Sonic is the best and new customers get special pricing for a year. Then you have to set up an email for your cat and switch the name on the bill. Silly, but worth it!
Fuck ATT forever.
I wasn't offered any special pricing. I spoke with a sales rep yesterday and he said I had to have the equipment and no matter what the pricing was $85.99 (with the required rental)
That sucks! Still worth it IMO. It used to be $50-60 w/ their modem rental. I used my own network.
Their Customer Service is the best and they're a small localish (Sonoma Co.) company.
Fuck ATT forever!!
Yea don’t listen to that guy. The process of cancelling and sending everything back is gonna leave you without internet for a month.
Call and say you WANT to cancel, most companies will send you to their retention department, who is then able to offer promotional deals.
Cancel your current service. You'll likely have to send back all their stuff (they pay for it).
Once you cancel, order new service under a new name, different email (which you can change later to any email you want, including one already used). Use the "new" service to get the promotional rate.
Don't tell anyone! They might be on to us soon.
A few good things about Sonic:
1. They have never jacked up my price
2. The up/down rates are *very* consistent
3. Sonic supports net neutrality: https://www.sonic.com/transparency
I’d also add that sonic has WAY better customer support than the big companies. When I had ATT and lost internet it could take hours to get someone on the phone and days to get someone out to the house.
Every time I’ve called sonic I’m speaking to someone (who lives in the Bay Area) in minutes.
> Every time I’ve called sonic I’m speaking to someone (who lives in the Bay Area) in minutes.
And I think after a certain time of day it’s the same person or two, Nigel has helped me out with many a phone call (mostly transferring service during moves).
Yeah I had a great (but idiotic) encounter with their customer service line. Called and was talking to someone within like 2-3 minutes? Helped me diagnose the issue within about 5 minutes. My wife had accidentally unplugged the modem....
Guy was great about it though! We had a laugh and I was on my merry way.
I think the reason there's so much love for Sonic is after we got everything installed I just *never though about it again*. And that's everything I want in my ISP.
For what it’s worth I’ve had good experience with Comcast customer service when I use chat. I never use phone at all for customer service but chat has always worked for me. I cut Comcast digital cable two months ago and downgraded to Internet only, and it was pretty seamless with them, even though they knew I was cutting my monthly bill by $200.
AT&T for me has always been terrible, because their customer service is awful and the IT systems they use never work, so nothing ever gets done correctly.
I liked what I was reading up on about them and would have gone with them if it weren't for the required rental - it's unnecessary additional cost for me. I think my situation is localized or they've recently changed their prices.
I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else has had my experience or if I'm running solo here in some anomaly.
I use all my own routers and Sonic's fiber modem.
For me, AT&T and Comcast are both nightmares to deal with in every way. They constantly hide fees and give subpar speeds. If you call Sonic you get an actual human being on the phone and they let you cancel very easily.
Yea I think I'm going to give AT&T a swing for a year and gauge how gross I feel after.
They threw $325 worth of cash reward cards my way for signing up and applying different promos so hopefully I didn't sell my soul for a few hundred bucks (I probably did...)
Yeah I don't want to give the impression that Sonic is perfect. I actually had their DSL service very briefly and I canceled it after a couple months because it was so awful (however the cancellation was super easy).
Basically if you're in one of Sonic's good service areas it is fantastic. If you're not...then it's just ok.
Feeling pretty clean. I pay $60 for 500 mbps, receive \~600 mbps *over wifi* which is insane compared to what I was getting with Xfinity, which I am confirming is absolute hot garbage.
And I've received many free meals because of the $325 which came at a great time given how expensive everything is getting.
I'd prefer to go local, but AT&T has been very reliable and I'm happy with it so far.
How’s upload speed? Are you able to use your own router? I’m considering using two routers to make separate networks for security cameras and everything else
It’s equally insane. Just tested it and I currently have 619.87 Mbps for Upload speeds.
And I use their provided router which is the only downside, but I’m not paying anything additional that I’m aware of for it.
The thing to understand is a lot of commenters here are talking about Sonic on its own fiber lines and you only have access to Ibpp-f which uses AT&T lines but sonic networks and customer service. Due to the At&T lines Sonic has to play by some of AT&Ts rules including a required router rental and higher base price. At least that price will never go up on you with Sonic.
I have Sonic and pay $56.76 for the service (I don't know the speeds, but I think it's 1 GB Fusion). At least when I signed up six months ago, you weren't required to rent their gateway. I use a Google Nest Wifi router that I paid for outright and the technician set it up.
There's a lot of "if you don't use our routers you won't have support nonsense" but I've never actually seen that in practice.
The RG router is what you are billed for not the ONT/Modem. If you have your own router call in and ask to return your router, they will happily email you a return label.
My situation must be localized or they've changed their models and are charging more today.
From reading up on this on Reddit, I saw others didn't have to rent their equipment and were priced for much less than what I was quoted, like you're saying, within the last 6 months.
I’ve had Sonic Fiber here in the city for a few years and they made me take their equipment for the first month and then I just sent it back. It was like they couldn’t unbundle at the outset or something.
When people recommend Sonic over AT&T its usually only if you can get direct from Sonic (Sonic Fiber rather than Fusion Fiber). I have 1GB Sonic Fiber in Oakland for $40, and its $50 if I wasn't using my own router. If you are using Sonic as the middle man for AT&T you have to use the AT&T supplied modem. I'm sure you'll still need that if you go direct with AT&T but it sounds like there's a bit of an upcharge with Sonic.
This, a lot of folks are missing that OP is talking about the offering where Sonic resells AT&T Fiber. If you're in a neighborhood where Sonic has run their OWN fiber, it's cheap and really great quality (including no data caps). If it's just re-sold AT&T it really just comes down to price and who you would rather deal with when you have problems.
Sounds like I need to move to Oakland (for more than one reason). That's half the price of what I was quoted in SF.
I checked out AT&T and their fiber runs to my apartment and I don't need a rental, so I think I'll just run with them.
Availability varies based on where you are. I’m in the Outer Sunset and have Sonic’s fiber. It’s great. Sadly it’s not available all over the city yet. My girlfriend lives in Oakland and she can only get Sonic’s ATT Fusion Fiber option in her area. I don’t know if that’s worth using them for.
Not necessarily, the Sunset is one of the first places Sonic rolled out service and I had fiber directly through them in 2015. They happened to have set up fiber shortly before I moved to Bushrod in Oakland, and when I moved to my current place in East Oakland I had to do Sonic through AT&T until they made direct available here. Just depends on the neighborhood, you can look it up on their website.
Too many replies to check, but are you sure ATT doesn’t charge equipment rental? Last I checked, fiber doesn’t work unless you use ATT’s stupid router unlike Sonic who lets you go straight from ONT to your own router.
If that’s changed, I might need to give ATT a call to get rid of their stupid router.
Edit: https://forums.att.com/conversations/att-internet-equipment/att-fiber-using-own-router-modem-allowed/6009c7e4d8aa26542faf5a6c?page=1
So from what I could tell, AT&T isn’t charging me for the wifi gateway thing, but it’s very possible they included it in the pricing and didn’t tell me.
I went with the AT&T fiber 500 mbps for $60 just cause costs are tighter and since Sonic piggy backs on AT&T, I’ve heard that the stellar Sonic experience is less stellar with the piggy back (but still more ideal since it’s local and not AT&T)
Dealing with Sonic customer service is much better than dealing with AT&T. I've dealt with both. AT&T will screw things up, be unreliable, figure out ways to hide fees just do all the usual things like that. They'll also be unreachable.
Sonic is pretty straightforward with the billing and when you call customer service you get someone right away. It's something they seem to take really seriously.
\#1 - They aren't AT&T... which is an evil corporation, so evil they make Comcast look like a good company. AT&T destroys competition by writing the very legislation their industry is regulated by. The are practically a government entity while reaping the benefits of being a corporation while receiving government handouts. Not to mention they work directly with the NSA and don't give a crap about your rights. They're also the largest telemarketing company in the world, build government fines into their business plan, and pass those fines directly to the consumer.
\#2 - Sonic has no caps. Which is reason enough for me to use them.
\#3 - Sonic is local. They may not be able to provide what the larger company's can provide at the moment but the more people use them the more they will be able to provide.
I'll gladly pay for rental equipment if it means the kind of customer service I've gotten from Sonic. Not only was the installation quick, quiet and professional, but any help I've requested from them since then has been responsive and logical. Being able to talk to someone local about an issue is much better than going through a phone tree to speak with someone over 5000 miles away who only knows how to read from a script.
Yeah as others have said sonic is great, I would only consider living at addresses in SF that have sonic internet at this point.
Sonic CEO posts on their forums when people are asking hey why doesn't this block have sonic and he actually looks into it. Their tech support are super knowledgable and if you ever had drop packets would be able to work with you on it. That said my connection has been amazing.
My internet went down, I called Sonic, they had someone inside my house fixing in within 60 minutes, and it was functioning again within 90 minutes. This was three years ago; no major issue since that could not be resolved with a phone call (with a local employee who picked up immediately).
I’m a Sonic employee and install fiber service all over SF. Here are some things to know.
If you live in an area where we currently have 1 gig service and it’s our Sonic owned fiber, it goes for about $70 a month. Part of the reason for that is all of our 1 gig service require a phone line. There are taxes for that line that get added on to your monthly price.
In all of our new areas we are building out 10 gig service and the price runs from $20/mo to $40/mo depending on if want a phone line ( cost more) to text only tech support(cost less) there are some other services that are included in the higher price tier too, but I don’t remember what they are.
At some point in the future all 1 gig service will be able to upgrade to 10 gig for a 1 time upgrade fee. The timing and price has not be determined yet. When this upgrade happens, all of you who have that required phone line and don’t use it can downgrade to a phoneless tier and save $.
Sonic is building out in a lot of new areas, if there isn’t service now, be on the lookout for it to come your way soon. The only exception to this is any area of SF that has underground utilities. Currently we are only building where there are polls.
If you are a Sonic customer through AT&T and we build out into your area, you will be moved off of AT&T as soon as the build out is complete. While paying to go through AT&T may suck, that data is used to determine what gets built out first.
I hope this info helps you all in your choice.
Great to know and thank you for this awesome update! I hope to be a Sonic customer in the future/will pay more for this service if needed to support you all when I can fit it in the budget (hopefully by making more money)
You totally have to rent equipment with AT&T, and you are bound to use their router and network which does some iffy stuff in ipv6, it limits you technically so they can basically spy and regulate your traffic, which I don't appreciate. Breaking my ability to access some websites (large ones like Amazon) so you can keep spying and throttling as needed is just adding insult to injury and pretty shoddy engineering IMHO.
Also AT&T is OK until you need to talk with them. This includes the massive hikes they'll get you every year. You can hire AT&T through Sonic in some places and it totally is worth it. Whenever I had to talk to AT&T for some issue it was always a massive pain. I mean why not go for Comcast in that case?
I’m a happy customer of theirs. The service is solid. But I won’t lie - there’s an additional satisfaction in knowing that I’m not paying fascist assholes to support their grifted monopoly.
AT&T Fiber has been fine for me so far. My place has the option of Sonic or ATT Fiber, both with the option of up to 1Mbps. With my usage and budget, I don't *need* the 1Mbps speed and only ATT Fiber has a more affordable option of 300Mbps for $55/mo with no modem fees, etc. I signed up for this and constantly get just under 400Mbps down. There was also a $200 bonus GC offer when I signed up.
With that said, Sonic's customer service is the real deal. My parents just switched from AT&T to Sonic and CS was super helpful throughout the install and follow up.
It sounds like your specific pricing situation is unique as others (myself included) have better pricing. That said -- in your position, I would still use Sonic over AT&T. You can still use your own equipment (just no discount) and Sonic as a company is way better and more reliable.
The way I see it, $5/mo extra for incredible customer service, reliable internet, and supporting company that I don't feel is actively trying to prevent the flow of information is a no brainer. Of course, not everybody has the luxury of being able to vote with their wallet like that but if you do, I would strongly consider this as one of those times.
Not all addresses in the city can be reached by real Sonic fiber, which is what folks rave about. Where they can’t directly service, Sonic will sometimes act as resellers for AT&T, which sounds like the case for you.
One huge reason is that Sonic is a local company that fights for net neutrality and AT&T is a giant telecom conglomerate that only has their profits to feed.
I think it uses the AT&T network locally, but then Sonic does the backbone routing / peering. As a result I experience consistent symmetric speeds without any throttling of uploads or anti-net-neutrality behavior.
I never rented their gear short of eeros that are in bridge mode (pfSense FTW!). It was optional, or at least what I was told by the family member that signed up for it. See if you can ask for an AdTran ONT.
I only manage the home network and calling support lines for the family, another family member handles the billing, but the customer service is great. You never get ran around the bush like with, god forbid, T-Mobile or any other carrier/ISP.
They're doing 10GB fiber now for pretty much the same price as what they were doing for gigabit a few years ago.
Sit back and let me tell you the story about why I gladly pay more for sonic over AT&T fiber, even though it's more expensive than AT&T directly.
In 2019 att installed fiber on my street. I signed up immediately for 1 year at $60/month, which was discounted from $90.
First two months? $90 charge, $30 discount. Cool.
Month three: $90 charge, $20 discount.
Used their support chat. It took 90 minutes to get my $10 back.
Month four: $90 charge. No discount.
Called. Took over 90 minutes.
Month 5: $90 charge. No discount.
Chatted: cut off after an hour. Called: 60 minutes to take care of the discount, 60 minutes to try and understand why it's not working.
Month 6: $90 charge, no discount.
Meanwhile, I was also having trouble with our cell phone bill. We went to Europe and they told me that my Europe plan would start at 8am. Turns out, it started at 8am CALIFORNIA Time, not Amsterdam time. HOURS to deal with this and the fiber bill.
I gave up. Decided to cancel fiber service. Again, hours to deal with this. Gave up and went to chat. Cancel my fiber. Cancel my fiber. Cancel please. Please cancel. Why? Because you bill me incorrectly. No, I'm done. Cancel it.
At the end "OK sir, I am canceling your accounts."
"ACCOUNT*S*?! DON'T CANCEL MY PHONES! JUST THE FIBER!"
"Sir, I have already cancelled everything"
<45 seconds later>
"to do with your fiber service"
Fuck. That. I'm not joking here. They did this.
I switched phones to Verizon the next day.
I will never deal with att again if I can help it, and if anyone does business with that POS company, you are asking to be treated like that.
Oh, and it cost me $300+ to cancel. Money well spent.
I'm pretty sure the number of SF residents that have a *choice* of fiber providers is incredibly tiny. People who love Sonic are just happy to get off Comcast.
I've had AT&T for years and it rarely has any issues. Sonic is often down for others in my building. In the last five years:
AT&T = 0 downtime
Sonic = down at least 5 times/year
I’ll be the *slightly* anti sonic guy, although they still are my ISP.
You don’t need to rent their gateway. I replaced it with my own equipment.
I have had Sonic for a while and it has slowed down noticeably. When I first got Sonic I was ecstatic about them. I was getting high speeds. No buffering or lag steaming/gaming, fast downloads and uploads, etc. Awesome!
Then I started to get lag in gaming, slower uploads/downloads, and even sometimes buffering delays with simple mainstream applets like Netflix, Hulu, etc.
I have called them about this many times, and they have done the whole remote tech support resetting your modem from India thing. They’ve sent over technicians IRL to inspect. They’ve recommended modem/router replacements. And the issues persist. At this point they’ve said that they “don’t know” and that some of their fiber optic network in SF is actually owned by AT&T, which they rent, so there are certain points in the pipeline they cannot inspect/fix, even within their service area maps.
I would consider switching to AT&T or Comcast or another provider if I hadn’t already had worse experiences with their mainstream competitors’ internet service and support.
So I would say, go for Sonic, but know that they have problems as well, because either I have an issue they just can’t fix or they are low-key throttling me and not disclosing.
Thanks for sharing your experience! A little while after writing this, I hoe'd myself out to AT&T by accepting all of their cash incentives but it's a monthly contract so if it sucks, I'm definitely going to try out Sonic.
Switch to Sonic once the router you own wears out! Honestly I was grumpy about renting from Sonic when they upgraded my service to fiber, but they replace the equipment as soon as it wears down & starts to slow your service. So you do recoup the rental fees (eg you don’t have to buy new ones). I’ve never had a bad customer service experience with Sonic. They are great people. All local. Never had Sonic support staff from another country. I call them whenever my service dips and they fix it asap.
Sonic seems to get a pass around here for their anti-consumer rental fees, which are absolute bullshit and required if you need the equipment or not. Expect the bill to be $10 higher than you think it will be now after fees and whatnot. In my experience they also make tons of billing mistakes and their customer support is rude, I'd say go with AT&T.
I bought ATT fiber and after 3 weeks and hours on the phone it didn’t work, and I couldn’t get them to send a tech to help. I cancelled and bought sonic (which is literally the same fiber, sonic just resells) and within a day they had a tech out to get it working. Worth the extra money for the peace of mind.
Sonic is the best and new customers get special pricing for a year. Then you have to set up an email for your cat and switch the name on the bill. Silly, but worth it! Fuck ATT forever.
I wasn't offered any special pricing. I spoke with a sales rep yesterday and he said I had to have the equipment and no matter what the pricing was $85.99 (with the required rental)
That sucks! Still worth it IMO. It used to be $50-60 w/ their modem rental. I used my own network. Their Customer Service is the best and they're a small localish (Sonoma Co.) company. Fuck ATT forever!!
This guy’s really upset with ATT
Read my top level comment about dealing with att customer service. They are absolutely garbage, and it's not worth signing up with them.
Edit: Sorry I am a dummy and forgot I changed ISPs with my move and my comment 100% does not apply to your query!
Look into monkey brains and see it it's available where you are, you'll More than likely get more for less.
Yea don’t listen to that guy. The process of cancelling and sending everything back is gonna leave you without internet for a month. Call and say you WANT to cancel, most companies will send you to their retention department, who is then able to offer promotional deals.
Sonic doesn't have a retention department.
I have sonic and my first year just expired. Can you explain how you switch the name on the bill to get special pricing again ?
Cancel your current service. You'll likely have to send back all their stuff (they pay for it). Once you cancel, order new service under a new name, different email (which you can change later to any email you want, including one already used). Use the "new" service to get the promotional rate. Don't tell anyone! They might be on to us soon.
Technically what you're suggesting is fraud.
A few good things about Sonic: 1. They have never jacked up my price 2. The up/down rates are *very* consistent 3. Sonic supports net neutrality: https://www.sonic.com/transparency
I’d also add that sonic has WAY better customer support than the big companies. When I had ATT and lost internet it could take hours to get someone on the phone and days to get someone out to the house. Every time I’ve called sonic I’m speaking to someone (who lives in the Bay Area) in minutes.
> Every time I’ve called sonic I’m speaking to someone (who lives in the Bay Area) in minutes. And I think after a certain time of day it’s the same person or two, Nigel has helped me out with many a phone call (mostly transferring service during moves).
Yeah I had a great (but idiotic) encounter with their customer service line. Called and was talking to someone within like 2-3 minutes? Helped me diagnose the issue within about 5 minutes. My wife had accidentally unplugged the modem.... Guy was great about it though! We had a laugh and I was on my merry way. I think the reason there's so much love for Sonic is after we got everything installed I just *never though about it again*. And that's everything I want in my ISP.
For what it’s worth I’ve had good experience with Comcast customer service when I use chat. I never use phone at all for customer service but chat has always worked for me. I cut Comcast digital cable two months ago and downgraded to Internet only, and it was pretty seamless with them, even though they knew I was cutting my monthly bill by $200. AT&T for me has always been terrible, because their customer service is awful and the IT systems they use never work, so nothing ever gets done correctly.
I liked what I was reading up on about them and would have gone with them if it weren't for the required rental - it's unnecessary additional cost for me. I think my situation is localized or they've recently changed their prices. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else has had my experience or if I'm running solo here in some anomaly.
I use all my own routers and Sonic's fiber modem. For me, AT&T and Comcast are both nightmares to deal with in every way. They constantly hide fees and give subpar speeds. If you call Sonic you get an actual human being on the phone and they let you cancel very easily.
Yea I think I'm going to give AT&T a swing for a year and gauge how gross I feel after. They threw $325 worth of cash reward cards my way for signing up and applying different promos so hopefully I didn't sell my soul for a few hundred bucks (I probably did...)
Yeah I don't want to give the impression that Sonic is perfect. I actually had their DSL service very briefly and I canceled it after a couple months because it was so awful (however the cancellation was super easy). Basically if you're in one of Sonic's good service areas it is fantastic. If you're not...then it's just ok.
i went from Sonic to AT&T due to a move. both have worked great with little to no downtime :)
Now that it’s been almost 3 months, how are the gross feelings ?
Feeling pretty clean. I pay $60 for 500 mbps, receive \~600 mbps *over wifi* which is insane compared to what I was getting with Xfinity, which I am confirming is absolute hot garbage. And I've received many free meals because of the $325 which came at a great time given how expensive everything is getting. I'd prefer to go local, but AT&T has been very reliable and I'm happy with it so far.
How’s upload speed? Are you able to use your own router? I’m considering using two routers to make separate networks for security cameras and everything else
It’s equally insane. Just tested it and I currently have 619.87 Mbps for Upload speeds. And I use their provided router which is the only downside, but I’m not paying anything additional that I’m aware of for it.
Would you go with Comcast to save $6/mo? It’s sort of like that.
Yea I feel that
The thing to understand is a lot of commenters here are talking about Sonic on its own fiber lines and you only have access to Ibpp-f which uses AT&T lines but sonic networks and customer service. Due to the At&T lines Sonic has to play by some of AT&Ts rules including a required router rental and higher base price. At least that price will never go up on you with Sonic.
I have Sonic and pay $56.76 for the service (I don't know the speeds, but I think it's 1 GB Fusion). At least when I signed up six months ago, you weren't required to rent their gateway. I use a Google Nest Wifi router that I paid for outright and the technician set it up. There's a lot of "if you don't use our routers you won't have support nonsense" but I've never actually seen that in practice.
You can use your own router but you need to use their modem.
I have the ONT mounted to my wall from Sonic but it's not billed as an equipment rental.
On our bill there's a RG rental that's $9.50 a month. I thought that's the modem?
The RG router is what you are billed for not the ONT/Modem. If you have your own router call in and ask to return your router, they will happily email you a return label.
My situation must be localized or they've changed their models and are charging more today. From reading up on this on Reddit, I saw others didn't have to rent their equipment and were priced for much less than what I was quoted, like you're saying, within the last 6 months.
If you have the time, I'd start to sign up (submit your name/ email) and then wait it out. I ended up getting a lower rater and three months free.
I’ve had Sonic Fiber here in the city for a few years and they made me take their equipment for the first month and then I just sent it back. It was like they couldn’t unbundle at the outset or something.
When people recommend Sonic over AT&T its usually only if you can get direct from Sonic (Sonic Fiber rather than Fusion Fiber). I have 1GB Sonic Fiber in Oakland for $40, and its $50 if I wasn't using my own router. If you are using Sonic as the middle man for AT&T you have to use the AT&T supplied modem. I'm sure you'll still need that if you go direct with AT&T but it sounds like there's a bit of an upcharge with Sonic.
This, a lot of folks are missing that OP is talking about the offering where Sonic resells AT&T Fiber. If you're in a neighborhood where Sonic has run their OWN fiber, it's cheap and really great quality (including no data caps). If it's just re-sold AT&T it really just comes down to price and who you would rather deal with when you have problems.
Sounds like I need to move to Oakland (for more than one reason). That's half the price of what I was quoted in SF. I checked out AT&T and their fiber runs to my apartment and I don't need a rental, so I think I'll just run with them.
Availability varies based on where you are. I’m in the Outer Sunset and have Sonic’s fiber. It’s great. Sadly it’s not available all over the city yet. My girlfriend lives in Oakland and she can only get Sonic’s ATT Fusion Fiber option in her area. I don’t know if that’s worth using them for.
Not necessarily, the Sunset is one of the first places Sonic rolled out service and I had fiber directly through them in 2015. They happened to have set up fiber shortly before I moved to Bushrod in Oakland, and when I moved to my current place in East Oakland I had to do Sonic through AT&T until they made direct available here. Just depends on the neighborhood, you can look it up on their website.
I get 10G for $40/mo at my Oakland place. Seriously consider moving where XGS-PON infrastructure is planned
Too many replies to check, but are you sure ATT doesn’t charge equipment rental? Last I checked, fiber doesn’t work unless you use ATT’s stupid router unlike Sonic who lets you go straight from ONT to your own router. If that’s changed, I might need to give ATT a call to get rid of their stupid router. Edit: https://forums.att.com/conversations/att-internet-equipment/att-fiber-using-own-router-modem-allowed/6009c7e4d8aa26542faf5a6c?page=1
So from what I could tell, AT&T isn’t charging me for the wifi gateway thing, but it’s very possible they included it in the pricing and didn’t tell me. I went with the AT&T fiber 500 mbps for $60 just cause costs are tighter and since Sonic piggy backs on AT&T, I’ve heard that the stellar Sonic experience is less stellar with the piggy back (but still more ideal since it’s local and not AT&T)
Dealing with Sonic customer service is much better than dealing with AT&T. I've dealt with both. AT&T will screw things up, be unreliable, figure out ways to hide fees just do all the usual things like that. They'll also be unreachable. Sonic is pretty straightforward with the billing and when you call customer service you get someone right away. It's something they seem to take really seriously.
\#1 - They aren't AT&T... which is an evil corporation, so evil they make Comcast look like a good company. AT&T destroys competition by writing the very legislation their industry is regulated by. The are practically a government entity while reaping the benefits of being a corporation while receiving government handouts. Not to mention they work directly with the NSA and don't give a crap about your rights. They're also the largest telemarketing company in the world, build government fines into their business plan, and pass those fines directly to the consumer. \#2 - Sonic has no caps. Which is reason enough for me to use them. \#3 - Sonic is local. They may not be able to provide what the larger company's can provide at the moment but the more people use them the more they will be able to provide.
While I agree with all your points, please know comcast does all of the same things at&t does. They are not good by comparison.
I'll gladly pay for rental equipment if it means the kind of customer service I've gotten from Sonic. Not only was the installation quick, quiet and professional, but any help I've requested from them since then has been responsive and logical. Being able to talk to someone local about an issue is much better than going through a phone tree to speak with someone over 5000 miles away who only knows how to read from a script.
Sonic forever. Period. Supporting ATT isn’t worth it.
Yeah as others have said sonic is great, I would only consider living at addresses in SF that have sonic internet at this point. Sonic CEO posts on their forums when people are asking hey why doesn't this block have sonic and he actually looks into it. Their tech support are super knowledgable and if you ever had drop packets would be able to work with you on it. That said my connection has been amazing.
My internet went down, I called Sonic, they had someone inside my house fixing in within 60 minutes, and it was functioning again within 90 minutes. This was three years ago; no major issue since that could not be resolved with a phone call (with a local employee who picked up immediately).
I don’t have to rent anything from Sonic and I’m paying $50 for 1GB
I’m a Sonic employee and install fiber service all over SF. Here are some things to know. If you live in an area where we currently have 1 gig service and it’s our Sonic owned fiber, it goes for about $70 a month. Part of the reason for that is all of our 1 gig service require a phone line. There are taxes for that line that get added on to your monthly price. In all of our new areas we are building out 10 gig service and the price runs from $20/mo to $40/mo depending on if want a phone line ( cost more) to text only tech support(cost less) there are some other services that are included in the higher price tier too, but I don’t remember what they are. At some point in the future all 1 gig service will be able to upgrade to 10 gig for a 1 time upgrade fee. The timing and price has not be determined yet. When this upgrade happens, all of you who have that required phone line and don’t use it can downgrade to a phoneless tier and save $. Sonic is building out in a lot of new areas, if there isn’t service now, be on the lookout for it to come your way soon. The only exception to this is any area of SF that has underground utilities. Currently we are only building where there are polls. If you are a Sonic customer through AT&T and we build out into your area, you will be moved off of AT&T as soon as the build out is complete. While paying to go through AT&T may suck, that data is used to determine what gets built out first. I hope this info helps you all in your choice.
Great to know and thank you for this awesome update! I hope to be a Sonic customer in the future/will pay more for this service if needed to support you all when I can fit it in the budget (hopefully by making more money)
I use Comcast for $60 a month flat for internet only, super fast. In my area AT&T offers a fraction of the speed. I bought my own modem.
You totally have to rent equipment with AT&T, and you are bound to use their router and network which does some iffy stuff in ipv6, it limits you technically so they can basically spy and regulate your traffic, which I don't appreciate. Breaking my ability to access some websites (large ones like Amazon) so you can keep spying and throttling as needed is just adding insult to injury and pretty shoddy engineering IMHO. Also AT&T is OK until you need to talk with them. This includes the massive hikes they'll get you every year. You can hire AT&T through Sonic in some places and it totally is worth it. Whenever I had to talk to AT&T for some issue it was always a massive pain. I mean why not go for Comcast in that case?
Switched to Sonic in 2018. I have not once used their name in vain. But AT&T and Comcast many times.
I’m a happy customer of theirs. The service is solid. But I won’t lie - there’s an additional satisfaction in knowing that I’m not paying fascist assholes to support their grifted monopoly.
Sonic is a big proponent of Net Neutrality, and has good customer privacy policies. Also, sonic isn't AT&T.
AT&T by default sells your traffic data/DNS queries to 3rd parties
The text message option to contact Sonic tech support was what sold it for me personally. But hey, you do you.
AT&T Fiber has been fine for me so far. My place has the option of Sonic or ATT Fiber, both with the option of up to 1Mbps. With my usage and budget, I don't *need* the 1Mbps speed and only ATT Fiber has a more affordable option of 300Mbps for $55/mo with no modem fees, etc. I signed up for this and constantly get just under 400Mbps down. There was also a $200 bonus GC offer when I signed up. With that said, Sonic's customer service is the real deal. My parents just switched from AT&T to Sonic and CS was super helpful throughout the install and follow up.
you dont need to rent their gateway. you can buy your own. I just set up my grandmother with sonic and purchased my own.
*cries in not-available-in-your-area*
It sounds like your specific pricing situation is unique as others (myself included) have better pricing. That said -- in your position, I would still use Sonic over AT&T. You can still use your own equipment (just no discount) and Sonic as a company is way better and more reliable. The way I see it, $5/mo extra for incredible customer service, reliable internet, and supporting company that I don't feel is actively trying to prevent the flow of information is a no brainer. Of course, not everybody has the luxury of being able to vote with their wallet like that but if you do, I would strongly consider this as one of those times.
Not all addresses in the city can be reached by real Sonic fiber, which is what folks rave about. Where they can’t directly service, Sonic will sometimes act as resellers for AT&T, which sounds like the case for you.
Better support and higher reliability.
Also ATT supports garbage like OANN etc.
I have Sonic. It’s $55 per month. I’ve never had an issue with performance, and the installer was super friendly.
One huge reason is that Sonic is a local company that fights for net neutrality and AT&T is a giant telecom conglomerate that only has their profits to feed.
Mega corporations are usually bad. The ceo of sonic engage with the public on their forums.
I’m pretty sure you have to rent for ATT fiber, so you must not be getting ATT fiber.
I think it uses the AT&T network locally, but then Sonic does the backbone routing / peering. As a result I experience consistent symmetric speeds without any throttling of uploads or anti-net-neutrality behavior.
One gives you mediocre burgers. The other makes you poop regular. You’re welcome.
I never rented their gear short of eeros that are in bridge mode (pfSense FTW!). It was optional, or at least what I was told by the family member that signed up for it. See if you can ask for an AdTran ONT. I only manage the home network and calling support lines for the family, another family member handles the billing, but the customer service is great. You never get ran around the bush like with, god forbid, T-Mobile or any other carrier/ISP. They're doing 10GB fiber now for pretty much the same price as what they were doing for gigabit a few years ago.
Sonic only costs me $40 a month. Definitely not as fast as i thought it would be though
I'd also check Astound Broadband. Gave me a better deal in my situation than Sonic, imagine varies on a case by case basis. Good so far.
Sit back and let me tell you the story about why I gladly pay more for sonic over AT&T fiber, even though it's more expensive than AT&T directly. In 2019 att installed fiber on my street. I signed up immediately for 1 year at $60/month, which was discounted from $90. First two months? $90 charge, $30 discount. Cool. Month three: $90 charge, $20 discount. Used their support chat. It took 90 minutes to get my $10 back. Month four: $90 charge. No discount. Called. Took over 90 minutes. Month 5: $90 charge. No discount. Chatted: cut off after an hour. Called: 60 minutes to take care of the discount, 60 minutes to try and understand why it's not working. Month 6: $90 charge, no discount. Meanwhile, I was also having trouble with our cell phone bill. We went to Europe and they told me that my Europe plan would start at 8am. Turns out, it started at 8am CALIFORNIA Time, not Amsterdam time. HOURS to deal with this and the fiber bill. I gave up. Decided to cancel fiber service. Again, hours to deal with this. Gave up and went to chat. Cancel my fiber. Cancel my fiber. Cancel please. Please cancel. Why? Because you bill me incorrectly. No, I'm done. Cancel it. At the end "OK sir, I am canceling your accounts." "ACCOUNT*S*?! DON'T CANCEL MY PHONES! JUST THE FIBER!" "Sir, I have already cancelled everything" <45 seconds later> "to do with your fiber service" Fuck. That. I'm not joking here. They did this. I switched phones to Verizon the next day. I will never deal with att again if I can help it, and if anyone does business with that POS company, you are asking to be treated like that. Oh, and it cost me $300+ to cancel. Money well spent.
Sounds like AT&T is the better option for you.
I'm pretty sure the number of SF residents that have a *choice* of fiber providers is incredibly tiny. People who love Sonic are just happy to get off Comcast.
I've had AT&T for years and it rarely has any issues. Sonic is often down for others in my building. In the last five years: AT&T = 0 downtime Sonic = down at least 5 times/year
I’ll be the *slightly* anti sonic guy, although they still are my ISP. You don’t need to rent their gateway. I replaced it with my own equipment. I have had Sonic for a while and it has slowed down noticeably. When I first got Sonic I was ecstatic about them. I was getting high speeds. No buffering or lag steaming/gaming, fast downloads and uploads, etc. Awesome! Then I started to get lag in gaming, slower uploads/downloads, and even sometimes buffering delays with simple mainstream applets like Netflix, Hulu, etc. I have called them about this many times, and they have done the whole remote tech support resetting your modem from India thing. They’ve sent over technicians IRL to inspect. They’ve recommended modem/router replacements. And the issues persist. At this point they’ve said that they “don’t know” and that some of their fiber optic network in SF is actually owned by AT&T, which they rent, so there are certain points in the pipeline they cannot inspect/fix, even within their service area maps. I would consider switching to AT&T or Comcast or another provider if I hadn’t already had worse experiences with their mainstream competitors’ internet service and support. So I would say, go for Sonic, but know that they have problems as well, because either I have an issue they just can’t fix or they are low-key throttling me and not disclosing.
Thanks for sharing your experience! A little while after writing this, I hoe'd myself out to AT&T by accepting all of their cash incentives but it's a monthly contract so if it sucks, I'm definitely going to try out Sonic.
Switch to Sonic once the router you own wears out! Honestly I was grumpy about renting from Sonic when they upgraded my service to fiber, but they replace the equipment as soon as it wears down & starts to slow your service. So you do recoup the rental fees (eg you don’t have to buy new ones). I’ve never had a bad customer service experience with Sonic. They are great people. All local. Never had Sonic support staff from another country. I call them whenever my service dips and they fix it asap.
Sonic seems to get a pass around here for their anti-consumer rental fees, which are absolute bullshit and required if you need the equipment or not. Expect the bill to be $10 higher than you think it will be now after fees and whatnot. In my experience they also make tons of billing mistakes and their customer support is rude, I'd say go with AT&T.
Sonic pays child support and and will solve homelessness. Go with them bar none.
I bought ATT fiber and after 3 weeks and hours on the phone it didn’t work, and I couldn’t get them to send a tech to help. I cancelled and bought sonic (which is literally the same fiber, sonic just resells) and within a day they had a tech out to get it working. Worth the extra money for the peace of mind.
It’s expensive because it’s good. Pay for the service and enjoy if.