1Gbps fiber for $70 in America? Yup

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Sonic.net is a relatively small Internet provider attempting to upset the high speed internet apple cart if the ongoing experiment is a success. The California based ISP is getting into the fiber optic business in a big way for a small price to end users. It’s about due time someone was looking at the big picture rather than just the bottom line. :cool: Thanks to forum member Imaulle for the link.

Sonic.net has been around since 1994, selling DSL service in California, but it has recently expanded into fiber; the company has even secured the contract to manage Google's own 1Gbps fiber network that will connect 800+ faculty homes at Stanford University.
 
I'm ready to sign up now! Too bad I don't live in Sebastapool or wherever they're putting up the fiber.
 
Sonic.net is awesome. I have had them for a year now and I get 20 Mb/s down for $40 a month with no cap and there is no contract requirement.

Also, every time I have had to call their technical support I got to talk to a human being straight away and they were in the US and they knew what they were actually talking about. I got my coworker hooked too, he loves their service.

Now I only wish that fiber was available in Alameda....
 
Argh, come to Houston, TX! I'm tired of ATT and Comcast being our only internet options and then caps to boot! :mad:
 
I wish we could just utilize all the bandwidth a network node is capable of. Like if there's only one person on you get the whole pipe, two people on you share it equally etc. How fucking hard is that to implement and why isn't it like that already?
 
fucking awesome, hope it works out and they go national.
 
Let's take a look how long it has been taking Verizon to establish FIOS in major cities... Very. very long.

This will be crawling around California for sure, but other states won't be hearing of sonic for a very long time. If ever.
 
Let's take a look how long it has been taking Verizon to establish FIOS in major cities... Very. very long.

This will be crawling around California for sure, but other states won't be hearing of sonic for a very long time. If ever.

You are probably right.


The problem is that each individual little town makes the decision of whether or not they are going to let a provider in. In many cases the towns have already granted another telecom a X year monopoly in exchange for promising to wire ALL addresses in the town that ask for it.

Because if this it is very difficult for a new provider to come in.

If these decisions were made at the county, or state level instead, it would be smoother sailing. Instead they have to negotiate with every little podunk town and it takes forever.

I would like to see states take over this responsibility, as well as a federal court strike down ALL government provided monopolies. That would make progress much more likely.
 
If only these guys had acquired fios in WA rather than the weak sauce Frontier.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037374864 said:
You are probably right.


The problem is that each individual little town makes the decision....

Of course there's the other issue: crappy ISPs who have a monopoly suing fed up towns who roll their own fiber solution. They'd rather spend money on lawyers than infrastructure.

But I agree the system of municipal franchises for data and video services needs to end.
 
I wish they would bring this to where I live. I would even work for them at a discounted rate to help them install it in my city.
 
Very good, I wish these guys luck in climbing the ladder and spanning out to more states. Lets hope that if this happen, the good service, speeds, and prices stay.
 
Dane Jasper, Sonic.net's CEO, tells me that the new fiber-to-the-home deployment is a trial and will reach about 700 homes when complete. "Honestly, only as those wrap up will we have a complete picture of the economic model," he says.

This is the part I'm worried about, Economic Model : Not feasible..
 
Hmmm, I need to look into Sonic.net a little more..current AT&T is raping me at the tune of $35 for 3M/384k service, then I pay $20 (before taxes/fees) for phone service.. Sonic has 20Mbps + phone for that price? Wonder what the up-speed is.
 
The problem here is that even if this ends up being economically feasible and everything looks good to go, Comcast or AT&T will buy them for double what they're worth just to shut them down to protect their own profit margins.
 
Hmmm, I need to look into Sonic.net a little more..current AT&T is raping me at the tune of $35 for 3M/384k service, then I pay $20 (before taxes/fees) for phone service.. Sonic has 20Mbps + phone for that price? Wonder what the up-speed is.

Up speeds are up to 3.5 mbit/s with a Annex-M capable modem, however you do lose a bit of your down speed if you enable that functionality. Also, I had the same plan and I now have the fusion service with a phone line and it is $39.95+ fees a month, coming out to around $50 with taxes and everything.
 
Sonic.net is awesome. I have had them for a year now and I get 20 Mb/s down for $40 a month with no cap and there is no contract requirement.

Also, every time I have had to call their technical support I got to talk to a human being straight away and they were in the US and they knew what they were actually talking about. I got my coworker hooked too, he loves their service.

Now I only wish that fiber was available in Alameda....

wait you pay $40/mo for 20Mbps and 1Gbps is available for $70/mo?
 
wait you pay $40/mo for 20Mbps and 1Gbps is available for $70/mo?

Currently they are only rolling it out in one city, which is Sebastopol in Sonoma County, which is quite far from where I live. Like I said earlier, I would love it if they rolled this out where I live.
 
Unfortunately, what they don't tell you is the service has a 100Gb per month data cap. So you can only use the speed for 10 seconds.

Its like NAWZ for your web.
 
Unfortunately, what they don't tell you is the service has a 100Gb per month data cap. So you can only use the speed for 10 seconds.

Its like NAWZ for your web.

Is this actually true or just a cynical expectation based on how other ISPs behave?
 
Unfortunately, what they don't tell you is the service has a 100Gb per month data cap. So you can only use the speed for 10 seconds.

Its like NAWZ for your web.

100Gb or 100GB :rolleyes:? Even if it was 100GB, I wouldn't mind too much, but that's just for me.
 
AT&T was charging us about $50/mo for the landline and a few features like caller ID and an occasional "long distance" call (a family member ~60 miles away). I found out about Sonic on SD and told my dad about it. ~$50 after taxes for uncapped ADSL2+, unlimited local and long distance calling, caller ID, and call blocking? It was a no-brainer. I think our house's distance to the central office is limiting the speeds to about 6/0.8, but it's basically free broadband compared to what we were getting from AT&T before.

What's also amazing imo is that Dane Jasper is quite active on the DSLReports forum helping customers resolve issues.

Telling the comcast csr that you're thinking about switching to to sonic fusion is also a good way to keep the promotional pricing.
 
I'm getting a week off soon, I'll drive out there, pick up a big roll of fibre optic cable & unspool it all the way back to my house in NY. F' my ISP. :D
 
100Mbps would be fine with me as most my NICs are 100Mbps. It would be a hell of a boost from 12 down 1 up now.
 
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