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Review by tomdude 
Posted: 18 days ago
member for 5.2 years, 17 visits, last login: 7 days ago
 Sebastopol,Sonoma,CA
 Contract price not specified.
 "Used to be a really great service. Espcially since there's no DSL or Cable internet wired here yet."
 "Since Sonic.net bought Pogowave, it's gone downhill in every area except billing."
 "Not worth it until Sonic.net figures out how to fix things on Pogowave."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
First of all let me clarify that this is not the normal DSL service that I'm reviewing, it's the wireless DSL service that was formerly known as Pogowave.
Originally the wireless service was a seperate company called Pogowave. This service shoots a beam across town and into the Sonic.net backbone. I was immediately shocked at the bitrates I was getting considering the service, it was definately worth the price. Not only that but I had a direct contact with the technician who actually serviced the equipment (either on my side of the connection or theirs).
Since Sonic.net took over the service there was an immediate drop on the quality. They say that it has nothing to do with them now owning it, but it seems far too coincidental for me to beleive that. Also I have to contact a tech support department now that has no idea how to troubleshoot anything on the wireless network (which they weren't ashamed to tell me).
Each time I contact them it's the same thing, though I keep trying:
1. Put me on hold to look at my previous calls.
2. Tell me that the wireless team is working on it.
3. Tell me that they're going to put a note for the wireless department to contact me (which has not happened in the month and a half since I first complained).
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of SONIC.NET |
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Review by gg555
UPDATED: 53 days ago
member for 53 days, 0 visits, last login: 53 days ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
$35 per month
 AT&T
"Don't have to wait long on hold for customer service, not AT&T"
"Bait and switch pricing, customer service run around on pricing, weird delays"
"In the end they're giving you the run around on prices, even if they're the little guy"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
Sadly after a year with Sonic they've completely disappointed me.
It turns out the prices on their web site are considered "promotional" and after a year they bump you up to outrageous prices that even AT&T is not shameless enough to try to charge. I went out of my way to get a land line I don't need so I could go with the little guy for DSL and in the end I feel betrayed.
I signed up for the $30 3Mbps service a year ago. Since that price is considered by Sonic to be "promotional," after a year they bumped me to $60 for the same 3Mbps (something they completely failed to disclose or clearly explain when I signed up). After I called to complain, they said they could give me a new $35 "promotional" rate (meaning they can again change the price whenever they want). So now I'm paying the same rate for 3Mbps that new customers get with 6Mbps ($35 is also what DSL Extreme and AT&T charge for 6Mbps without a contract, with no special punishment for being a long time, faithful customer).
When I told Sonic that $60 for 3Mbps is outrageous and no one charges anywhere close to this. They said, well everyone has initial promotional prices. Of course, what that statement leaves out is that AT&T has a 3-month $20 promotional price and then their *normal* price for 3Mbps is $30. Or DSL Extreme charges $25 with a 12-month contract and then their regular price is $28. No one has a "normal" price that's anywhere close to $60. I had cable for years, before going to Sonic, and the price was $42 for 6Mbps and the price never changed. To be clear: Sonic's "promotional" prices are the same as everyone elses normal prices (once the promotions are over). Sonic's regular prices are an astronomic rip-off that even a giant Telco wouldn't try to stick to you. I guess Sonic is just hoping after a year the price change will slip under your nose and you won't notice it on your credit card bill.
I found this slippery argument about promotional prices to be particularly disheartening, because its the kind of car salesmen double talk I expect from AT&T. When I pointed out how it was a completely misleading way for Sonic to compare itself to other providers, I got the usual bureaucratic "There's nothing I can do about it. I don't make the policies." Suddenly I felt like I was back in the AT&T customer service mumbo-jumbo black hole.
I did early on notice on my bills that I was being charged $60 with a $30 credit and called about it. The person I spoke with said that's just how the billing works and not to worry. They didn't say that's because I have a promotional price that will expire in a year. I also looked on Sonic's web site today and they really don't make it clear there either. It's actually easier to find good information on AT&T's pricing and how their promotions work on their website, which is not saying a lot. It's hard not to conclude that Sonic is being deliberately misleading.
Sonic billing also said they would refund me $25 for the month I was charged $60, but it just goes on my Sonic account, not back on my credit card. Sonic makes it difficult for people to pay other than by automatic credit card billing. So if you have a dispute, you'll likely be fighting to get your money back, rather than disputing a bill that you haven't paid yet. I didn't like this aspect of Sonic when I signed up and now I'm regretting that I let it slide. I'm going to be moving soon and not using Sonic anymore (after my experience with the pricing), so I likely won't see this money again. And I really don't have a lot of money.
Another downside to Sonic, at least in Los Angeles, is that there is often a one to two second delay before web sites load up. On speed test sites the bandwidth looks fine, but there's almost always this delay before connecting. I have a friend who got her DSL directly through AT&T and experiences the same thing, so I suspect it's just the underlying system, which after all is AT&T even if Sonic is reselling it.
Anyway, if you don't want the run around and bait and switch with pricing, I'd steer clear of Sonic. I never thought anyone could make AT&T look better, but Sonic manages to have accomplished that.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of SONIC.NET |
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Review by mediahound
UPDATED: 117 days ago
member for 1.7 years, 53 visits, last login: 5 days ago
Richmond,Contra Costa,CA
$30 per month (12 month contract)
"Probably better than AT&T"
"Customer/tech support can be not very good"
"They are about equal to other DSL providers"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
Sonic's customer support is horribly lacking. They are not really that helpful and talk down to customers. Every time I call their tech support I get a bad vibe. Case in point, the last time I phoned was because my DSL service was out. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with some inept so-called technician who had me unplug eveything, restart several times, even suggested that I re-install my entire OS. Turns out there was an area wide outage. Why wasn't this tech. informed of this fact right away?
UPDATE - I'm confused by their billing policies. My contract was up in July and at that time I called and spoke to someone who said that Sonic.net is not longer doing contracts, just month to month. I said fine.
Now today, several months later, I called to see about downgrading my service and am being told that there is a $50. charge to downgrade it. If I'm month to month, it seems illegal to charge me a fee to downgrade service since I'm not under a contract.
Sonic.net's horrible billing practices really lead me to start looking elsewhere now.
UPDATE - I have now closed my Sonic account and gone to Comcast. It's waaay faster (30 Mbps!) than what Sonic can provide me. I am very happy with the speed on Comcast for the price.
UPDATE (7/1/09): I canceled a re-connection with Sonic and they charged me for the DSL Modem (which they did not ship out because I canceled the order) as well as $18.95 even though the connection order was canceled before it was even connected. I was told by their Sales department that I would not be charged anything since I canceled the order in time, and that she was able to grab the modem so that it wouldn't ship out to me.
Now several days later, Sonic customer support is saying I need to return the DSL modem in order to receive my money back. Hmm... I can't return something that was not even sent out to me. Look at the UPS tracking, no DSL modem was sent nor delivered to me (tracking# 1Z60Y81A0397524578).
Sonic's customer support remains horribly inept.
UPDATE 7/29/09 - Sonic.net is still charging my credit card for service that I do not even have. Their customer service replies are predictably-completely inept. They have been unable to tell me why they are charging me for service they never even hooked up!
Followup comments:  
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs: | Good question! This is a real good question. IM or email me your username and I'll review the call notes from that dialog and see what we can do to improve.
-Dane | |
| | mediahound
join:2008-02-19
Richmond, CA | Re: Good question! I won't be doing that because I know you just want to notate my account that I left a bad review. | |
| | | xan_user
join:2004-11-18
Windsor, CA
| Re: Good question! How can they improve if you won't let them? Its not like they're going to throttle you cause your review was less than perfect.
As a long time Sonic customer I implore you to help all us customers by letting Sonic address your issue, that way we can all benefit from even better customer service.
9 times out of 10 Sonic CS has gone above and beyond for me. The other one time it was just above....  | |
| | | | 
Laurenstuff
@covad.net | I think sonic is pretty intelligent about trouble shooting More intelligent than AT and T, that's for sure. I find them to be extremely helpful, and even give me credit for lost time sometimes. Five stars for them, for sure. | |
|
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs: | Downgrade fee We buy wholesale loops from AT&T, and they charge us a $50 fee to downgrade - so we must pass that on. The way around it is to disconnect and then reconnect, but that's really inconvenient for you and for us. FYI.
-Dane | |
| 
wa2ibm
Premium
join:2000-10-10
San Jose, CA
| You've come back! So, you see one of the many reasons I continue using Sonic (reliability).
I too have Comcast HSI in addition to my Sonic connection. I have a multi-WAN router that allows me to use both at the same time. Since Sonic allows servers, all my inbound traffic (mail and web) comes in that path, while I use the Comcast connection for my VPN's (to keep that traffic from interfering with my web users). My outbound requests (mostly web) goes out either connection, depending on the phase of the moon. That confuses some web sites (mostly banking), but I've worked around that.
Bottom line: I'm sticking with Sonic, I'm just disappointed that I'll never see their Fusion Broadband product here in San Jose. | |
| |
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs: | Re: You've come back! Don't write off Fusion - I'd really like to see many more Bay Area COs built.
That said, if you're more than a couple miles from your CO, we don't have an RT solution in the pipeline just yet.
-Dane | |
| | |
wa2ibm
Premium
join:2000-10-10
San Jose, CA
| Re: You've come back! I'll be waiting quite a while. My location is much too far from the Almaden CO. My first non-dialup connection was circa 2001 via IDSL (remember NorthPoint/PSN/Telocity/DirectvDSL?). My Sonic ADSL is via one of the Almaden RT's. There's a new AT&T VRAD just down the street, but that's off limits for you. 
Bill | |
| | | |
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs: | Re: You've come back! Yup - no UVerse wholesale, at least for now. I suspect that FIOS going wholesale might help with that, but who knows.
We are working toward RT deployments, but it'll be a while before we get all the issues solved.
-Dane | |
| | | | |
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs:
| Re: You've come back! Keep us in mind for the future, we are building ADSL2+ (our Fusion product) into the Richmond CO, so if you are close enough, those products are coming.
Shortly we are introducing Annex M (higher upstream) and pair bonding (doubles speed) on this product set.
Richmond is in process now, about five and a half months ETA. Perhaps we can earn better scores from you someday if/when we can deliver that product for you.
-Dane | |
| | | | | | | | |
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs: | Re: You've come back! If you'll IM or email me an address, I can send you loop details.
Fusion is CO based - we don't have RTs yet, so that is a limiting factor. However, with products in the pipeline at up to 30Mbps/5Mbps, it's exciting stuff.
-Dane | |
| | | | | | |
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs: | Re: You've come back! You were not charged for the modem, sorry for any confusion.
-Dane | |
| | | | | mediahound
join:2008-02-19
Richmond, CA | Re: You've come back! A month later, you charged my credit card for service again; service that was never connected and that I do not have. You have got the worst billing practices I've seen and your customer service is lacking in every respect! | |
| | | | | | 
Snypes
join:2003-12-29
Santa Rosa, CA
| Re: You've come back! Hello, I feel for you. There is the occasion with DSL customers where things just don't work out. However your statement regarding charges is somewhat concerning. If you could send me your login name I will be happy to look into this with our billing group and see what needs to be done to straighten this out. I assure you this will not in any way reflect poorly on yourself. I have worked for this company for a long time and our practice has never been to drag an ex-customer through the mud but more to help them with their transition so they hold us in a better light in case the future brings them back our way. I am of course sorry things did not work out but I am willing to help untangle the issue so you can move on.
Thanks! | |
| | | | | | | | | | |
| Forums » comments on review of SONIC.NET |
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Review by Ulmo
UPDATED: 259 days ago
member for 4.1 years, 396 visits, last login: 2 days ago
San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
$25 per month (12 month contract)
 about 10 days
AT&T
"Worked with me to get max speed despite bad data in AT&T distance database; livable TOS and services"
"Interacting with support often requires patience (many weeks in many cases)"
"A solid ISP for more discriminating needs with consumer costs"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
Update on March 8, 2009:
Why BroadBandReports/DSLReports does not have a "Billing" category for rating, I do not know, since it is a major topic of ISPs and selection criteria for selecting one. I'll assume that of the ratings, billing affects the following: Services, Value for Money, Pre Sales Information, and Install Co-ordination. Until BroadBandReports fixes this, I can't rate billing directly.
Here is the post I made to ba.internet, and is a continued problem Sonic.net faces:
Sonic.net continues to have a corrupt attitude about billing.
I called them twice to discuss when and what the first billing for a
Business DSL advertised to cost $25 per month would be. Each time,
the hold was over five minutes, and one of the times, the hold was
over 15 minutes. I could not wait that long at that moment.
Now, finally, I find this charge on my PayPal account:
Debit Card Signature Purchase To SONIC.NET INC SANTA ROSA CA Mar. 5, 2009 Pending Details -$158.87 USD $0.00 USD
Hunting further, I find out this:
Sonic.net, Inc.
2260 Apollo Way
Santa Rosa, CA 95407
707.522.1000
support@sonic.net
For:
[...]
_______________________________________________________________________
Description Unit Price Total
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Credit Overpayment, 2008-10-27 1.88cr 1.88cr
Charge DSL - Prorated Basic Business 160.75 160.75
408XXXXXXX from 2009-02-25 to 2009-09-10
Total: 158.87
In other words, this is the third time Sonic.net has overcharged me by
more than fifty dollars without any notice whatsoever, and the second
time they did it for more than 100 dollars. This time, the charge is
going to go against an account that I have to wire money to, at a cost
to me of way over $60, and there is still the possibility it won't be
credited in time to stop this charge, possibly causing a long standing
checking account I have to go bad, and cause me way over $200 in extra
charges and fees.
Actually, I just thought of a way to get some money in my PayPal
account fast for about $10, but it will require me to go ask people
for $210 whom are already pissed off that I got angry about this
happening to me again and said "God Damnit" too loud for their
delicate ears, and I'm not even sure they have $210 to spare.
This is the sort of thing that makes people EXTREMELY mad at
Sonic.net's billing. Yet, every time we discuss these matters with
them, they continue to punt, saying that they don't understand what
the problem is.
I already knew Sonic.net does this, but that's why I called twice to
ask them how much they were going to charge. I made sure to put a big
buffer amount of money in my account so that this wouldn't be a
problem -- $70 at last look. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough.
Sonic.net continues to use corrupt dishonest billing practices. They
do not go by the old methods of contracts and agreements; instead,
they steal, and shrug their shoulders whenever they get called on it.
---
Literally ten minutes later, PayPal posts this information:
Mar. 5, 2009 Authorization To SONIC.NET INC SANTA ROSA CA Completed Details -$158.87 USD
Mar. 5, 2009 Temporary Hold Placed Details -$0.16 USD
Mar. 8, 2009 Temporary Hold Removed Details $0.16 USD
Mar. 8, 2009 Debit Card Backup Funding - Bank Bank Account xxxxxx Completed ... $158.71 USD
Mar. 8, 2009 Cash Back Bonus Completed Details $2.38 USD
Now, there is no way I can get the funds to the bank in time. The
balance in the bank account right now is $71.18 positive; when this
ACH transaction goes through, it will be overdrawn.
IF SONIC.NET HAD INFORMED ME OF THIS CHARGE BEFORE IT HAD ISSUED IT, I
COULD HAVE ARRANGED FOR FUNDS TO BE AVAILABLE, OR EVEN ARRANGED PROPER
TRANSFER. FURTHERMORE, I COULD HAVE PREVENTED NEGATIVE RATINGS ON MY
ACCOUNTS AND OVERAGE FEES. NONE OF THIS WAS AUTHORIZED BY ME FOR
SONIC.NET TO DO!!!
THIS IS THE ONLY INFORMATION I RECEIVED FROM SONIC.NET ABOUT THIS CHARGE:
Date: Thu, March 5, 2009 11:26
Automatic credit-card payment of your prepaid account service has been
processed, and your account had been credited. If you have any questions
regarding your bill or your internet service, please feel free to contact
us.
RECEIPT - THIS IS NOT A BILL
Sonic.net, Inc.
2260 Apollo Way
Santa Rosa, CA 95407
707.522.1000
support@sonic.net
For:
Brad Allen
_______________________________________________________________________
Description Unit Price Total
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Credit Overpayment, 2008-10-27 1.88cr 1.88cr
Charge DSL - Prorated Basic Business 160.75 160.75
408XXXXXXX from 2009-02-25 to 2009-09-10
Total: 158.87
As you can see, the email was Thursday, March 5, THE SAME DAY THE
CHARGE WAS PLACED. If I had happened to check my email once per day,
I could have caught this before today, and transfered enough funds in
my accounts. But I only get to all of my emails once per week or so;
I am a very busy person.
What I want to have is NOTICE THAT A CHARGE WILL HAPPEN BEFORE THEY
PLACE IT. This is something customers have demanded for a long time,
and yet nothing has come forth.
Comcast and AT&T do the same thing. So, I don't feel guilty about
staying with Sonic.net, and seeing them in small claims court for this
and the bank fees it costs me if that's what it takes, and continuing
to use their services if they can provide. They are becoming part of
the monopolies.
===========
I don't think anything has really changed about Sonic.net. This has always been their behavoir.
Sincerely,
Brad Allen
Originally written years ago:
When I first started looking for an ISP in and/or serving Aptos, I wanted one which had normal geek things like decent DNS servers and products, static IP#s, no port blocking, terms of service that let me use it for whatever came up, etc.. I soon found out that Sonic.net was the local big low cost provider that did all of those types of things, and ever since, it has lived up to its reputation in that regard, although with an ever so slightly lower than expected cost and ever so slightly lower than expected quality, well within my range of acceptability. I would definately recommend Sonic.net to anybody who wants a simple ISP to get who has those more discriminating needs like me.
In addition, Sonic.net is a decent broker for AT&T-ASI DSL services. They have a decent working relationship with AT&T-ASI, and you can order things via Sonic.net and have confidence that Sonic.net will manage the relationship with AT&T-ASI, so you don't have to. As long as you can communicate well enough with Sonic.net, everything should be resolved in a matter of time. It does often take persistence and weeks to muddle through some of the more quirky problems, such as manual loop qualifications needed for bad distance data in AT&T-ASI's line database, but Sonic.net will allow you to talk to human beings in the process, allowing a combination of email, telephone and live chat to do so. It is often necessary to contact Sonic.net's support people more than once for the same communication, since sometimes they get lost in the shuffle, but they will get to it if you are polite, patience and persistent. I check once per day and push it forward when I think it might be dropped, and it eventually gets resolved. This is great service for a consumer level product (I'd call it midrange consumer prices, but they do have low cost consumer and high cost business products, too).
I originally became a customer of Sonic.net in January of 2004, when DSL just became available where I was living. I ordered 1.5, but then found out I desired and had use for much more, and that the limit of distance for my situation allowed me to get 6 (6016kbps/608kbps DSL speed), so ordered that as an upgrade. The initial 1.5 took only a few days, and a few months later my 6 arrived, and Sonic.net even fixed a few ATM cell dropping bugs that when fixed gave their DSL customers 100% bandwidth utilization when using TCP over IP when congestion permitted (about 98% of the time at first). In later times, when congestion got more intense, they sort of waited for packets to start dropping while planning to do and did do major expensive upgrades until they were ready for many more years of ample capacity (slowdown congestion which seems to me to be far less than 1% of the time). Lately, they sport a nice 1 gigabit per second fiber ring of San Jose, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, then back to San Jose (last leg is backup) which hits their main datacenter in Santa Rosa and many POPs for their interconnections to everyone else (Internet backbones, DSL provider (AT&T-ASI), etc.).
Support often takes patience and persistence to get items resolved, but they are not intractable; they understand English, and will eventually look at your issue as human beings, and solve them when everything has been understood and diagnosed. They will do what is necessary to eventually solve just about any problem, although like I said patience is required (often many polite interactions back and forth for many weeks per issue). I moved and got their 6 DSL again, and then when I moved again I got that downgraded to 1.5, but then I decided I wanted 6 anyway later on when they got 768kbps DSL upload speed. Sonic.net has been proactive in bringing speed products to consumers that SBC/AT&T-ASI offers to Sonic.
The features Sonic.net brings that I make use of are varying levels of port blocking including none for static IP# customers, static IP# options (which I often get), and other things you often don't find other places (IPv6, Multicast, etc., delivered to your DSL). They used to have three news servers: Supernews (they still have that), Newscene (they no longer have that), and their own. They recently upgraded their own USENET "news" servers, but in a hurried untested fasion, which caused them to lose all of their own internal newsgroup history which until then they had years of and many hiccups along the way, but there were backups of other services during this period. Anyway, the features of the new (expensive) news server cluster are capacity, including speed and retention (full speed downloads on DSL lines, moderately long retention times). After some work, their news servers rival even the professional news server companies a bit above entry level (still some of the professionals have more retention and selection, but that can't be helped for a product Sonic.net includes in its midrange consumer ISP prices).
Sonic.net has been chasing extremely low cost consumer price DSL products. For those who wish to start with that, Sonic.net seems like a viable choice.
Lately, Sonic.net has been responding to making better terms for billing, realizing ISP service is something that ought to have a good warning before disconnection if you forget to pay. They also are designing a more logical accounting system which will display charges in a more understandable way (they asked for suggestions in the new design, and I think are designing it now). This is welcome, since until this recent attention in accounting, accounting interaction with their customers always seemed like an afterthought, which is OK for geeks who want more computer guts than wallet guts, but confusing when it came time to do financial stuff.
This is all I can remember in this sitting. I recommend Sonic.net to anyone who wants solid ISP service who does not need the branding of some other big company with their particular value added services; often, those value added services aren't that good or can be duplicated elsewhere, but that is research you will have to do since I haven't done it recently.
Sonic.net is starting to get bigger and meaner, but they haven't lost touch yet. I think they have many years to go with their current intertia, and their goals are to stay as good as they are and possibly become even better, so I have a feeling that when their fly wheel slows down they'll have more fly wheels at full power running and on the way.
UPDATES: No changes. They continue to work hard to be a good quality consumer ISP, and continue to have sucky accounting and billing practices, although one major improvement in the latter category is that they give a reasonable grace period. I still recommend them for most reasons except monetary. Do not expect reasonable monetary policy with your account at Sonic.net, but that they will work with you to try to get your service operating well.
I currently have two accounts with them, one which I wouldn't but I'm stuck in term. Therefore I'm not posting rates; one is top tier (6016kbps/768kbps -- Aptos) and one is bottom tier (768kbps/384kbps -- San Jose -- can't get any faster). My output on one = the input rate on the other (and often send large files just that way).
Update: Now only in San Jose:
In response to another reviewer who was quite mad about automatic unnotified prebilling and lack of contract and price communication, I wrote the following comment, and thought it was appropriate for my review since it has new information (not about the bad billing practices, but about the good experience with billing in doing something that other ISPs would never be able to do):
Those are their billing practices unfortunately; I've already lost one bank account due to them.
However, their madness is mostly (mostly) about charging you without notice and subterfuge of what charges there will be, not making up bogus charges. Talking with billing about issues not related to their bad points is rather pleasant when necessary, and they are often effective and good in that respect. I recently had two accounts with them, each with an attached DSL, and one contract was finished, so for financial reasons (certainly not preference) I had to cancel one DSL connection and one account. Unfortunately, the DSL connection I didn't need (even though I still wanted it) was connected to the account I needed to keep (lots of other services and files), so they nicely (only on the telephone though, no email allowed, but all in understandable native English without accent nor unduly repeating myself, without scripts, and with logic intact and a fairly decent IQ level) first turned off the unneeded DSL connection, then moved the DSL connection I needed to the account I needed to keep, then turned off the extra newly naked account. I had to call for steps 1 (disconnect unneeded DSL) and 3 (turn off naked unneeded account once DSL moved to account I'm keeping), but they were insistent that step 2 (move DSL connection from one account to other account) was in their process without my intervention, which was true. The whole process took about two to two and a half weeks (including about 10 days of waiting for no response for some emails and finally when I sent a repeat email they email replied telling me to do it on the telephone, so once I telephoned it took about a week and most of that was me just being patient and not pestering them), and they were very nice about it, and there were almost no complications or confusions. So, billing is good for many issues, but they definitely have a devil side. Billing is also the department that interfaces with AT&T for ordering your service, so it's best to understand that they handle the quality of your connection at at least one point, so don't get them overly mad at you.
Technical support is indeed better than other services (e.g., real native person advantage), and the services are generally not encumbered (which is the main reason I got and keep them).
I continue to recommend Sonic.net after cautioning anyone that they must be ready to deal with them as a whole (having baby boomer credit cards helps, so I am not lucky in that respect). Even though I read Verizon FiOS forum all the time wishing I would be able to get something like that, I dread having to deal with FiOS's bad sides (legal encumberments, seems like extra step to get static IP#, extra latency of MOCA connection vs. cat5 considerations, forced or not forced to use their router with its spying stuff in it, etc.). If I did have access to FiOS now, I am sure that not only would I get second to highest if not highest tier of FiOS (it's expensive!), that I'd also keep a Sonic.net basic account and perhaps more to keep many of the services I get from them.
I am very excited to see what their pilot for ADSL2 is going to reveal, but they haven't been very bullish about that, but they did jump through a bunch of hoops to do it (becoming a CLEC) so we know they are quite serious.
(next comment is a wish, not a gripe): Now, if only Sonic.net, Inc. would hire me, let me put on gloves and hard hat and vest, and I could start digging through public rights of ways, then I'd be installing fiber networks for them and we could have our own fiber deployment from a mostly fairly decent midsized ISP.
Gripe: they don't offer fiber at rates I can afford.
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Review by dbcalo
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 7.4 years, 175 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Chico,Butte,CA
$25 per month
AT&T
"As long as you don't have a problem they're great."
"If you have a problem other than the standard ones, they suck."
"If you don't live in the bay area then don't bother with them."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
For two weeks I've had a bad connection in which I have massive packet loss and can barely load a website. They claim my line is great but I say other wise. I've given them two weeks to solve the problem and with no success I'm going to switch providers.
I've never been able to get more than the 1.5Mbit/.384Mbit connection even though people feet away can. Comcast can offer me 6Mbit/1Mbit and I'm jumping on it.
Followup comments: Kavan
join:2003-01-19
Santa Rosa, CA
| Packet loss issues Hello,
It sounds like things did not go as we would like in this situation. If you could pm me your Sonic.net account name I would like to look into this to figure out where things went wrong. If you have not already migrated to Comcast, and are willing to give us another shot at fixing this that would be great too. | |
| 
bobrk
You kids get offa my lawn
Premium
join:2000-02-02
San Jose, CA
 ·SONIC.NET
| Not in Bay Area? I don't get why this is relevant. Sonic is in Santa Rosa and I'm in San Jose, 100 miles away, and they've been able to give me stellar service, including solving several packet loss issues over the years. Get on the phone with them, and work through the trouble shooting. If they need to roll AT&T, they will do it.
--
Iraq Military Deaths | bobrk | |
| | | |
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 Review by guhuna
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 8.6 years, 4410 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Discovery Bay,Contra Costa,CA
$72 per month (month by month)
about 6 days
SBC
"Its a DSL line."
"DMCA letters."
"There are other providers, check them out first!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I had SBC's 6000/608 service for about a year and a half and well the price went up to $150 a month and thats a bit to much for my pocket. So I started to search around for other providers and the first one I checked was Sonic.net and when I saw that they had a special for the 6000/608 package I had to do it. So I ordered the service and they said about a week, I talked to a (inside tech for SBC) and he said that they provisioned the line 1 day ahead of what they told me. So sure enough 1 day ahead schedule I came home from work and my old SBC IP's were dead so I went ahead and plugged in their IP's and it worked. I was surprised and the speed was the same as with SBC. The only thing is pings are a little higher then SBC's but I dont care because I dont usually play online games anymore.
So the bottom line is they are a great service provider, plus they are very local I can call up and actually talk to a non-outsourced tech which is a big plus in my book.
::1.21.06::
Well its been over a year now with Sonic.net and things have changed since then. First off the routing has gone to shit. I'm closer to the east cost then I am to the west which DOES NOT make any sense. Uptime has been great other then the fact of ASI screwing shit up. Overall speed is good, It was great in the beginning but a couple weeks ago that changed. Phone service went out with DSL because of some ""cut cable"" well ASI/SBC got things back up and running somewhat. Now my upload is cut in half and Sonic.net says ASI will say its within spec. Hmm strange because before the outage I was getting 608 on the upload side and now my profile reads 384. They say the RT is giving me 608 which is bullshit because 3! Modems say other wise.
::1.16.07::
Well its almost been a year now and things have gotten a lot better with the service. I have since switched over to a different telephone line and the sync rates went up plus the sync loss and other things stopped. It also helped that when this happened I put a DSL splitter outside of the house to eliminate any internal wiring issues that could arise.
Uploads are now 768 which is cool, then again the price is kinda expensive but its well worth it in my opinion. Tech support is still A+++, they answered any of my questions within a timely manner.
I hope that within 6-8 months they'd come out with a faster tiered service. But of course they have there hands tied behind their backs because of ASI.
:::1.7.08:::
review has been taken down. will update at a later time.
:::11/08:::
As of the 4th, I'm searching for a new internet provider. Sonic.net WAS nice but a recent post has made me think otherwise of this company. They are nice in the fact that when there is a problem you are speaking with someone in Santa Rosa which is the only plus in my book. Other than that they are like any other provider out there. Especially with all this usage based crap that's going to hit the fan in a couple of months I want out of att's crappy lines altogether.
"Obama on the other hand has addressed the issue head on, and has a stated goal of open access. This includes honoring the principals of network neutrality, and hopefully, vibrant competition again instead of simply giving the Internet as a whole to the monopoly Cable and Telco."
Sorry Dane, But ain't gonna happen in the 4 years he'll be in office. Like I said don't hold your breath.
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Review by mallow005
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 2.6 years, 28 visits, last login: 6 days ago
San Diego,San Diego,CA
$49 per month
about 4 days
AT&T
"Usually reliable, fast tech support"
"Dropped connections at the worst times, outages that were never explained, overpriced"
"A good company, but the disconnects and price are driving me to another ISP"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I've been a Sonic.net customer for a little over a year now and I am moving on. After I move, I will be signing up with AT&T DSL, which somehow can offer me up to 6mbps as opposed to Sonic.net's 1.5mbs for $30 + $11 phone line, and I am only moving 450ft away. I have spoken to the previous tenants and they were happy with AT&T DSL, so I do not anticipate any problems.
When I first started with Sonic.net, it soon became apparent that something was wrong. I would get disconnected randomly and I wouldn't be able to recover a connection for days at a time. After contacting tech support and trying to get stuff resolved, they couldn't figure out what was wrong. An AT&T tech came out to check the line and everything was fine. Sonic.net checked the line on their and and everything was fine, yet my connection was still getting dropped. I do not have any landline phones. Mysteriously, it started working about 5 days later.
Another time, bandwidth was erratic. I would get bursts of speed up to 600kbps, then packet loss for a few seconds, repeat. I contacted tech support and they didn't see anything wrong. Later, I received an email saying they fixed something that should resolve my problem.
And now, after calling to notify them that I will be canceling my account at the end of the month, I am getting dropped connections AGAIN. Sometimes, when I reset my modem to get it to reconnect, my max speed is only 600kbps. I have to reset my modem until I can get a connection at 1.5mbps. It seems a bit coincidental that these problems are popping up once again after I decide to cancel.
I was also charged for a full month when my account will only be active for another 15 days. This may or may not be standard practice, but it certainly isn't fair.
It wasn't all bad. For the majority of the time my connection was stable and tech support was quick to respond. However, in 10 years of using different ISPs (dialup, DSL, cable), Sonic.net was certainly the most frustrating and most expensive for what I got by far. Sonic.net may get high marks for tech support, but they'll need it considering the problems I ran into as a customer.
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Review by gconnor
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 187 visits, last login: 154 days ago
Modesto,Stanislaus,CA
$79 per month
AT&T
"MediocreTechnical Support"
"Overly cautious about Telco dispatch when necessary"
"Powerless ISP - limited by local Telco"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
I've used Sonic.net for five years now. At startup I downgraded them for failing to allocate all IPs for which I had paid. I don't know if that is still the case (I ordered a package with 5 fixed IPs and received 1.)
Since then their service has been as reliable as local telco. For simple problems support is excellent and usually very knowledgeable. Unfortunately, for more difficult issues where telco must be involved Sonic.net sometime takes a great deal of prodding to ask for a telco dispatch.
These are issues involving coordination with Telco. Services from Sonic.net are excellent, available, fairly priced, and work as advertised. Couple this with good technical support and you have a great service provider.
==================================================
Having now been without adequate service for three weeks - on the phone with Sonic technical support for at least an hour a day, spending my own time running and graphing speed tests, buying multiple new modems - still with no substantive action, I have to reiterate my previous comments... if you have a "simple" problem Sonic can solve it... if it involves telco they a[ear totally unable, incapable, or unwilling to get the problems resolved. Three weeks paying to 5+MBps while getting speeds as low as 31 Kbs while buying my own "test" modems and doing my own documentation of the problems is ridiculous. - Down grade to services, tech support, and value for money.
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Review by williemach
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 1.5 years, 7 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
$49 per month
AT&T
"I can still login to the member page!"
"They do not follow on promises or provide disclaimers"
"Do not use this service if you plan to move!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
I have been using Sonic.net service for about 8 months or so and have had pretty good success despite small outages here and there. I was in the middle of moving and thats when things went terribly wrong.
The first step I did to ensure I did not have a long lapse in internet service was transfer my ATT phone line from my existing residence to my new one. This occurred on 4/9. I allowed about 2 days for the phone line to settle in. I even went to my new residence to check that a dial-tone was working. Success.
I proceeded to use Sonic's online moving service, which was quite simple. Too simple. I simply entered the phone number and placed the order. The very next day (4/11) I see that the information I placed is in Sonic's system. Keep in mind at this time, I have not been warned about any provisioning that needs to take place etc. Fair enough, I call Sonic.net not knowing what to expect. The first technical rep. tells me theres an existing order on this phone line with another ISP. Shame on ATT, I believe. I call ATT and they claim that there are no holds on the phone line and it should be clear to allow a third-party carrier installation.
On 4/11, I call Sonic.net and explain the situation. They claim that the phone line should be provisioned any moment now, without any hard ETAs since the phone line needs to be established in a database. Technical support person tells me that Sonic.net tries to connect services 3 times a day. Fair enough, I wait some more.
Around 4/16, I call them again explaining that my service is still down. I even ask them, what can I do to escalate the situation with ATT, if in fact they are the problem. They explain to me that it takes some time to get in the database.
On 4/18, service is still out. Phone seems to be fine. I even call it to make sure it's the right number. I do the reverse with it, looks good. I call Sonic.net and request to have my account canceled. I ordered service back in December, but the sales representative fails to tell me this and slams a nice $149 early termination fee. Am I being unfair? Why am I getting slammed an early termination fee for waiting for over a week for no clear ETA on service availability? Billing was nice enough to waive this fee and remediate the situation. They compromised by signing me up for month to month service. I was told that my service order should be ready on April 28th, but that does not mean my service will be up. It could take up to May 3rd for the DSL to actually work. Understood.
On April 30th, I receive an e-mail from Sonic stating that my line is now active, but I have not taken the time to use it since it shows no data usage. Success? No. I hook up my modem to the good phone line (tried and true with a dial-tone). It's late, I go to bed.
I call in the A.M. today and was told by the technical support person that my line is active. He asks me if all lines are good in the house and if I used any DSL filters. I explain none are installed and I only have the modem connect. I realized that this could be a glitch and I tell him i'd go home and try the different jacks and maybe even the phone box. I've never been told to check the phone box in my life with any service, by the way. I go home, check all jacks, same results. Blinking DSL, no activity.
I call technical support and tell the technical support representative how clearly upset and frustrated I am. The e-mail I received from Sonic tells me my service is active, but I haven't used it. The support rep tells me that they could do a "truckroll". That would make sense if I didn't already tell her that the phone box is fine and i've even connected a phone to it. All jacks receive a dial tone in my house, even the phone box that shouldn't be tampered with by customers (stated on the box). She goes further to tell me that shes here to help. I become disturbing frustrated by her comments. She claims that I am yelling, which I agree. I am clearly upset.
I ask to be transferred to a supervisor or someone who can investigate on this account or provide details on the situation and what a truckroll really can do. She never transfers me, explaining that they are on lunch! The shift starts from 2pm - 11pm and i've called at 5pm. This is a warning to anyone who works normal 9-5pm jobs to use a service that can help you during after hours. I explain that this situation is really confusing and easily angers anyone since there is never a disclaimer or a phone call about the consequences of moving your service. It fails to say so online and the support representatives fail to pull these elements in as a possibility on each phone call I make to them.
I rely on Internet to provide on-call support for my company and have stated that over a dozen times. Sonic doesn't seem to mind and clearly believes I can take as much time off as I need to troubleshoot DSL with them and allow "truckrolls" or whatever other games they'd like to offer. I'm sitting here taking the time to write this review to expel my frustration and also warn others who may possibly be moving with Sonic service. I personally believe that they provide the moving feature with serious caveat emptors to it that are not outlined. Further, I was never told of an early termination fee when canceling and the billing rep seemed more than happy to push it through. I sit here, 9:45pm, still waiting on a call back from a support supervisor. In the meantime, i've opened an account with ATT until I can find another static IP provider.
I'm perplexed as to why Sonic receives such high reviews because every phone call I make never receives the attention to detail it clearly needs. This service is probably good for anyone who isn't moving. BTW, if ATT is a Sonic partner, why is this such a pain to clear up?
Followup comments:
DaneJasper
Sonic.Net
Premium,VIP
join:2001-08-20
Santa Rosa, CA
clubs:
| Line loss I've passed your comments on to both the support manager and order provisioning manager to give them a chance to see what we can learn and change.
quote:
The first step I did to ensure I did not have a long lapse in internet service was transfer my ATT phone line from my existing residence to my new one. This occurred on 4/9. I allowed about 2 days for the phone line to settle in. I even went to my new residence to check that a dial-tone was working. Success.
So this first step is where it fell down.
Moving a line causes the DSL that's on it to be left behind by AT&T. Before we're able to create a new order, the old one must be disconnected, the database must be updated to show new order eligibility, then a new order must be placed.
This process, end to end, can take anywhere from ten to twenty days, in our experience.
For this reason, it's important that we place the move order for the DSL so that the DSL moves along with your phone line. When done this way, downtime is limited to a day in most cases.
Because this is NOT something that AT&T takes the time to point out when you call 'em to ask to have your line moved, we sent you an email on this topic about seven months ago.
It's really a shame that AT&T doesn't warn customers about this - we do, but sometimes people forget or don't real the warning.
Here's a fresh copy below. There are some land mines, your DSL does depend upon your voice line. This email was created to hopefully informing folks about them.
I'm sorry that you've had so much downtime related to moving your voice line. We'll talk about any ideas in addition to the warning email which we might implement here to try to prevent this for others! If you have any suggestions, please do pass them on.
-Dane
Subject: FYI: Sonic.net DSL line reminder
This is a courtesy notice, sent to all Sonic.net DSL customers. Please read it and let us know if you have any questions.
This is a reminder from Sonic.net that your DSL service is tied to your voice telephone line. There are some things that you might do with your phone service that could disrupt your DSL and Internet service for days or weeks, and that could cost you extra fees.
Read further to find out how you can help yourself avoid trouble!
Your DSL service requires a working SBC phone line in order to provide you with DSL service. Any of the following might cause a disruption in your DSL service:
• Failure to pay your SBC telephone bill.
• Switching your telephone line from SBC to another carrier
• Moving your telephone line to a different address
If SBC disconnects your phone service for non-payment, they will also disconnect your DSL service. This can trigger an early termination fee. After telephone service is re-established, DSL service can be re-ordered, and after downtime of two to three weeks, you would be back online. This requires a new one year term commitment. You would still be liable for the early term fee, so it is a bad situation all around. Please assure that you do not allow your telephone bill to become delinquent. SBC offers a number of online and automatic payment options for your convenience. For more information, please see »www.sbc.com/gen/general?pid=6179
If you switch your local telephone service from SBC to another carrier, SBC is required to relinquish the number upon receiving these instructions from the new carrier. This will cause a disconnection of the DSL service and will also trigger an early termination fee, and result in downtime of a few weeks. One situation where we have seen this occur is if a business moves their lines to another local telephone company to obtain a better price for outgoing calls. It is alright to move any other telephone lines you have, but NOT the line on which DSL is carried! Another common situation is customers who are interested in moving their number to a VoIP (Voice over IP) carrier such as Vonage. If you move your DSL line telephone number, DSL is disconnected, meaning that not only do you have no Internet access, but also the VoIP service which requires Internet access will not work! And, again it takes a few weeks to get re-established; the early term fee is applied. If you have any question about which of your voice lines carry the DSL service, please let us know and we will be happy to look this up for you.
Sonic.net can help coordinate moving your DSL service for you. Please contact us for assistance prior to contacting SBC. It’s a good idea to have orders one to two weeks before your move date. If you provide us with your new number and the date when it will be installed in advance, we can coordinate migration of your broadband service with a minimal amount of downtime. Also, to avoid potential early termination fees, it’s important that the new telephone service be established in the same name as the existing telephone service. Also note that if you move to a new location where SBC serves your voice (in the same name) and Sonic.net offers DSL, but DSL cannot be delivered, SBC will waive any early termination fee regardless of your DSL term commitment.
Thanks for reading, and please let us know if you have any questions on these items.
| |
| | williemach
join:2008-05-01
·SONIC.NET
1 edit | Re: Line loss My major concern here is that your company should be experts in DSL and broadband connections. I felt like I was dealing with entry-level support individuals who knew less than I did after performing a Google search on how the phone company's provisioning works. Perhaps they were too much of an expert that they failed to tell me all the possible things that could go wrong. I'm not saying I am right here, I should have went back to my e-mail 7 months ago and pulled up the disclaimer... I'm not sure if I even have it anymore.
If you think about it, a possibility of having a lapse in service for 10-20 days (like you mentioned) can be pretty serious for some and perhaps an automated message should be attached to the DSL moving service on a users member page when performing this task. Simple enough, no?
However, the major flaws in this company is that lack of understanding of general customer service. Do not promise things you cannot keep. For instance, if you look up my technical support record, one support agent said they'd give me a call back after they find out what was going on with ATT. I gave them my mobile phone number and not a single call was made. These are such small things that could make customer service excel. Don't promise things you cannot deliver. I could've lived with, "I don't know what is going on, but if I find out something I will give you a call".
I personally believe that there are serious gaps in communications within departments and I experienced it first hand on my phone call on May 1st. If you work for a company, you don't blame another department for the failings of a situation. You collectively work together to resolve the issue and look for ways to improve in the future, but you NEVER blame another department/coworker/policy for it's failings.
I'm more than happy to voice what I feel what went wrong, but if you simply pull up my account and the ticket information, you can see the holes and the little information I received on the situation. Once again, I can't voice how important it is to relay information. Customers of an expert company of a broadband/DSL provider should never have to Google up information about how DSL works, otherwise they could just go to competitors and buy up a simple DSL package and hook it up themselves. | |
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Review by blarf
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 46 visits, last login: 3 days ago
San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
$45 per month (12 month contract)
about -1 days
SBC
"No PPPoE"
"Lousy sales team, enough foot dragging to dig a ditch"
"If only SBC had competition."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
Update 9 April 2008: Resolved.
Update 8 April 2008: As usual, when it works, it works well. In attempting to upgrade to a faster profile (the "Pro-S"), I've found that despite the claims from the sales guy... I'm barely getting more than 1.5Mbps down. In dealing with the tech support and various sales droids, it's been a mild nightmare to get the service restored to the previous price point. In fact the biggest mistake I've made was in still considering Sonic.net for a business account at work. Oops. The sales droid I talked to flat out lied about the action he would take on my account in order to make his sales quota. Now I know that sales people are often sleazy, but one would assume that Sonic's employees are above that. Now I know.
If you don't actually need support from Sonic, it's perhaps a good value... but don't get suckered in by their mis-information. However, there are alternatives with a reputation for reasonable support such as: DSL Extreme, Covad, and Speakeasy. AT&T is not the only fish out there.
Original review: I ordered the "Express" package (1.5/384 with 1 DHCP assigned IP address) on Feb 18th. Being an existing Sonic customer, now living in a densely populated city, I had extremely high expectations of a smooth installation (at least on Sonic's end). I had some expectations of SBC making the install difficult.
As it turned out, the Sonic crew left me with the impression of being a bit naive in their dealings with SBC. SBC of course did their best to avoid selling another DSL loop. The phone line was on a multiplexer, a device that prevents one from installing DSL. The multiplexer also prevented me from attaining dial-up speeds in excess of 26.4kbps. Without the multiplexer the 33.6 modem will maintain 33.6kbps connections just fine.
Upon my order being bounced by SBC for the first time, the helpful Sonic support staffer offered to cancel my dial-up account (as my goal was DSL not dial-up). The second person responded that there was nothing that could be done to convince SBC to provide DSL. Eventually Dane identified the problem (the DAML), and correctly guessed that this is something SBC needed to fix. I spent the rest of the month was spent going back and forth between SBC (via phone and broadbandreports) and Sonic (via phone and e-mail). I was quite disappointed that I had to be so proactive with Sonic.
Without warning an SBC tech showed up today around noon. Said tech took care of removing the multiplexer bits at the house. The Sonic provided modem sync'd at 1.5/384 as expected.
The SBC techs who read the BBR forums deserve a lot of thanks for being able to effect the necessary change resulting in my ability to buy DSL.
Given that everything was hooked up today, I haven't rated the connection reliability. If it's anything like the 6mbit link I had from Sonic at another address, this link will be very reliable. All in all I like the package that Sonic sells. More reliable DNS servers than SBC. No PPPoE. Reliable e-mail service. Multiple commercial NNTP providers to choose from. Even without taking into account the (from previous experience) more reliable connectivity it's a better value than SBC/Yahoo.
The Sonic provided Broadmax DSL modem works. It's smaller and more stylish than my previous Westell unit.
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