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Review by litephaze  - Location: San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
- Cost: $62 per month
- Install: about 4 days
 Covad
Good "Small "Mom/Pop" experience, while Offering 'business-office' caliber of services in the residence."
Bad "I am juuuust (by hardly 100' or 200' too far from C.O. (~4100')) Therefore, can't get the "
Overall "If you want to have an ISP that REALLY cares about their Customers... Sonic is it!"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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Comcast®/Xfinity™ was tempting until I learned that they are STILL known to block ports and an element of 'privacy' seems to hatch every now and then...
The only down-side is I am at the 'fastest' DSL/XDSL2 at 4987kb/111.6kb (Approximately 5 Mbit down and ~1 M Bit Up) Though I would LOVE the bandwidth of Comcast/Cable, they SWEAR it is not possible to offer Static-IP service, short of paying $$$ for "Business-Class".
Sonic.net is the ONLY ISP in SF/Bay Area that offers Static IP for a reasonable price.
Overall, I TOTALLY dig Sonic! I am NEVER on hold when I have to call AND the Sonic Team from ANY/ALL departments has ALWAYS taken the extra step to do the BEST they can!
member for 7.8 years, 239 visits, last login: 13 days ago
updated 13 days ago
Comments:
| Review by bobrk - Location: San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
- Cost: $70 per month
- Install: about 8 days
- AT&T
Good "great support, instant setup"
Bad "costs more than some competitors, but worth it."
Overall "as good as the reviews say"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings above consensus)
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This review has turned into somewhat of a connection diary. Every 6 months, DSLReports asks me to update my review, so that's what I do. My original review is at the bottom, and each update is placed above it.
The straight summary here is that I have had this service since 2002 and love it completely. I pay for high speeds and a website as well, which is why my monthly costs are slightly higher than normal. But I get a solid 6Mbps which is enough to watch internet streamed television and everything else.
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8/28/13
Always available and always listening, this company rocks. If I wasn't behind a remote terminal, I would use them for Fusion and get my phone from them, too.
Rock solid in the modern era of streaming Netflix. And they waived my website fee. I guess it pays to be a long time customer.
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8/13/12
Steaming along perfectly still.
I also switched my account from Dynamic IP to Static IP to try out the IPV6 Tunneling which seems to work ok.
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10/7/11
The service is reliable like the water supply. With DirecTV disconnected, we have two HDTV's pulling numerous different feeds off the Roku and AppleTV with nary a hiccup.
As I stated last time, the only possible improvement that could be made would be moving to Fusion, which is impossible because I'm connected to a remote terminal.
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1/25/11
Still awesome. Still bummed I can't get the fusion service, though. I've just unplugged my satellite tv and need more bandwidth!
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7/7/10
Well, since I'm on a Remote Terminal, I can't get the Fusion product, which is now available in my area.
Good thing I'm still happy with my 6MB service and my 100% availability.
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1/1/10
Pretty much a perfect year. I don't think I had to call them once.
I am hoping that their fusion service will come to my neighborhood. It's bonded DSL lines that produce even more bandwidth.
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6/15/09
Service is so good that it is almost completely out of sight, out of mind. Even BT and Netflix traffic do not perturb its perfection.
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12/12/08
Same old, same old. I was just looking at my monitors here at DSLReports, and they are delightfully boring. The Zoom modem they setn me has been flawless with no rebooting needed at any time. The spam filtering on email is nearly perfect, maybe 1 or 2 spams get to my mailbox a week. People use my sonic hosted website as a test of their networks, since it's always up.
I would recommend Sonic to anyone in their service area.
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6/11/08
Not a lot new to report. My Meraki doesn't get much use from outside folks. I have a plan to reposition it, but I haven't done that yet. The Zoom modem is still working great.
I've begun using some of the other features of my account, using 4 real mailboxes, 4 mailing lists and 20 domain email addresses. It usually just takes moments to set something new up.
The spam filters catch between 5 and 20 emails a day, with only one or two hitting my mailboxes.
Otherwise, service is rock solid, with published service levels always achieved.
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12/6/07
Time for the 6 month checkup. I still have the high speed account. I still have dynamic IP, although it pretty much never changes.
I also signed up for the Meraki WiFi access point. They send you a tiny WAP, and an ethernet switch, and you plug it all together and if somebody uses it, either a freebie user or a Sonic customer, you get a kickback. No one's used mine yet, but hey, I'm giving it a shot.
The spam filters are pretty much perfect. I have to go save an email about once a month or less from the grey mail system, but other than that, it stops anywhere from 5 to 30 emails a day.
The network rocks. Super solid, and ping to first hop has been 8ms pretty constantly. Network issues are dealt with quickly and you always know what's happening there with an MOTD mailed to you whenever they come out.
So after all these years, I'd still recommend Sonic.
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6/6/07
Indeed, the connection is rock solid once again, and the speed is insane. I should have gotten a new modem right when this first started.
Anyway, much has been made of the fact that Sonic uses AT&T DSL to get the job done and that AT&T gives Sonic the run around. Well, I just have to say that it really isn't true in my case. I had an earlier incident right after Sonic started selling the 6MB service, and Sonic was able to get (then SBC) AT&T people out to check out the situation, where they did a very professional job of analysis. In this most recent case, the AT&T guy did a great job once again, and even asked me where I got my NID POTS DSL splitter--he'd never seen one like that before.
So I feel that the idea of AT&T giving Sonic the runaround is a myth.
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6/1/07
Well, it turned out that the modem was probably dying. After another month or two, the modem started dropping packets and losing sync all the time. I thought it was either the line or the internal network, but both of those checked out fine.
I asked for another loaner Zoom, which arrived earlier this evening. After a few hours, it seems to be working great. We'll give it a few more days, but I think it's going to work just fine.
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2/13/07
In one week, I had to reboot the modem twice. I went back to my good ol' Broadmax and everything is back to speediness.
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2/7/07
Just upgraded my speed. Took less than a week to do and the only hitch was they didn't tell me to reboot my modem, which would have been nice. Until I rebooted it, the speeds were funky, but afterwards they're great. They offered to send me a loaner Zoom modem to trouble shoot, with an option of upgrading to it for $50. I'm currently evaluating the modem to see if it's any better than the Broadmax they sent me back in '02.
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7/19/06
Still great. The network seems to just get better and better, and the attention to detail and service levels is astounding. I would recommend this company to anyone unequivocally.
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1/18/06
I moved. Sonic moved with me. Was pretty painless once I understood the system, and as always, the DSL synced before the due date.
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9/14/05
I decided to downgrade my service to save money. I'm now on the Pro DSL service. Solid 3Mbps service down and a lot less money.
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12/22/04
Well, it's been nearly two years since I signed up for Sonic, and I still can't believe how good the service is. You can read about most of it above, but I think the thing that really needs to be emphasized is the great customer service. From diagnosing a bad card in an R/T and rolling the SBC truck to fix it to telling me to reboot my modem in a nice way when my dsl dies, it's really a company that is a pleasure to deal with.
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6/16/04
Just added web hosting to my account. This involved moving my domain name from my last ISP, repointing MX records and signing up for the new service. All were accomplished using automated tools, and everything went quite smoothly. The web hosting is a little pricey at $20/mo, but I like having everything in the same place. Basic Hosting also includes 24 email aliases and 100MB of storage.
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2/21/04 update
Just received the 6000/608 upgrade service offered by Sonic, and it rocks. There were some problems with people that were on RTs, as I found out I was, with ratecaps being needed in the Redback routers to limit the amount of speed. This keeps the downloads and uploads very stable and gives the user the full experience of what can only be described as AWESOME INTERNET! I'm extremely happy with Sonic and would recommend it to anybody!
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8/5/03 update
sonic.net rocks. There are simply no problems. My modem always syncs now, the speed is decent, certainly what I paid for, although I think I can get it higher by installing a point-of-entry pots device, but I haven't made the time for that yet. The email is great, with built in spam controls, which are easy to configure, and there are 3 news servers available. When there are problems with the ISP, notices are sent out via email and newsgroups as well as being posted on the web page.
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12/30/02 update
I got the new modem and it acted just like the old one. I got a sync light, though, but I had to unplug all my phones to get it to come on. Plugging them all back in did not cancel the light, so i guess it does have something to do with all the filters. In any case, the speed is adequate, and the support great. I haven't phoned them at all, but they've followed up every email inquiry and even checked up on my situation several times.
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(Original review)
After years hearing about sonic net on ba.internet, I finally had the chance to give them a try. I was with DIRECTV DSL when they went out of business, so I ordered sonic.net on my other line. I tend to judge isp's on how easy it is to hook up on line, and within just a few moments, I had a username and a basic internet account on line. The DSL installation went smoothly as well, with a clear email telling me what was going to happen, when to expect the installer and when to expect the equipment.
The Broadmax modem came, I plugged it in, and I didn't see a sync light. It blinked a couple of times, but that was just the setup. When my supposed hookup day arrived, I went ahead and switched my router over from the DTV modem on the second line, to the new modem. Sure enough, I had traffic, and yet the sync light was not on. WAN and LAN told me that everything was ok.
I didn't know if the sync light was supposed to be on, and the modem was working fine, so I bounced this off the sonic.dsl newsgroup (one of many that are hosted there) and Dane suggested that I contact support. If you become a sonic.net customer, you will get to know Dane. He probably interacts personally with every customer. The support people offered to trade modems, to see if the modem itself was defective, and I'm now awaiting the new modem.
My only beef with the service right now is I'm getting slightly less on download then I was getting with DTV. It's countered by slightly higher upload speeds and a low 20ms ping.
I'll update this review when the modem situation is solved.
member for 13.6 years, 5306 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 38 days ago
Comments:
| Review by kathologist - Location: Lakeport,Lake,CA
- Cost: $35 per month (12 month contract)
- AT&T
Good "Customer Support; privacy protection; active in the communites"
Bad "need to watch main site for specials"
Overall "While the compitition offers cheaper, you get what you pay for..."
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I live in rural Northern California in a mountainous region.
We are one of the least wired counties in California.
Sonic.net has been my #1 choice for almost a decade.
When I lived in San Francisco, I had the luck of being one of the first 30,000 SDSL pacbell customers due to my membership with the SF Computer Users Group.
If you have Sonic.net and decide to become a DirecTV customer, they have a great bundling package. Since I am already a DTV customer, it doesn't apply to me.
Sonic has competitive pricing and is pro EFF.
Sonic does not snoop on you like AT&T etc, and NO CAPS on bandwidth.
The competition:
Mediacom is expensive and unreliable. At the time I used them (2003), you could only have one device at a time logged in. They have outages and poor reception (this is anecdotal from current customers).
member for 214 days, 4 visits, last login: 44 days ago
updated 44 days ago
Comments:
 | | Not always "get what you pay for" w/cheaper ISPs :-) While the compitition offers cheaper, you get what you pay for... Not necessarily true... The only two ISPs I've had since 1995 have been Sonic.net ('95-2008) and the similar-sized DSLExtreme ('08-now) — I've had similar DSL speeds, reliability, and support experiences through both.
Just mentioning that there's at least one other decent ISP, in case you or anyone else falls on hard times as I did.  | |
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| Review by JakCrow - Location: Livermore,Alameda,CA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
Good "It's SONIC. Had them for a couple years now. Connection seems to be reliable."
Bad "Can't get anything faster. Too far on the loop from CO."
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It works. I guess the fastest I can get from a 6Mbps DSL connection. Wish I could get more, but thanks to at&t one day making the loop from the CO to my house almost 12,000 ft instead of the original 7-8000 it used to be (all without my house or the CO moving of course), this is all I can get. And since a comcast manager once accused me of stealing my cable modem when I had cable internet, I won't be going back to comcast any time soon.
member for 11.8 years, 1906 visits, last login: 2 days ago
updated 109 days ago
Comments:
| Review by faxmachine - Location: Oakland,Alameda,CA
- Cost: $53 per month (12 month contract)
- Install: about 3 days
- AT&T
Good "Technical support, FUSION POTS, reasonable price"
Bad "Limited DSL speeds, growing pains"
Overall "If you despise Comcast like I do Sonic is a viable local alternative."
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I have had Sonic for about 5 years at this point. Why am I writing a review now? Mainly because I think I'm starting to be affected by the growing pains of this otherwise excellent company. I love Sonic's ethics, love that they are in the area and tech support is always available and willing to spend as much time on the phone with you as you are with them. Sonic's prices are reasonable, especially when you get their FUSION service which gives you a POTS line and free calls and I was able to cancel my $40+/month AT&T land lines. Sonic's phone service is not IP telephony as far as I can tell, it's a real dial tone with no bandwidth issues like you would experience with Vonage or the others, no special equipment required and no call charges.
If the world were a perfect place this fine relationship would go on for ever and we would ride off into the sunset together but life is not like that. First the stats. Sonic's FUSION service is advertised at $39 per month for a 20Mbps down, 1Mbps upload that can be configured to 2.5Mbps upload service that includes the aforementioned POTS service with no calling charges. These bandwidth figures are dependent on your distance from the CO. I can't tell you my exact distance from my CO but I would guess it to be a little over a mile according to DSL Reports CO locator: »/coinfo.
My DSL Reports test history has shown that I never get more than 9.5Mbps down and 9.8Kbps up. Sonic until recently had my line capped at 14.9Mbps down and 1.2Mbps up, the speed at my end is obviously slower and I know there are anomalies in testing, this however is not my main problem with Sonic even though these speeds are easily eclipsed by Cable (Comcast). My problem comes with an almost daily bout with losing sync and modem reboot. This issue has been going on for years. Sometimes it goes away for moths at a time. Sometimes it happens five or six times a day. Recently it has gotten worse.
Sonic and I have tried all the level-1 fixes; filter replacements, modem replacements, handset removal, RH-11 replacement. All of these fixes have been tried multiple times. My modem has been replaced three times, twice at my expense buying modems other than what Sonic was offering @$50 and then the last time out of desperation I paid the $50 and purchased one of their ZTE 831 modems. Problem went away for three months and now it's back. I'll add that I live in a multi-unit Loft building in Oakland that was converted from a warehouse to living space in 1994. I have lots of phone jacks around my space and I'm willing to accept that the problem could exist in the inside wiring and that will be my problem to fix. In the past AT&T has been called by Sonic to check their lines, their report came back with no problems but who knows if they ever even came here? I was never contacted and I have one of the only two keys to get in our phone room so I would know if they came out and actually looked at the wiring from the street into the phone room.
So what's my problem? My problem is that we (Sonic and I) have never been able to pin down this problem and I never seem to be able to move beyond level-1 tech support, assuming there is something higher. Recently I've noticed a lack of candor that I've come to expect with Sonic. Sonic is growing and it seems to me that maybe their marketing department has gotten it's hands into the tech support process. Sonic Techs will still talk to you all day if you want but the the tech support folks seem guarded in what they will say. I was on the phone with them today for over an hour and I found myself having to really talk around certain key words and concepts to get close to some kind of answer, very frustrating. And after that hour where are we? Back at sending me a new modem (no charge this time) to see if we can isolate the problem. This means that I will have to put this modem in and wait to see if anything happens. At the same time they have capped my speed down so it'll be harder to tell which thing fixes the problem, if at all. This must all be done before they will send anyone out which I can understand because of the expense of sending someone from Santa Rosa to Oakland to check things out, but Sonic, as a long time customer I expect a bit better treatment. Maybe I'm being unrealistic?
So more weeks of tinkering around before we get near anything like a solution. My suggestion to anyone who is thinking of DSL with Sonic, they are good, they available and they really seem to want to help but if you are not in a new building, are a good distance away from your CO or have limited patience for level-1 tech support flow charts, you might want to consider your options. It pains me to say that because the alternatives are bleak, mostly Comcast which some folks love, that is as long as you don't have to interact with Comcast and your speeds are good and you have a stable connection and they are not capping your downloads or giving your info to the government at every opportunity then life is good, yes?
So Sonic, all I want is a straight answer and something better than level-1 support and I don't feel I'm getting it and that sucks and you need to consider how you are handling your growth and your long time customers. I'm not hinting at any conspiracy here, just a lack of coordination and/or motivation. If Sonic and I should be able to solve this problem, or not, I'll update this post.
And with that there goes my modem losing sync again and rebooting. .
My Sonic cost breakdown:
DNS XXXXX.net 1.95
No Invoices to Primary Email 0.00
Fusion Broadband - Single Line - 39.95
Fusion Broadband Information - 0.00
Data $19.97 Voice $19.98
Voice Federal Subscriber Line Charge Fee 6.50
Voice Federal Universal Service Fund Fee 2.38
Voice California Lifeline Telephone Service 0.15
Surcharge
Voice California Deaf and Disabled Telecom 0.03
Program Surcharge
Voice California High Cost Fund-B Surcharge 0.04
Voice California Teleconnect Fund Surcharge 0.01
Voice California Advanced Services Fund 0.02
Surcharge
Voice California 911 Emergency Surcharge 0.06
Voice Oakland Utility Users Tax 1.99
Fusion Phone Service - 510-XXX-XXXX 0.00
Voice California Public Utility Commission 0.02
User Fee
Voice FCC Interstate Telecom Service 0.05
Provider Fee
Voice FCC Telecommunications Relay Service 0.14
Fund
All that and no desert.
member for 8.2 years, 112 visits, last login: 127 days ago
updated 139 days ago
Comments:
Reviews:
 ·SONIC.NET
1 edit | Update Since my last review the following has happened
Sonic shipped me a new modem. Result: little to no improvement. Modem still dropping sync several times a day.
Sonic tech visited my residence. Results: no problems found with wiring between the phone room and my loft. No obvious problems with wiring at connection point at the in my loft to phone room.
Removed two older jacks in my kitchen when tiling work was done. Result: It seemed the issue improved but two weeks later the problems continue. This red-herring of a solution was probably due more wishful thinking than actual improvement. I was away from home on the road directly following the work for a week and then working remotely away from home for a second week during the peak times for this sync dropping issue. I'm home all day today and the problem is as bad as it's ever been.
5 drops so far today, I can barley stay connected long enough to post this!
Super frustrating.
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| |  Snypes
join:2003-12-29
Santa Rosa, CA | Re: Update If you could send me an IM with your Sonic.net login I would be happy to take a closer look at this issue for you. The stability of our customers services is important to us.
--
DSL Support Specialist
Sonic.net, Inc. | |
| | Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
| I spoke with Sonic Tech support over the weekend and the person I spoke with brought up the possibility that RF interference could be causing my modem sync issues. Specifically RF in the AM radio band. I've gotten an RF filter that isn't in the AM band but still may filter out enough RF to make a difference. Can't really tell if this is going to be a solution as I'm not home at the peak times for this issue. I will be able to monitor in a week or so. Hope it works! | |
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Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
| The problem is back The problem of the modem dropping connection is back. Sonic's been out and AT&T's been here too and no fix. Neither of them can figure it out.
Vendor meeting next week. If they can't fix it I'm going to have to find a new ISP which is really sad because I love Sonic (until recently). This sucks. | |
| | Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
| Re: The problem is back [SONIC.NET] So the fun continues. I've got stability now but low speed. 5mbps down and .89 up. There was a time I had 10+ down and 1.2 up, it wasn't stable but that's got more to do with AT&Ts lines than anything else, as does the slow speed. My gripe is, we are doing the back and forth with finger pointing between Sonic & AT&T. It is AT&Ts fault no doubt. It's AT&Ts shit infrastructure that is responsible for instability and slow speed. It's their refusal to do anything more than send one tech out at a time to work on this issue. Sonic is powerless to do anything about it and that might be why I ultimately have to leave them, they have no control over infrastructure. | |
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| | I was thinking about trying sonic... I just moved into a new apartment building on 1459 Macarthur and need internet. I have Comcast now, in Berkeley, but have been far from impressed; the speed is very inconsistent, I work over VOIP, and it's very unprofessional that I need to hang up and call people back because my modem needs to be reset.
Anyway, I was thinking about Sonic, and this review is making me waiver. It says I'm around 16,000 feet from the routing station. That sounds like it might be a little far for this stuff. #1 thing I need is reliability. #2 thing is bandwidth. I don't need 50/10 type speed, but I do need a solid 5/1 minimally. I'm guessing I should just try Comcast again and hope this new area is less congested. | |
| | Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
| Re: I was thinking about trying sonic... Just as I was starting to post a reply to you when my modem dropped, again. I can't say this enough, I love(d) Sonic. Their customer service is second to none however in my particular situation there seems to be no answer to my problem coming from Santa Rosa. With Sonic you get AT&T no way around it. You get AT&T and their aging infrastructure and the aging phone wires in your building. DSL is slower than cable but in your case you've experienced Comcast and their inconsistent speeds and you might be as tired of that as I am of having an unreliable connection from Sonic (& AT&T). I am 7000 feet away from the switch and Sonic keeps dropping my speed to try and stabilize my connection but it never works and all I get is an unreliable connection and slower speeds. The last chance for Sonic is coming this Tuesday 5/21, there is a vendor meet between them and AT&T at my building. If they cannot solve once and for all this issue, I will be moving to Comcast (-shudder-). Everyone in my building gets fast and reliable service from Comcast and I HATE the idea of giving my money to them but Sonic you have failed me, your most loyal of customers, and you don't seem to be able to fix the problem even though you've had YEARS to do so. [Modem drop, again...] If I were you I'd wait on going to Sonic or try Sonic but be prepared to go back to Comcast. it's all about getting a good circuit from AT&T and hoping all the copper and connections are good between AT&T and you.  | |
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| Review by jstone00 - Location: Glendale,Los Angeles,CA
- Cost: $57 per month
- Install: about 6 days
- AT&T
Good "Great support with knowledgeable techs; lots of contact to make sure all was well; a fast connection with static I.P."
Bad "The $19.95/month rate will only last for a year."
Overall "Back with Sonic.net after 8 years with SBC Yahoo/ATT. Speed is 5X faster; change-over from ATT took 15 minutes"
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Sonic.net is the best ISP I have encountered in 10 years of international internet use. Their support is nothing short of fantastic, both in its competence and follow-up. I recommend Sonic.net to anyone who is contemplating getting DSL in their service area.
July 10th, 2004 UPDATE: So far the connection has been rock-solid, without a single glitch, even though I am about 11,000 feet from the phone company switching facility. Moreover, I have received the $99.00 rebate credit for the DSL modem as advertized. These guys really do what they say they'll do. I'm 100% satisfied!
May 29, 2012 UPDATE: Back with Sonic.net here in Glendale, California after 8+ years with SBC Yahoo / ATT. Advertized speeds of the Sonic connections are 3.0Mbps - 6.0Mbps Download and 512Kbps - 768Kbps Upload, which is about 5X faster than the ATT service. The modem indicates I'm getting Incoming: 6016 kbps and Outgoing: 768 kbps. I'm using the old ATT supplied 2-Wire 2701 HG-B modem/wireless router, and the set-up was a breeze...all I had to do was paste the Sonic supplied number string into the modem set-up page and voilà...everything worked. We'll see how stable the connection is at this speed; I've already had 1 reboot. Change from ATT to Sonic happened as scheduled, and by the morning (7:15 AM) of the scheduled change, I'm connected with Sonic.
UPDATE: May 18, 2013
Because the 1 year trial rate of $19.95 was due to come to an end, and because I remembered that the Sonic.Net Fusion service had become available in my area, I decided to call Sonic and see just what this service could offer. The package was attractive and my total savings would be $20+/- over my existing ATT phone service, so I went ahead and bought the Fusion package.
The change-over went seamlessly, and now I can call any US phone number without paying any additional long-distance fees. I also now have caller ID, call-waiting, and a host of other features. My Internet speed increased slightly and is now at the maximum that my distance from the phone company central office and interior wiring in an old apartment building will allow.
Perhaps the best part is that there will be no more monthly bill from ATT!!! Am I happy? You bet!
member for 9.3 years, 89 visits, last login: 136 days ago
updated 140 days ago
Comments:
| Review by kmcmurtrie - Location: Sunnyvale,Santa Clara,CA
- Cost: $110 per month (month by month)
- AT&T
Good "Support, uptime, and telephone"
Bad "AT&T wires, modem fees"
Overall "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.
member for 7.4 years, 325 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 206 days ago
Comments:
| Review by jedihawk - Location: Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
- Cost: $56 per month (month by month)
- Install: about 14 days
Good "all good, faster than ever"
Bad "wish I had it earlier"
Overall "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
member for 2.4 years, 4 visits, last login: 209 days ago
lodged 209 days ago
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| Review by IMSMTO - Location: Fairfield,Solano,CA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
- Install: about 8 days
Good "Great"
Bad "Nothing at this point."
Overall "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.
member for 10.6 years, 104 visits, last login: 156 days ago
updated 225 days ago
Comments:
| Review by DJRank1 - Location: Pittsburg,Contra Costa,CA
- Cost: $34 per month (12 month contract)
- Install: about 10 days
- SBC
Good "Everything"
Bad "None"
Overall "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!
member for 8 years, 196 visits, last login: 9 days ago
updated 246 days ago
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