Comments on: Sonic.Net goes on the ISP offensive

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:56:44 +0000

As a long-time Sonic subscriber before I moved to Seoul – I’m glad to see one company both pushing creating new footprint and charging the kind of prices for kind of speeds I see in Korea… But in the United States. Keep it up! I intend to sign up for Sonic the moment I move back to Los Angeles. And my studio? Yeah, we’ll be signing up too.

By: Dane Jasper

Dane Jasper — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 06:35:02 +0000

We will be offering Fusion service in Davis, in partnership with local ISPs in the area.

By: r00fus

r00fus — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:54:24 +0000

Significant pricing differentiation is a disruptive move.

Take the basic fusion plan ($40+t/f) – Some families pay $20-30 for a wired phone line itself. To combine with competitive-speed internet access, you require cable or a very high-end DSL, which will run $60 or more.

So for around half the price, you get broadband with a better ISP? Sign me the hell up (they don’t offer fusion where I live yet).

By: KT

KT — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 03:28:38 +0000

I switched to Sonic.net from AT&T two years ago and I love them! Their fusion service rocks and I’ve had not one, but TWO rate DECREASES in the last year or so. Plus they just gave us a free fax service, which is a nice bonus. I have better, friendlier service and my bill is the same, every single month. I’d recommend them to everyone. Wish more companies ran like Sonic.net.

By: Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:20:12 +0000

Sonic’s been in business for quite some time, as Stacey points out. I was a customer of theirs in 2002 or so, when they offered their service over PacBell/SW Bell’s DSL. It cost more than the phone company’s DSL, but Sonic provided static IP addresses that were useful for my web server, SMTP, and that sort of thing.

The web server thing turned out not to be so good because they used NFS in-house, and Moveable Type had problems with record locking over NFS at the time.

The low-cost, build your own network thing is fairly new for them, so we’ll have to see how well it works out.

Cherry-picking rich neighborhoods (“Sebastopol” is said to be an Ohlone Indian word for “land of many Volvos”) which is generally a winning strategy for ISPs.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:49:18 +0000

I’ve been with Sonic.net since the year 2000. Love it!

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 08:11:45 +0000

I’d pay real money for their fiber but if they want 30 percent take rates they are delusional. They are a nice company, but an Indy ISP isn’t getting 30 percent take rates anywhere. So I guess they have no actual plans to roll out fiber. Too bad.

By: C. Sagan

C. Sagan — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 06:28:30 +0000

The service has to be profitable. They don’t have investors, and they’re growing like mad.

It’s so profitable that they are entering the fiber game. This isn’t ClearWire, or WestPac – it’s the future of how we’re going to communicate.

By: Griffon

Griffon — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:30:28 +0000

I keep hearing about these guys but all they seem to offer in nor cal iat least is utterly conventional DSL 3-6 dl…. Meh. No double lines, no uncapped speeds clearly… Where exactly is all this disruption going down?

By: Will

Will — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:07:22 +0000

I know Dane is probably lurking here. Quick question, has Sonic.net considered using a wholesale company like Megapath/COVAD to sell out of market service?