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Review by originaldiode 
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 2 visits, last login: 7.9 years ago
 Rohnert Park,Sonoma,CA
 $58 per month
 about 5 days
 SBC
CLEC party: SBC
 "Truthful about downtime, immediate response to downtime, open communications about status"
 "sometimes slow response times from customer service to cases opened in email"
 "A++++"
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I ordered a long time ago (2 years). It was fast and painless. Most of my problems have been with Pac Bell, so I cannot penalize sonic for that.
I have been a faithful customer of sonic.net since 1997.
I ordered the consumer speed which was 1.5/128, however I am 15,000 feet from CO, so my speed is really 384/128
Home equipment was originally very shotty (alcatel 1000) and I was told by pacbell to relocate the box to the center of my room on phonebooks, lol, like I would really do that! I now have a Westell Wirespeed and all is well
True bridged Ethernet, no dial up crap, 99.9% uptime from sonic, immediate response from sonic to downtime (yes, even at 3 in the morning)
Extremely reliable, helpful, knowledgable customer support
Because of the separation of SBC and Pac Bell, each of them blames the other for problems.
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Review by Genosha2
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 38 visits, last login: 6.9 years ago
Vacaville,Solano,CA
$53 per month
about 1 days
SBC
"Helpful and never treats you like your stupid...."
"None Really"
"Reliable, Honest, and Flexable"
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I've been with Sonic.net sonce "97" and they have come to extremes in change. (GOOD CHANGE) I have heard complaints and I fully believe that Sonic.net can satisfy anyones needs to the basic on up...I have used them for school SantaRosa JC and now Solano Community College and they have the flexibility that I have not seen on any other ISP... It took 4 before I found Sonic.net...Now with 4 IP's it makes it that more exciting!!! I know how people feel about having to do everything to get their Internet to work but there is really no hassle...Call and Ask....
Look at the Basic Dial-up then DSL and figure that no others match!
Pacbell is my TELCO nuff said...
SBC (ASI) Gets kudos for all the techs that came and straightend my line out...
Hmm....Correction made... You still think that's bad huh? For what you get?
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Review by aliza
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 1 visits, last login: 8.2 years ago
Sharon,Norfolk,MA
Contract price not specified.
SBC
"Human beings always available."
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There was always a human being on other end of line (both tech and sales). They gave good pre-advice on modem, splitter, contract discount. They got a date from PacBell, and it went through as set. They sent "hand-holding" e-mails and messages in case of "emergencies from PacBell." They gave a dial-up account, a static IP, and a discount for paying the 12-month sum in advance.
I am a lay person who researched this DSL for my son. I am very satisfied with having sonic.net as a front end to help with notorious DSL problems. Especially the fact that there were human beings easily available to talk to!!
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Review by acheyer
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 3 visits, last login: 7.9 years ago
Oakland,Alameda,CA
$18 per month (12 month contract)
SBC
"Successful installation and attentive support"
"CS called at home on Saturday night"
"SonicNet +PacBell is much better than Pacbell alone!"
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I was originally a happy PacBell customer, but after a recent move, had a terrible time interacting with them. Hours spent on hold, weeks waiting for an installation, then failure because they didn't manage information well enough (I needed a splitter, not filters, because of an alarm, my preexisting modem requires static IP, lots of info they didn't communicate). More hours on hold. In frustration, I gave up and stuck with a dialup modem.
Sonic.Net changed all that. Much better customer support, they acted as a broker between us and PacBell. I had the information I needed and the whole installation went very smoothly. I've been very satisfied since.
Situation: Static IP, $18/month for Sonic.Net + $37 for Pacbell, my own modem, 1 yr contract, alarm -- needed a splitter installed.
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Review by craigs214
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 13 visits, last login: 6.3 years ago
Sunnyvale,Santa Clara,CA
$56 per month (3 month contract)
about 10 days
SBC
"Great tech support, flexible, good information on problems, pretty responsive"
"sales was slow to get on the order, some things get dropped by support and you have to remind them."
"It's great to have an alternative to DirtLink and PacHell, I like sonic.net so far"
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My old ISP was ThirdWorld and they are in the process of going out of business. They just dumped DSL a couple weeks ago and told me to go to DirtLink for service. I took one look at the DirtLink agreements and pricing and went shopping. This site was a big help.
I have been on the internet since about 1986. 2 1/2 years ago I jumped to DSL with Sirius.com/pacbell. Shortly afterwards ThirdWorld misCommunications took them over. I liked Sirius. I hated ThirdWorld. Nobody knew what was going on between them and the clowns at pacbell. I guess pacbell has gotten better but I don't trust them. So I wanted an independent. So far I am very happy with Sonic.
They are flexible and helpful with the install and setup. I bought a DSL modem on ebay and found some online help (dsl reports lists) and got it running properly. They didn't cram a lot of extra fees down my throat and I got a very cheap self install. Static IP to start with, and a 4 or 8 ip option.
All the news servers look good. You can have a bunch of mail and www if you need it. One of the best things is that they post problems and resolutions on the web site and the login shell motd. That's right, a shell account comes with the package. An old hacker like me really enjoys that. 
I would recommend sonic.net to anyone.
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Review by philb8
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.6 years, 681 visits, last login: 3.4 years ago
Portola Valley,San Mateo,CA
$57 per month (month by month)
about 45 days
SBC
CLEC party: SBC
"Great ISP. Like Megapath in the early days. Best tech support I've seen. Great shell + news. Domain mail and DNS avail."
"They do get goofed around by Pacbell, but at least you don't have to talk to ASI!!"
"A great choice over PBI for PacBell DSL. Run by grown ups you can actually talk to"
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Overall a great experience. They had to have ASI build a PVC to the OCD that serves my RT and that turned into a mess. Pronto seems to be that way if the slightest thing goes wrong. Once that got sorted out its been great. They seem to be effective at dealing with the ASI folks at SBC and really do care about their ISP business. The Pacbell ATM transport and Pronto RTs are great! Sonic have redundant well peered connectivity that is not saturated even peak hours.
They are a small town ISP that serves the whole Bay Area LATA. The ISP services compared to PBI are really good, I know all the reviews look for these guys look like they are employee written but they do have a VERY loyal customer base. Services are very automated, even domain transfer is a simple form. They have national dial up and web based mail tools which are great for work.
If you get stuck support is quick and competent.
Real static IP.The shell account is good, web hosting works fine. The only thing I can think of that is a negative is that while domain mail is really cheap, mapping the domain to the personal web space is not. They will DNS the home IP address for a one time setup fee though and I guess you could redirect from there.
The combination of Sonic.net and the Pronto RT at 1536/160 really works for me. I tried PBI.Their PPPoE, mail and DNS were horrible. Pacbell should just give their ISP business to Sonic!
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Review by schwani
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 4 visits, last login: 6.2 years ago
Pleasanton,Alameda,CA
$60 per month (3 month contract)
about 20 days
SBC
CLEC party: SBC
"Excellent service, products"
"None"
"Great ISP"
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After Ricochet outsourced their original service and it stopped working well for me I started looking around. Cable was out for me. Calling PacBell directly was a page from either a comedy or horror story.
Enter Sonic. My first call gave me good information. I ordered the service and was on line (dial up) in 15 minutes. Pac Bell took 2 weeks to get them a date for DSL install, but then they were a day ahead of schedule with the installation.
I got the modem, plugged it in, turned it on and it worked, simple as that. They even e-mailed and s-mailed my IP assignment so that I could bet things ready on my end.
I've found working or talking with their tech support easy. I'm actually NOT horrified of calling them.
Their unix shell account - IT'S ACTUALLY USEFULL!! What a suprise these days, it's very well set up. Their on line utilites are great too, account information and cofiguration. Twig, while not the quickest, is great too (this is their online mail and news web interface) for when you can't get to the shell or your mailbox.
Some one mentioned they are going national, I hope things don't change. I remember how great Word Perfect Corp's support was before they got too big and Correl bought them.
All in all, great ISP
Richard
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Review by Gandalf
Posted: 8.2 years ago
(review was emailed from domain community.net,)
Vacaville,Solano,CA
$20 per month (3 month contract)
"Great services and support. Amazingly good SHELL accounts."
"going national now which does worry me alittle"
"Best Ive found after a dozen different ISPs in the last 2 years"
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Interesting site dslreports.com. I saw that a user mentioned it in my
ISPs newsgroups so I came in to look.
I find sonic.net to be a big surprise in these days of crashing ISPs.
I haven't seen such a well managed SHELL machine since prior to the
birth of WWW. Most ISPs nowadays have no idea how to do a shell
machine.
Their servers all work, they are multi-homed and close to backbones.
They have multiple news feeds. They have local newsgroups such as
sonic.general which are quite active and helpful. Not only do staff
members actually haunt the sonic newsgroups, but there are some very
knowledgeable users filling out the responses. Even more surprising the
CEO is always reachable by these newsgroups and personal email.
I work on the net. Im continually checking out new ISPs and always have more than one account (its like having a second car to make sure I can get to work. Sonic is now at the top of my list.
Gandalf Parker
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Review by bobino
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 2 visits, last login: 8.2 years ago
Santa Rosa,Sonoma,CA
$54 per month
about 40 days
SBC
"Terrific customer support! News, web site and Linix shell support are all absolutely great!"
"Cost: ISP subscription (average) + DSL cost from PacBell (too high) => wish it costs less"
"No better ISP available, IMHO."
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Static IP, took about 6 weeks to get installed from order date, starting August, 2000. I've heard is takes less time now.
I'm moving next month (9/01) and have submitted an order to transfer my service to the new address. The tech support staff has taken the ball and says there should be no charge to me and that they will coordinate the transfer to minimize the downtime between addresses. It should be transferred in just two weeks (that's the wait specified by PacBell).
There's a DSL specialist in the sonic support staff that uses a cattle prod on PacBell when there's a problem (my connection to PacBell has gone down twice in a year). This is a great service!
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Review by pfrisbie
Posted: 8.2 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 3 visits, last login: 7.9 years ago
Ukiah,Mendocino,CA
$57 per month (12 month contract)
about 23 days
SBC
CLEC party: SBC
"Great customer service by phone, email, and special news groups. Free dialup account for a backup or for travel."
"Relies on SBC (PacBell) for the DSL service."
"I love my 1.5 Mbps download speed! It is worth the extra $39 a month for the DSL line."
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Sonic.net is a great local ISP. I did not directly join Sonic.net; I was being serviced by Zap Communications in Ukiah when they were sold to Sonic.net. I had paid for a year of service with Zap, so I stayed with Sonic.net until the contract ran out to see how they were. Sonic.net proved to have great service, even when I wanted to cancel the virtual hosting for my web site and move it to my own server on my DSL line. I have been happy with my decision to stay with them.
I was very lucky on my install. PacBell was not backlogged at the time, so my service was activated in about three weeks. I did the self install; all the PacBell installer had to do was run a new line to the location of my router. Sonic.net had already sent me the TCP/IP config information for my static IP address. I had the router and two PCs already set up, so the DSL worked as soon as the line was plugged in. My speed was not capped, so I get the full 1.5 Mbps download speed.
I have only had a few outages in the last 18 months since DSL was installed. One was for just over a day, and it affected many users for several ISPs in Ukiah. Another was just a few hours, affecting ALL DSL customers in Ukiah, and another one just last week for about 8 hours that affected just Sonic.net customers. I love running my own webserver for my domain (»www.hawksoft.com). I could not have gained this experience with out the relitively low cost of DSL.
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