Independent California ISP Sonic.net (see our user reviews) is preparing to offer 1 Gbps business lines (100 Mbps upstream) and a hosted PBX service for $40 per month. According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Sonic is currently burying fiber at a local industrial park in Santa Rosa and along the Highway 101 corridor, and hopes to have the first businesses up and running within two months. Sonic, a rare survivor of the independent ISP wars, started planning for residential fiber back in 2010. The company says they'll ultimately offer residential users access to these fiber runs, but hasn't given a timetable for deployment.

Independent California ISP Sonic.net has announced that they've teamed with former rival DSLExtreme to help bring the company's bonded ADSL2+ services to Los Angeles. According to a company press release, Fusion should now be available to businesses and residential customers throughout greater Los Angeles and Sacramento. Fusion offers users 20/2.5 Mbps speeds alongside home phone service for $40 a month, with some users able to get faster speeds with line bonding. "Our DSL Extreme partnership is actually the ninth ISP launch, so including our Sonic.net retail offering there are now ten ISPs on the open Fusion network platform," Sonic CEO Dane Jasper tells Broadband Reports.

A growing number of ISPs are eliminating the option to own your own mondem -- Charter Communications being the most recent. The reason is usually twofold: it provides the ISP with more consistency making troubleshooting easier, but it also allows them to charge an additional modem rental fee.

"I hate wireless," proclaims Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper in a blog post explaining that the the independent California-based ISP has sold off its wireless assets. According to Jasper, the company wanted to streamline their focus on wireline and building out their growing DSL and fiber to the home networks, so they're offloading their wireless services to a company named CDS Wireless of Santa Rosa.

California independent ISP Sonic.net has been getting some much deserved love lately from several different tech news outlets for being one of the only independent landline ISP to not only survive incumbents, but build their own network. The company this week is giving an update on their fiber to the home plans in Sebastopol, California -- noting that the first wave of their installation is complete and that they're moving on to expand the project. The company has offered a map of the city highlighting the different phases of their project. "We are prioritizing our Fiber build-out efforts on communities where we see very high uptake of our Fusion Broadband+Phone service," says the company. Upgraded markets are seeing speeds between 100 Mbps ($40) and 1 Gbps ($70).

Ars Technica has a nice write up on independent ISP Sonic.Net, which against all odds not only survived the U.S. CLEC-pocalypse, but managed to thrive and proceeded to build their own network.

Sonic.net has announced that the company is bringing 1 Gbps fiber to the home service to San Francisco. According to the company, the initial deployment will cover an initial pilot region of two thousand homes in the Sunset District, after deployment begins in 2012.

In contrast with so many other ISPs, Independent California ISP Sonic.net has fought for consumer rights wherever possible. CEO Dane Jasper recently decried how ISPs are engaged in all manner of sleazy non-transparent user tracking, ranging from clickstream sales to new "man in the middle" search traffic manipulation.

GigaOM has spotted a Sonic.net video franchise application with California’s Public Utilities Commission that suggests the company may be interested in a streaming video solution. Sonic.net currently partners with DirecTV to offer a bundled broadband and satellite "triple play" offering, but has previously surveyed customers about whether they would pay for a low-cost local TV service streamed to an Internet-connected device like a Roku box. "The DirecTV triple play gives us a compelling multichannel lineup, while the franchise application moves us toward offering local channels over IP," says Sonic CEO Dane Jasper. The company has been busy deploying their own ADSL2+ and fiber to the home services in select market, and has partnered with Google to deploy fiber to the home service to a limited number of trial participants in Stanford, California.

While Google's planned 1 Gbps fiber deployment in both Kansas Cities (Missouri and Kansas) is still some time away, the company's fiber trial in Stanford is now officially online. Announced in October of last year, the Stanford deployment was intended to reach about 850 subscribers, and was designed to be a trial run for the broader deployment in Kansas City.

As one of the few independent ISPs to survive the U.S. CLEC-pocalypse and begin building their own network, Sonic.net has a unique perspective on the broadband business.

Sonic.net has dropped us a line to note that they've dropped their DSL pricing to match an AT&T DSL price cut that we reported on back in August. Basic (768kbps/384kbps) and Express (1.5 Mbps/384 kbps) Dynamic IP DSL is now $15 for twelve months, after both tiers jump to $30 a month.

California-based ISP Sonic.net (see our user reviews) not only survived the indie ISP-pocalypse, but they're busily building their own network -- something that's been historically easy to tell a small independent ISP to do, but not so easy to accomplish in an incumbent-dominated climate. As we've covered for years, Sonic's offering ADSL2+ (bonded, when possible) capable of providing speeds up to 40 Mbps downstream -- and according to a post in our forums by Sonic CEO Dane Jasper, the service is seeing a price drop. According to Jasper, their 20/1 Mbps & phone service bundle is dropping in price from $50 to $40, while their 40/2 Mbps and two phone line bundle is dropping from $100.00 to $80. There's more detail over at the Sonic blog if you're interested. As Sonic grows, the company has hinted at ultimately expanding into the realm of fiber to the home.

Sure, incumbent lobbyists and dysfunctional regulators may have crushed the majority of major, independent, residential broadband ISPs in the United States, but California-based ISP Sonic.net not only survived the indie ISP-pocalypse, but they're busily building their own network. As we've covered for years, Sonic's offering ADSL2+ (bonded, when possible) capable of providing speeds up to 40 Mbps downstream.

Independent California ISP Sonic.net (see our user reviews) started offering ADSL2+ service over their own network last fall, offering tiers in 6Mbps, 8Mbps and 18Mbps flavors. In recent tests in their labs, the ISP tells us the carrier was able to obtain ADSL2+ speeds of 46 Mbps downstream and 4.8Mbps upstream.

Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper tells us the California-based ISP has dropped prices on their new Fusion ADSL2+ services, which the company is now offering over their own network. According to a blog post by the CEO, their static or dynamic IP ADSL2+ packages have seen price cuts ranging from $5 to $25, depending on the speed of the package. The company started offering ADSL2+ service over their own network last fall, offering tiers in 6Mbps, 8Mbps and 18Mbps flavors. Earlier this summer the company started tinkering with line-bonded ADSL2+, which should allow the company to offer downstream speeds up to 30Mbps.

For those companies who've sadly decided to milk copper (or have no financial choice), line-bonding is one way to grab additional bandwidth at greater loop lengths out of both ADSL2+ and VDSL. It's something both Qwest and AT&T are eager to begin implementing next year, and Dane Jasper, CEO of California ISP Sonic.net, tells us they're having good luck with ADSL2+ bonding in the labs and in employee trials.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a cut fiber line in California has resulted in a fairly significant outage for landline and wireless customers in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. AT&T has confirmed the outage via Twitter, saying they have crews on the scene with more detail forthcoming. The outage is impacting not only AT&T customers, but wireless and DSL customers with Verizon, Sprint and other competitors such as Sonic.net, which also offered a tweet on the outage.

Update: It appears that "sabotage" may have been responsible for the outage.

Sonic.net CEO Dan Jasper stops by our forums to note that the California ISP is tinkering with a new online backup service that delivers fifty gigs of storage for $4.95 a month (or 500MB for free). In a blog post, Jasper indicates that it's a soft launch as they work out the kinks.

California-based ISP Sonic.net continues its growth as a CLEC, and just last week started offering ADSL2+ speeds to residential users on their own network, an unfamiliar tale of CLEC growth in an industry dominated by larger players. Sonic CEO and regular reader Dane Jasper blogs about the new service, saying the first customer to go live is in Santa Rosa, California.

Karl Bode