.net
5585 Kbps 862 Kbps California, USA sonic.net
5218 Kbps 857 Kbps California, USA sonic.net
5455 Kbps 825 Kbps California, USA sonic.net
Down Up
Rate: 6653 kbs 1019 kbs
Max Rate: 8352 kbs 1224 kbs
Noise Margin: 6.8 dB 10.6 dB
Attenuation: 45.5 dB 22.8 dB
Protocol: G.DMT2+ Annex A
Channel: Interleaved


It would be awesome if sonic.net would provide network-wide averages based on real data. We could really see the "real" adsl2 speed/distance curve.

For what it's worth, I live near downtown San Jose, and the prequal tool puts me at about 10,600 feet out from the CO. Best I've ever managed is 3 Mbps down and 768 kbps up. I wish I could get better numbers, but given the pricing and bandwidth caps from the alternatives, I'm sticking with Sonic and hoping that we get enough subscribers down in the south bay to justify a fiber project or at least a new CO or two.

There won't be any new CO's built, ever, in San Jose. AT&T installed the existing CO's based on geography and newer technology is small enough to be housed in local cabinets (currently VRADs). AT&T has managed to get FCC approval to lock all competitors out of any new tech that they install so Sonic, and others, are prevented from utilizing anything other than the old copper based out of existing CO's, or building out their own infrastructure from there.

Sonic has determined that building remote terminals isn't an effective way to go, and has decided that fiber is the best route. However, they're starting in areas that have overhead cabling where it's cheaper to install fiber cables. I don't know where in downtown San Jose you are, but if your utilities are underground, it will be a long time before you see fiber. I'm in the same boat in the Almaden area of town, everything is underground.

wa2ibm wrote:There won't be any new CO's built, ever, in San Jose.

Ouch. Thanks for the shot of reality. I'm still voting with my dollars, but it's distressing to see how little influence the average consumer actually has.

Just to add a data point, IIRC the distance from my house to the CO is around 6000 feet, and I get ~9 Mbs down and 984 kbs up. Note that these are numbers as reported by the DSL modem, so actual transfer speeds are a bit slower due to network overhead.

This neighborhood was built in the mid 1950s to give some idea of age.

Also, when I first got ADSL (v1) with the extreme service with up to 6 mbs down, I was not able to get that speed, but after a line failure and I was switched to a different line between the house and the cable closet down the street, I was able to get faster speeds. So certainly not all phone lines have aged as gracefully.

Of course, before you really start messing with phone lines between your house and the CO (which, unless there is a failure, I'm not sure anything can be done about), you should plug your modem directly into the phone termination box (and have all other phones disconnected as you do so) to make sure you don't have questionable wiring inside the house.

wa2ibm wrote:Sonic has determined that building remote terminals isn't an effective way to go, and has decided that fiber is the best route. However, they're starting in areas that have overhead cabling where it's cheaper to install fiber cables. I don't know where in downtown San Jose you are, but if your utilities are underground, it will be a long time before you see fiber.

Blocks adjacent to mine are served by overhead wires, but my block isn't. Nuts.