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Review by kmcmurtrie 
member for 6.9 years, 223 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 26 days ago
 Sunnyvale,Santa Clara,CA
 $110 per month- (month by month)
 AT&T "Support, uptime, and telephone" "AT&T wires, modem fees" "Good local ISP"
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This is a high quality local ISP offering a wide variety of features for both everyday and power users. Online support has been fast and knowledgeable.
Their Fusion product provides ADSL2+, static IP address options, e-mail hosting, web hosting, and plain telephone service.
The telephone service has free national calls and even some international calls are free. The sound quality can't be beat. Call forwarding, voicemail to IMAP, caller ID, and call blocking are supported.
ADSL2+ is delivered at whatever your AT&T wires can handle with about a 6dB SNR margin. That can be anything from near-zero to 20Mbps. There's an option to bond two Fusion lines together to double your bandwidth. Other than that, neighborhoods with old AT&T wires are out of luck. Static IP addresses can be purchased and there's a way to switch Annex M on and off using your phone.
My service is two bonded Fusion lines using Annex M. The combined modem bitrate is a very consistent 8/2 Mbps delivering 7/1.6 Mbps actual. That's usually too low for video-on-demand at high quality. When asked about upgrade options, Sonic could only offer 5/5 Mbps for $599/month on their FlexLink Ethernet plan. I hope to get bandwidth elsewhere but keep one Fusion line for phone calls.
Warning! New Fusion customers must pay a $6.50/month modem rental fee. Only older customers can opt-out.
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 Review by jedihawk
member for 1.9 years, 4 visits, last login: 28 days ago
lodged 28 days ago
- Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
- $56 per month
- (month by month)
 about 14 days- "all good, faster than ever"
- "wish I had it earlier"
- "go for Sonic.net Fusion service"
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I've had Sonic.net standard DSL service for a while and it has been great. But when I upgraded to their new "Fusion" service, it's better than ever! And I can't get hi-speeds in this area. Never have been able to.
But the new Fusion service is outstanding and I'm very, very happy. The upgrade was seamless. The new equipment arrived just a few days after ordering, and was very simple to set up: just plug it in.
I was so happy with the new speeds that my roomie also upgraded. Now he's also very happy.
It's also great to finally be away from AT&T.
-Hawk
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 Review by IMSMTO
member for 10.1 years, 102 visits, last login: 29 days ago
updated 44 days ago
- Fairfield,Solano,CA
- Contract price not specified.
- about 8 days
- "Great"
- "Nothing at this point."
- "Tremendous value compared to AT&T."
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This is written in the glow of that 'first day' of service, but there already is reason to write. My Fusion service started today, exactly on time. AT&T handed over the line to Sonic as scheduled and within half an hour I noticed that the modem showed green. The notification E-Mail came at 38 mins after the switch started. As I was working using a tethered Blackberry I continued doing so until I had completed my work. Meanwhile, I picked up my phone to check for dial tone, verify caller ID and that it rang OK. In doing so I observed that the modem dropped sync everytime I picked up the phone. This has been a long standing problem. I had AT&T in my house several times to fix it over the years but no problem was ever found. I replaced my phones and filters a couple of times and even the modem, all to no avail. Finally last year I gave up and cancelled my AT&T DSL. Owing to the rising cost of phone service with AT&T I decided to take a chance on Sonic Fusion. Even if I continued to have problems with the connection dropping I'd at least have DSL again and could just disconnect the phones if I needed to.
Later, I got on my computer and checked out the service. My first test was 4000k download. Much faster than I ever got from AT&T (I had tried the high speed service in the past, but it dropped so often that I rolled back to the basic speed). I looked at the modem's 'DSL line details' display to see how it looked. It showed a problem with 'uncancelled echo' and indicated that the DSL filters were at fault. I started disconnecting phones to see if it got better. It did. I ran a new test and got 8300k download. I connected everything again. A little later I refreshed the DSL details display. To my surprise there no longer was any problem being reported. While it might have been the simple act of disconnecting and reconnecting the phones that did it, I have to wonder if Sonic made some adjustments after I brought my computer online in the evening and started using the connection. I made several phone calls and in no instance did my connection drop again. I checked the modem and it still showed -6.1dB with no error. Earlier it had shown 7.8dB. So this is very good.
While I was reluctant to have to 'rent' a modem, the cost of the service with it was still about the same as my AT&T service with basic phone, long distance, no phone features and no DSL. Thus I have the Pace 4111N, which is a 2Wire device. I do miss my Netgear N300, particularly it's off switch. I also find the lights on the Pace to be overly bright with no way to dim them. It came partially preconfigured. The E-Mail I received from Sonic provided the other settings. I found the interface easy to navigate and had it setup and my computer connected to the wireless within minutes.
Based on the limited time I have had with Sonic, so far, so good.
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 Review by DJRank1
member for 7.6 years, 189 visits, last login: 19 days ago
updated 66 days ago
- Pittsburg,Contra Costa,CA
- $34 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 10 days
- SBC
- "Everything"
- "None"
- "The best ISP ever!"
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This company is what I call a true ISP should be. I had them for a year(no longer with them)and all the options and features that they provide is incredible! The only reason why I am not with them anymore is because of my distance to the CO only allows me to get a 384/384 connection and I needed somthing faster so I had to go back to cable. The tech support is really good and another thing that I like that they do is the motd's that they email me. By doing that I am always informed with what is going on. Another feature that I like that I wasn't able to do because of my connection speed is the ability to make your house a wireless hotspot and any proceeds are credited to your account. They also allow you to host servers on your connection! There are so many more! I would definitely recommend this ISP and I already have to people I know. Thanks Sonic.net!
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Review by mfaklis
member for 5.5 years, 11 visits, last login: 128 days ago
lodged 128 days ago
- San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
- $60 per month
- (month by month)
- about 14 days
- "Incredible!"
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I had Sonic.net ADSL for a couple of years after leaving AT&T because they wouldn't open port 25 for my email server. Then after 2 years I started to see many errors, and after troubleshooting with support, they told me that for $5.00 more a month I could convert to their new Fusion ADSL product, and that would get 12 mbps download speed. The change would rid me of my AT&T phone line I had merely to hang a DSL line on. We were getting totally unacceptable errors, but support kept working on it. Long store short, my apartment building wired every apartments phone line to the security/Directory/Door system. The building neglected to put any DSL filters on that system. I hadn't noticed because I didn't have a land phone until recently. Now with Fusion, my upload speed is 1 Mbps and download speed is 12 Mbps, plus unlimited phone service to every Continent (except Antarctica), plus voice-mail sent to my Exchange server, plus a FAX line. It took much effort for support to trace the wiring problem in my apartment building, but now it transmits like greased lightening.
Sonic.net is the best ISP and the Fusion service is totally fantastic. I am grateful to Sonic.net for their efforts to get me up and running at full speed.
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 Review by BronsCon
member for 9.4 years, 1972 visits, last login: 13 days ago
updated 151 days ago
- Walnut Creek,Contra Costa,CA
- $50 per month
- about 4 days
- AT&T
- "Quick install, fast speeds, low pings"
- "Hmm..."
- "Great ISP"
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UPDATE [Nov 6, 2102 #2]:
Looks like I jumped the gun on that last update, as I'm able to connect to mail services on my VPS on port 25. Looks like that's open for me, as well. Whether that's a result of my having a static IP or due to my request in the comments below (in reply to Dane), I don't know, but the fact is it's at least possible to have outbound port 25 opened up. All kinds of good over here.
I also realized I didn't explain the points removed for pre sales info and install co-ordination, so I'll do that in this update. Also, the total monthly cost is an estimate for now, as I haven't gotten my first non-install bill yet.
Pre Sales Information: My entire pre-sales experience was the Sonic.net website, which seemed to indicate that I was actually getting less than is actually included with my account. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, from the point of view of someone who is getting more than they expected. However, from the perspective of someone who may be looking for a small amount of online storage space and a dedicated fax number along with their internet connection, making it clear on the website that these services are included might sway a few more people who are still unsure about making the switch to Sonic.net.
Install Co-ordination: I can't fault Sonic.net for this one, but they had no idea AT&T had been out to connect my phone line already. I placed the order after office hours on a Friday, so I'm considering it as placed on Monday, allowing for the fact that AT&T doesn't do weekend installs. Come Thursday, I decided I may as well hook up my phone, so I can decide where I want it (the phone jacks are in odd locations in this apartment) and I was surprised to find that I had a dial tone, despite never having been notified by Sonic that AT&T had even been scheduled to come out. It turns out that the tech who connected my office lines on Thursday had grabbed a list of all pending installs in the area and swung by and hooked the line up (it's an apartment complex, so I didn't need to be home to allow them access to the NID, and Sonic does the final hook-up so they didn't need in my apartment). Since the install wasn't scheduled at that time, Sonic had no way of knowing it was completed. When I called Sonic and informed them that I had dial tone, they made a test call to the number to verify that it was correct; since it was, they were able to cancel my install and refund my install fee. They overnighted me a modem (which UPS failed to deliver so I had to go pick it up, no big deal) and I was online the following Monday. Since I didn't need to call them once I had the modem, and I had dial tone on Thursday, I'm considering Thursday to be "success"; Monday -> Thursday is 4 days, so there we go.
UPDATE [Nov. 6, 2012]:
Port 53 inbound isn't blocked, I simply misconfigured my router. It sounds like port 25 outbound may be blocked, however, so I'll have to look into that, as I was hoping to move mail services off of my VPS and host them locally. I'll come back and update this review again once I get around to that, likely sometime in January.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Simply put, they don't cap (though they will on request; for example, my home line runs great uncapped, but my office lines are both unstable unless capped to below their max attainable rate). What your line syncs at, that's the speed you get. To top it off, the price tag includes a modem, a phone line with all the features, unlimited long distance, 8hr of calling to a long list of countries outside the US, web-based faxing with a dedicated number, web hosting, and, for single-line accounts (e.g. the TMC listed on this review), one free static IP.
My office is 6500ft out, my home is about 6200ft out. I get ~18mbps down and ~3mbps up on 2 Annex M lines at the office and ~18mbps down and ~1.2mbps up on one Annex A line at home (Annex M had no effect other than making the line unstable at home). Internal wiring quality dictates a much larger performance difference than would be expected (e.g. the wiring at office sucks, while the wiring at my home is pristine). None of this is Sonic.net's fault, it's just the nature of DSL.
The few times I've called in for support (static IP, switch to Annex M, switch the home line back to Annex A, switch the home line to fastpath [5-12ms pings to local servers, BTW]), hold times were short and the techs were knowledgeable enough to hold an intelligent conversation about line stats and capabilities. One tech even went so far as to email me a tone index for one of my office lines that was unstable; I was able to determine from that information that a bridge tap exists in the internal wiring for that line (thereby saving me from paying a tech to come out to tell me they couldn't touch it since it's internal wiring).
Speeds are great, I've not once gotten less than expected from either my home or office connections (based on sync rates). Pingtimes blow away any other ISP I've dealt with; even the office connection, which is on an interleave profile, has pingtimes ~30ms lower than our old ISP. My home connection, on fastpath, enjoys typical pings of 5-12ms with 1ms of jitter to local servers.
My only complaint is that inbound port 53 is blocked, but I only noticed that tonight and have not called to ask about getting it opened up, so I won't hold that against them.
I highly recommend this ISP if they're available at your location. Take the time to get your line set up correctly and you won't regret it.
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 Review by leibold
member for 10.7 years, 5028 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 154 days ago
- Sunnyvale,Santa Clara,CA
- $100 per month
- (month by month)
- about 8 days
- "Excellent Support, Great Phone and Internet Service"
- "None to report"
- "Highly Recommended"
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I have been a Sonic DSL customer since February 2006 when I switched from Cyberonic (since they no longer offered the Worldcom/uunet service). In all those years the service has been 100% reliable and I had no reason to use the excellent Sonic support staff.
The reason for updating my review of Sonic.net is that I upgraded to the latest product offering: Fusion. Fusion is a combination of ADSL2+ (which is a faster version of DSL allowing up to 20Mbps down and 2Mbps up) and plain old telephone service (not VOIP!) at one low price. Fusion allows two DSL lines to be bonded together for even higher speeds and I signed up for bonded Fusion ($50 per line) with an additional $20 for static IP addresses. Even at that price Fusion was cheaper then the cost for my two existing DSL lines (one with Sonic and one with AT&T) due to the ever increasing cost for the AT&T phone service.
However the day before my go-live date Sonic decided to drop the price per line to $39.95 so that the total is now just under $100 (not including the phone service related taxes).
For the switchover Sonic provided not just a date but also included an exact time: 11AM. At 11:05 I lost sync at the old DSL line and by 11:13 I got sync on the new Fusion modem. Phone service took a little longer but by 11:33 I was already making phone calls on my new Sonic phone service (which is amazing with all the free features: free long distance, free caller-id, free voicemail, etc.).
After configuring the modem to my liking I get DSL sync of 8.5Mbps down and 2Mbps up (DSLreports speedtest result is 7250 Kbps / 1635 Kbps). Those are the results for both lines combined since I'm pretty far from the CO.
To increase upload speed I had Sonic customer support enable Annex M which trades download speed for upload speed. This changes the sync rate to 3.7Mbps down and 2.9Mbps up. The support call was very nice since all I had to do was call 611 from the new Sonic phone line. The call was answered very quickly and the person who answered the phone was directly able to help me (no endless waiting and no repeated transfers to find the right person).
After one week of DSLreports line monitoring I'm happy to report no packet loss and a very consistent low 10ms latency to the west coast monitor (60ms to the east coast).
Update March 2011: Service is still going strong with low latency and no packet loss but the price has been reduced: dual line (bonded) Fusion is now only $69.95.
Update November 2012: There have been a couple of pricing changes this year that don't effect existing customers like myself but make bonded Fusion more expensive for new residential customers. On the other hand it got cheaper for business customers and International phone users. I'm still very satisfied with my service (no problems to report).
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 Review by elvey
member for 12.1 years, 704 visits, last login: 44 days ago
updated 155 days ago
- Alameda,Alameda,CA
- $10 per month
- (month by month)
- about 5 days
- SBC
- "One less thing to worry about. Fast, reliable connection. Friendly, knowledegable service. Great features."
- "None. (They could get bought out that could lead to deteriorating service.)"
- "Like everyone says: 'Get it!' There's a reason they've got the highest ratings."
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['12 Update: Sonic continues to perform well for my clients in all respects. Their glowing EFF review is a big plus »www.eff.org/wp/when-government-c···our-back Comcast and AT&T have 1-star reviews; Sonic got a perfect 4 out of 4 stars. The only ISP to worse was Verizon, with 0 stars. The review evaluates Online Service Providers’ Privacy and Transparency Practices Regarding Government Access to User Data.]
[Update '06. Just installed another Sonic DSL account. A minute after connecting the modem, these are my speeds:
Download = 5.073 Mbps
Upload = 655.41 kbps
I've also set up a few more sonic accounts since Oct '05; they went fine.
[Update '05: I've installed a few more Sonic DSL accounts, including ones at the new $15 rate, and each time, the process has been such a pleasant departure from the usual experience. If I call support, they often answer on the first ring! The pleasant shock I get when that happens is remarkable.] Oh, and with referral credit, the cost of your account can be as low as referrals get you.
Have "Enhanced - S" service; we get the advertised speed. Upgraded from an SBC T1 - the service is WAY better and the price is WAY better. I wish I could get Cable TV and cell phone service from a company like this! Heck, I wonder if they're hiring!
Initial tech info was incomplete (should include IPs, gateway, netmask, DNS resolvers to use, ...) but now they include this in their initial email (so I hear) and it's included on one of the private user pages:
»sonic.sonic.net/members/dsl_ip_t···ndex.php
Usefully, SMTP/POP/IMAP settings and port options are at »www.sonic.net/support/docs/quick-ref.shtml
[edit: Here's a feature list.
Most of the following is copied from a post from the guy in charge, hence the 'we':
Less than one minute average hold times to reach staff, and nice people. (I find they often answer on the first ring!) No scripted support, and no support from offshore. No organized crime affiliation.
We offer IPv6 addresses to all static IP customers (about a billion IPs!).
We provide end to end multicast IP routing to DSL customers (with the except of the Stockton LATA), and we're the only ISP peered with the BBC, delivering audio and video content over multicast.
We include user-configurable firewalling for your DSL connection - from none (for static customers hosting servers, for example) all the way up to full blocking. Your choice.
We allow static IP DSL customers to host a secure hotspot, and pay 50% of any collected day use fees, plus $0.50 any time another Sonic.net customer accesses.
We provide shell access. We've been a Linux ISP since 1994. (My license plate is "LINUX").
We offer uncapped speed Usenet access, with full binaries. We also provide free access to Supernews, in case you prefer them.
We provide VPN termination, so when you're using a hotspot or hotel connection, you can get a Sonic.net IP and a secure tunnel to a trusted network. This protects you from packet sniffing when using an untrusted or wireless network.
We do not require PPPoE, but instead provide a true bridged connection.
For static IP customers, we offer four or eight static IPs included. Additional IPs up to a full half class C are available for a one-time setup fee - no additional monthly!]
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Review by mattyx
member for 4.2 years, 19 visits, last login: 119 days ago
updated 178 days ago
- Oakland,Alameda,CA
- $114 per month
- AT&T
- "Fantastic speeds, even better customer service"
- "Price is a little high, but I have dual line fusion."
- "This is the DSL you're looking for."
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Sonic's sterling reputation for customer support, and more recently for protecting their users privacy (see the EFF.org report) finally convinced me to switch from Comcast business. I am paying slightly more for similar speeds (Sonic's upload is about half of what I had), but I am supporting a California small business, and know that Sonic is one of the good guys.
If you are in a favorable spot for DSL, I highly recommend Sonic.net.
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 | | Good Guys.... if they were one of the good guys, they wouldn't be one of the few indies that are still charging USF that is NOT charged by the big boys or anyone else. | |
| |  DaneJasperSonic.NetPremium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
kudos:9 | Re: Good Guys.... Land line voice service is subject to Universal Service Fund charge obligations. It's not avoidable for POTS service. | |
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Review by Thadius856
member for 6.8 years, 26 visits, last login: 155 days ago
updated 198 days ago
- Wheatland,Yuba,CA
- $20 per month
- about 5 days
- AT&T
- "Low cost, reasonable TOS, no monthly bandwidth cap, reliable timeframe estimates, 100% uptime so far"
- "Lower upload speeds than expected, 100% uptime so far (2 weeks in)"
- "Worth the money if you don't upload lots of large time-sensitive files"
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Ordered DSL service from Sonic and local home phone from AT&T since Dry
Loop isn't available. That's ok because most of my AT&T wireless minutes
come from calling businesses while I'm at home anyway, so I can now cut
down the voice plan on my cellular $15 to help compensate for the $23
landline cost. The wife will be happier to be able to talk to her family as
long as she wants. We went with a pending-on-pending for the following
Friday (5 business days out). Both services came on some time while I was
at work on Friday, flawlessly. I ordered my own Zoom modem from Amazon to
save a few dollars and the carrier settings from the instruction manual
were dead on; I still called their tech support line to confirm them.
At $20/mo for 12 mos, the Elite tier 3-6mbit package was very attractive.
My connection has been testing at 4 - 6 mbit down at 2800 ft from the CO in
a (geographically) small town with a lower population. Upstream is between
384 and 786 kbit depending on time of day, which I find disappointing.
Compare to 12-16 mbit down and 2-3 mbit up from Comcast on a "Performance"
tier, albiet at a much higher cost. I'm told Extreme 105 is available in my
area, though there's certainly no fiber here and I doubt there will be for
a very very long time. However, with the difference in TOS, I'm not worried
about bandwidth caps or Comcast's historically shady practices of packet
shaping and that helps make up for it. I just wish Sonic's Fusion hardware
was installed at my CO for better speeds.
UPDATE 21 SEP 2012:
Had Sonic.Net service now for about 7.5 months now. Service has been pretty reliable, though still always under the 6mbps advertised (closer to 4mbps). It doesn't have the same 'snap' when browsing that my 12mbit Comcast connection had, but it's a fraction of the price.
At one point, we were having to power cycle out modem every few hours. Called Tech Support, who kept resetting my modem, but to no avail. I posted for help here on the forums and Dane (IIRC) pointed me in a specific troubleshooting direction with his staff. An AT&T line tech was dispatched and found found crossed phone and power lines a few blocks away, causing tons of induction interference. Ever since, the service has been wonderfully reliable.
I doubt I'll keep service after the promo rate expires. I figure the $20/mo I'm paying is a fair rate for a connection of this speed once you add in the price of the phone line. I'll probably switch to Comcast if the rate goes up.
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