Review by sporatica 
UPDATED: 238 days ago
member for 2.5 years, 13 visits, last login: 142 days ago
 La Habra,Orange,CA
 $20 per month (month by month)
 about 10 days
 AT&T
 "Started with good C/S and functionality"
 "SMTP went down - C/S unwilling to check their end"
 "Port blocked at server and they wouldn't check it"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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It's been two months since I first contacted Sonic about this issue. After many hours of troubleshooting coupled with more hours on the phone with Sonic support, the problem persisted.
Tech support actually advised to uninstall XP and do a clean install. They had already convinced customer that he needed to buy and install Office 2007 Professional (which he did), they also had him uninstall his anti-virus and firewall, and install Thunderbird as an email client ... none of which were the cause of the port being blocked by the server.
The customer finally had his son, Karl Auerbach (from ICANN), come down from up-North to help diagnose the problem.
Lo and behold, once Karl advised them of who he was, tech support listened to him and unblocked the port. Of course this is after my running every imaginable SMTP diagnostic test, sharing the results with tech support, and nearly two months of frustration and unnecessary expenditures.
In summation, the problem was always on your end. Tech support assumed that the customer was at fault and was unwilling to take a few minutes of their time to run a diagnostics at your end. All the while feeling quite comfortable having the customer jump through an array of endless hoops.
One shouldn't have to have name recognition in the Information Systems industry to be listened to or taken seriously.
Followup comments:  
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs:
| 30 days notice Yup, we blew it here - you should have gotten notice via email. This was a programming oversight, and we've corrected it this last week.
I'll ask billing to extend your intro rate for an additional month, then you can let us know what you'd like to do subsequent!
-Dane | |
|  | sporatica
join:2006-02-28
Long Beach, CA
 ·SONIC.NET
| Re: 30 days notice Thank you Dane.
I spoke with Lani the next day, and she offered to refund the difference for the month and honor the original agreement. I understand that you cannot continue promotional pricing for an indefinite period of time. I've known this from the start. All I needed was for Sonic to keep it's word with regard to advance notice of rate change.
I will update as soon as the credit is reflected on my CC.
Thank you again.
PS. I sent you my Sonic ID via email. | |
| 
div222
@ucsf.edu
| Same thing here, they raised rates without warning Same thing here, they raised rates from $12.95 to $39.??. They changed prices without any warning contraire to their own rules stated in earlier email. They failed to correct their mistake, apologize or even simply explain, instead they were rude and offensive. I cancelled their service. I have no idea were positive reviews about their customer service are coming from.
And, one last thing, their internet connection sucks. | |
|
m_stuart_m
@sonic.net
| A-Trolling We Will Go.... Yeah, Sonic sucks. Mean. Rude. Arrogant. Their network backbone consists of two paper cups and a bit of string.
Not.
I have been a Sonic DSL subscriber for more than three years now. I use my connection for work as well as personal use, so we tend to notice downtime. That is, we notice it when it happens, which is exceedingly rare. In fact, the only issues that have caused either downtime or bandwidth issues have been inside wiring problems on our end of the line -- problems Sonic's support staff spent a fair amount of time helping us to resolve, even when it was clear they had no obligation to do so.
As for pricing: Anyone who thinks Sonic pulls a bait-and-switch obviously has never had the pleasure of being bent over by AT&T or Comcast. The former will nickle-and-dime you into suicidal depression, while the latter is only cheap until you want something wild and crazy -- like, say, a static IP address. Then be prepared to hand over your first-born and a kidney (or maybe your first-born's kidney) to pay for the privilege.
Mr. Troll's remarks aside, think about this: With the Phone Company and The Cable Guys coming at them FOR YEARS with cutthroat pricing and zillion-dollar ad campaigns, Sonic still chugs along and continues to build a solid regional business. If you think Sonic could not just stand up to this onslaught but actually thrive while serving crap to its customers, consider putting down the crack pipe and stepping out for some fresh air. | |
|
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs:
| Port blocking? You wrote:
"Lo and behold, once Karl advised them of who he was, tech support listened to him and unblocked the port."
We've been in dialog via email today, and as I said there as well, I don't see any changes to the service, NOR any record that we've even had a support call! It's a dynamic IP DSL circuit, so there's no changes that CAN be made to port blocking.
Very odd. We're continuing to investigate on our side, and area awaiting further response from you.
-Dane | |
| |
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs:
| Re: Port blocking? Okie, we figured this out. Karl wrote in to support, and the ticket wasn't tied to your account, so I had some trouble finding it.
Your IP address got blocked in a very strange way - via a null route in our mail servers themselves. Our mail administrators tell me that they'd have done this to block a spam flood, and they concede that they screwed up by not documenting the issue and assuring that it was cleaned up afterward. This is NOT how they're supposed to deal with things like this, and they are clear on this now.
Support has no visibility into the server's route table, so to them, all looked good. Some confusion with the Linksys and antivirus on the PC keep them pointed in that direction.
I'm sorry that it took us so long to figure this out. I've had billing issue a credit to your account by way of saying "sorry!".
-Dane | |
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