Maybe I'm being too picky? Or a maybe I'm just in the minority, bit I don't really like using Sonic. I mean, their internet works, and customer support is fine (but I've had as good a service from Comcast too).
What I find annoying from Sonic is their billing process. I dislike that they foist a random router onto you and charge you $10 a month (and charge you if you want to return it).
I also dislike that they force a landline on you and charge you another $10 on you. Who in 2019 needs a landline? What I find somewhat dishonest, is how the sell it. I get that most advertising is not supposed to reflect reality, but it's sort of strange that you get excited about ads that say and "1GBPS internet at $40 a month" and only a year later realize that you're paying $75 a month instead. And that's something that's public, who knows what else about their business is as deceptive.
I suppose that's why Sonic has survived. I suppose that's the kind of business you need to run if you want to have a successful ISP.
People with house alarms. People with fax machines. People with medical equipment that sends information to their doctors a couple of times a day. People who don't trust VOIP providers. People who want to be properly geolocated when they dial 911. People who want to use a phone when the power goes out for longer than a cell phone can hold a charge (think hurricane-prone states).
Here's a good one: People who want to talk on the phone.
I stayed on a remote ranch in New Mexico back in April. The owner was at the next ranch over, about five miles away. I needed to call her, so I picked up the phone. A real land line phone. Good Lord, I'd forgotten what a quality phone call sounds like. It was as if she was right there in the room with me. No awkward cellular delay. Talking over each other was OK and natural and you could still understand the other person. It was an absolute delight. I already have my current place wired with VOIP, but in my next home I'm going to get a landline.
Landlines may not fit into your lifestyle or mindset, but that doesn't mean they don't have value.
"Good Lord, I'd forgotten what a quality phone call sounds like. It was as if she was right there in the room with me. No awkward cellular delay."
Right. I have a friend in Switzerland who had an ISDN voice line. Synchronous 64Kb/s digital voice end to end. No jitter. Swisscom discontinued that recently and now he has inferior VoIP.
It sounds like you're buying their DSL service. DSL is delivered over the telephone network's copper. A copper pair is necessary to deliver DSL.
In the 90s, legislation was passed that forced the ILECs to open up their copper networks to anyone. This allowed companies like Covad and Sonic to sell DSL over copper that was owned by the phone company, but the phone company got to charge for access. (I believe this legislation was recently reversed or modified in the phone companies' favor but don't know any details.)
So when you buy DSL you're buying both a few copper wires from the phone company and internet service from the guys on the other end of those wires.
As for who needs a landline... wires can be more reliable than radio waves under certain circumstances.
It sounds like you're buying their DSL service. DSL is delivered over the telephone network's copper. A copper pair is necessary to deliver DSL.
Nope. Before they rolled out the fiber product you could BYOD. Of course before Fusion they would sell you service without a contract and then expect you to call them every time they raised the prices.
With the current Fusion offerings (ADSL, VDSL, AT&T FTTN, FTTH) they promise it's a $40/mo rate, but then omit that they charge $10/mo for the modem rental. You CAN opt out of the modem rental but then the monthly rate goes up to $50/mo. There's no option to purchase the modem outright (and it a junky Pace unit).
At least that's how things were when they first rolled out fiber. There was a ton of confusion and the phone reps dished out information contradicting the support reps who post in the Sonic support forum. Things may have changed since then but I doubt it as Sonic seemed extraordinarily attached to their subpar modem/router things. I ended up paying $10/mo for a defective modem I never used because it was easier than dealing with support.
Oh, and let's say you're a long-time Sonic customer that wanted to upgrade to fiber. Want the $40/mo promo rate? HA! Good luck. Sonic has shifted towards giving the finger to loyal customers in favor of spending beaucoup bucks on new ones. For a while they were even offering ~6 months free if you got a coupon code from Nextdoor (UGH).
I think the mandatory phone service if you get Sonic FTTN (aka resold AT&T FTTN) is also a result of that regulation. DSL is Title 1 but phone is Title 2, or something like that.
> 1GBPS internet at $40 a month" and only a year later realize that you're paying $75 a month instead
I don’t feel you realize how good you have it. There are even more annoying hidden charges from Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. Moreover, for only 400 mbps I pay $200 a month while you only pay $75 for fiber internet. To be clear my cost is only a temporary discount that will shoot up to nearly $400 in a few months. At which time I will be forced to downgrade
You’re being too picky given the state of the ISP duopoly market. I would gladly switch ISP providers with you if it were possible
What you're missing is that the price is the same for fiber and DSL. If you're in a part of the Bay Area where all you can get is 3 Mbps DSL from Sonic, they'll gladly charge you that same price (and yes I did this for a while until I realized that Sonic wasn't particularly loyal to their customers).
Yeah I know about their AT&T piggyback DSL service. Yeah, it isn’t a good deal, but $40 for fiber internet is unbelievable. What’s sad is that I don’t live that far away from you. Thanks for your post though. It reminded me to talk to Comcast again. Now I’m paying $140 for 1 gbps
I have Sonic, and it's $64.05 not $75. The promo router is a bit annoying but they only charge you if you return it before the promo period ends or if you keep it after. The land line is annoying but still comes out way cheaper Comcast (at least any plan worthwhile).
I get Bi-directional 1Gbps, top upload from Comcast is 35MBps.
Tested it at 896MBs down/941MBps up from work which has connection that can keep up. Also tested fast.com and speedtest.net
*Worth noting most routers you buy at something like Best Buy can't hit those rates in both directions.
> I dislike that they foist a random router onto you and charge you $10 a month (and charge you if you want to return it). I also dislike that they force a landline on you and charge you another $10 on you. Who in 2019 needs a landline?
I've never used Sonic but this describes my Comcast experience completely. Frustrating that we cant get away from these trappings
I don't know where you live, so maybe your situation is that, but I've been on Comcast for years over multiple houses, and I've always owned my own modem and never have had any hidden fees.
It could be tech support lied to you. It wouldn't be a first.
As a Sonic subscriber, I can
vouch that this is an accurate report, and that their business model is fundamentally to advertise a low price and charge a high one hoping you’ll like gigabit Ethernet enough to keep it.
Another way of looking at this is search engine- and eCommerce-driven price discovery hasn’t given us better prices or more accurate ones, it has just moved money from one set of bad actors (people who rip you off) to another (people who lie about the real price).
That's just not true. They simply don't include taxes in the advertised price, same as everybody else, and because they include voice service in all their plans the taxes add up. You also don't need to use their routers (I don't), but they charge you an extra $10--presumably because of the increased support calls.
Here's my latest invoice. I've had Sonic Fiber for a few years so these are the non-promo numbers:
Voice Federal Subscriber Line Charge Fee - 6.50
Voice Federal Universal Service Fund Fee - 2.43
Voice California Lifeline Telephone Service Surcharge - 0.36
Voice California Deaf and Disabled Telecom Program Surcharge - 0.04
Voice California High Cost Fund-A Surcharge - 0.03
Voice California Teleconnect Fund Surcharge - 0.06
Voice California Advanced Services Fund Surcharge - 0.04
Voice California 911 Emergency Surcharge - 0.06
Voice San Francisco Access Line Fee - 3.49
Voice California Public Utility Commission User Fee - 0.03
Voice FCC Interstate Telecom Service Provider Fee - 0.03
Property Tax Allotment Surcharge - 0.36
Voice Regulatory Recovery Surcharge - 0.77
Fusion Fiber Phone Service - 0.00
Fusion Fiber - 1 Gbps - 50.00
Fusion Fiber Information - Data $40.00 Voice $10.00 - 0.00
Charge Collapsed prorate for 2019-07-01 to 2019-08-10 for
Voice Federal Universal Service Fund Fee - 0.73
Total $64.93
As you can see above, the taxes can vary between localities, so it would be difficult to advertise a specific price if they included them. But, again, nobody else does this. Why single out Sonic in this regard? Equivocating Sonic's product and quality of service with AT&T and Comcast just because of this issue is... not helpful.
AT&T fiber service starts out higher than this for less bandwidth, before taxes.
My ATT is exactly the advertised price. It includes all fees, taxes, and equipment. $90/mo for gigabit (was $70 when I signed up, which reminds me I need to ask about getting the promo rate again).
EDIT: Lower down the page it says "Starting at $70/mo. plus taxes for 12 months for Internet powered by AT&T Fiber", so looks like the top of the page is some kind of algorithmic promo? Also, just to be clear, Sonic advertisements also include fine print regarding taxes.
The contention was that Sonic's "business model is fundamentally to advertise a low price and charge a high one" and that other ISPs will openly "rip you off" while Sonic will
"lie about the real price".
I can't see how the bill supports any of those arguments. Sonic indisputably offers lower prices for their service than any other ISP. Their advertising and billing practices are, at worst, indistinguishable in terms of being more misleading. At best they're far better as my experience with Comcast and other telecom providers has been steady increases, whereas I'll be shocked the day Sonic increases their price.
All the voice line taxes might be a surprise to people, but Sonic isn't pocketing that money (except maybe the $0.36 property tax allotment), no more than any other tax, so I don't see how it's a strategy to make more money. Even if they disclosed them upfront their advertised price would go up a commensurate amount along with every other ISP.
I won't argue that the world would be better with greater pricing transparency, but so would world peace and eradicating homelessness. But there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to single out Sonic in these regards.
It would be reasonable to say something like, "Sonic is at least as good as any other ISP, but it would be nice if they also lead the way in terms of pricing transparency". But that's not what was said.
Their advertising and billing practices are, at worst, indistinguishable in terms of being more misleading.
Whataboutism is a pretty weak argument to make. Poor behavior on the behalf of Comcast and Verizon does NOT make Sonic's behavior excusable.
All the voice line taxes might be a surprise to people, but Sonic isn't pocketing that money
It's not surprising, but Sonic IS pocketing some of those "taxes".[1]
I won't argue that the world would be better with greater pricing transparency, but so would world peace and eradicating homelessness. But there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to single out Sonic in these regards.
First of all Sonic is not being singled out. People complain about Comcast and Verizon all the time. But there's a very good reason to complain: just because some of Sonic's behavior is better than Comcast should not give them a free pass.
That $50/mo rate? The increase was snuck into a footer in the monthly invoices just like you'd expect Comcast to do. After a few decades of few surprises I got out of the habit of checking everything with a fine toothed comb. No heads up to existing customers.
Or how about Dane agitating against municipal internet access? Apparently San Francisco has enough competition for internet access. Sonic is a for-profit business, of course, which means they're not altruistic as much as their talking points might lead you to believe. After all, Google bought into "do no evil" for a short while.
> I get that most advertising is not supposed to reflect reality
I'm not a lawyer but I'd strongly argue the other way around. Advertising something disconnected with reality is (or, should be) illegal. It's called False Advertising or Deceptive Advertising and it's unfortunately the status quo.
I switched over to Sonic 1gpbs service last month. I'm in the SF/Bay Area too.
Out here it's $80 a month for the first 12 months, and then $90 a month, but the only hidden service fee I'm getting is the $9.95 a month modem. I can buy one for $70, but tech support told me I'm not allow to remove the modem they issue, which is odd. They didn't say my service would cost $10 more a month.
Still, $90 a month is cheaper than Comcast and AT&T. All you guys paying $40, and even if it turns into $75 is a sweet deal. It's one of the best deals in the country.
I'm also pretty disappointed with all the fees that showed up on my bill as well. It's faster than my previous service, but not by much. I'll be switching back once my year is over.
That depends on whether you get ADSL (6 Mbps per copper phone line, resold AT&T, but a real phone line) or Fiber Optic (gigabit fiber optic to the apartment, but you get an additional box that exposes a phone jack plugged into the ONT in the closet, so presumably VOIP).
I've seen Sonic hook up places in SF with both; they sell the ADSL to try and get the revenue to build out more Fiber.
The Sonic technician I spoke to at my last apartment said we could just leave the phone line unplugged if we didn't need it, but that setting it up was not optional for some bureaucratic reason. (Even made us pick a phone number from a list...)
That depends on whether you get ADSL (6 Mbps per copper phone line, resold AT&T, but a real phone line) or Fiber Optic (gigabit fiber optic to the apartment, but you get an additional box that exposes a phone jack plugged into the ONT in the closet, so presumably VOIP).
ADSL2 goes up to around 20 Mbps, VDSL up to around 50 Mbps. Sonic may or may not still sell bonded DSL service. I believe the only resold AT&T service these days is the FTTN offering (resold U-Verse with all the nastiness that involves).
Where I was living in SOMA, it was resold U-Verse that wasn't even FTTN. It was several thousand feet of copper back to the central office. No one knew the exact length, as those records were lost.
Was ecstatic finally moving away from that place to somewhere else.
I've had ADSL2 and VDSL on Bell Canada lines in Ontario, but last I checked (maybe four years ago?) I was under the impression that in SF proper AT&T wasn't able to get permission to build out the nodes to do FTTN/VDSL in many parts of the city.
Since then, I've only lived in new construction where they have fiber to the unit...
You can send it back, but (supposedly) if you do so they charge you a fee to send a tech out in the future. I say supposedly because it seems like a weed-out warning to reduce support tickets from people who made their own problems, but I haven’t had to find out since my Sonic fiber has been flawless for two years. There’s an ONT on the wall where the fiber comes through, providing one data jack and one phone jack. I just plug an ethernet cable between it and my FreeBSD router PC, request a DHCP lease on that interface, and go.
What I find annoying from Sonic is their billing process. I dislike that they foist a random router onto you and charge you $10 a month (and charge you if you want to return it). I also dislike that they force a landline on you and charge you another $10 on you. Who in 2019 needs a landline? What I find somewhat dishonest, is how the sell it. I get that most advertising is not supposed to reflect reality, but it's sort of strange that you get excited about ads that say and "1GBPS internet at $40 a month" and only a year later realize that you're paying $75 a month instead. And that's something that's public, who knows what else about their business is as deceptive.
I suppose that's why Sonic has survived. I suppose that's the kind of business you need to run if you want to have a successful ISP.