LMI is bringing fiber internet connection to West Berkeley.

[Tak Nakamoto]

LMI Inc., our local ISP has signed on with Paxio to provide a fiber optic
service to West Berkeley in April 2016. It looks like the service area will
only be in zip code 94710. I live in the area.

http://www.lmi.net/phiber

I'm tempted to switch from Sonic Fusion to this new service.

Anyone have any comments on Paxio or LMI? Reliability, etc.?

Tak Nakamoto

[sms]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
LMI Inc., our local ISP has signed on with Paxio to provide a fiber optic
service to West Berkeley in April 2016. It looks like the service area will
only be in zip code 94710. I live in the area.
http://www.lmi.net/phiber
I'm tempted to switch from Sonic Fusion to this new service.

Sonic has gotten really pricey lately, especially with the required
equipment rental.

Sonic offers fiber to the node service in my area, but it would be a lot
more than I'm paying to Xfinity.

The thing is I don't really care about having Sonic's VOIP service. I
can have free VOIP service from Google Voice with an Obihai ATA, and pay
just $15 per year for E911 service. Sonic still offers DSL in areas
close to the AT&T COs including real analog landline service, but not
where I am.

[poldy]

Post by sms

Post by Tak Nakamoto
LMI Inc., our local ISP has signed on with Paxio to provide a fiber optic
service to West Berkeley in April 2016. It looks like the service area will
only be in zip code 94710. I live in the area.
http://www.lmi.net/phiber
I'm tempted to switch from Sonic Fusion to this new service.

Sonic has gotten really pricey lately, especially with the required
equipment rental.
Sonic offers fiber to the node service in my area, but it would be a lot
more than I'm paying to Xfinity.
The thing is I don't really care about having Sonic's VOIP service. I
can have free VOIP service from Google Voice with an Obihai ATA, and pay
just $15 per year for E911 service. Sonic still offers DSL in areas
close to the AT&T COs including real analog landline service, but not
where I am.

West Berkley by the freeway?

Isn't most of the money east of the campus, up in the hills?

[Tak Nakamoto]

"poldy" wrote

"West Berkley by the freeway?

Isn't most of the money east of the campus, up in the hills?"

-----------

There's probably a couple of reasons for selecting this area. Paxio already
serves Emeryville which is adjacent to 94710. So they can just incrementally
expand their lines.

The second and probably main reason is that West Berkeley's demographics are
very rapidly changing. There are many new market rate rental units already
built or being built. They are being rented by younger professionals.

LMI is offering what might be a good price relative to Comcast, so people
who might still be worried about a high bill might be tempted. The hills
area of Berkeley tend to have residents who probably will stick with the
cable company because of TV and because they don't necessarily want the
hassle of trying out a new service.

I'm still trying to find anyone who has been a direct or indirect Paxio
customer to see what their experience was.

Tak Nakamoto

[Roy]

Perhaps snother factor is overhead cables versus underground. If you
live in a neighborhood with underground utilities you may not see FTTH
anytime soon.

I had a client where the cable company was welling to run 1.5 miles of
fiber via poles to a client that was going to pay four figures for
service. The problem was the last few feet where the cable had to cross
a busy state highway. That was going to have to go underground. It
raised the install costs by 2-3 times. Project was abandoned.

Post by Tak Nakamoto
"West Berkley by the freeway?
Isn't most of the money east of the campus, up in the hills?"
-----------
There's probably a couple of reasons for selecting this area. Paxio already
serves Emeryville which is adjacent to 94710. So they can just incrementally
expand their lines.
The second and probably main reason is that West Berkeley's demographics are
very rapidly changing. There are many new market rate rental units already
built or being built. They are being rented by younger professionals.
LMI is offering what might be a good price relative to Comcast, so people
who might still be worried about a high bill might be tempted. The hills
area of Berkeley tend to have residents who probably will stick with the
cable company because of TV and because they don't necessarily want the
hassle of trying out a new service.
I'm still trying to find anyone who has been a direct or indirect Paxio
customer to see what their experience was.
Tak Nakamoto

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
LMI Inc., our local ISP has signed on with Paxio to provide a fiber optic
service to West Berkeley in April 2016. It looks like the service area will
only be in zip code 94710. I live in the area.
http://www.lmi.net/phiber
I'm tempted to switch from Sonic Fusion to this new service.
Anyone have any comments on Paxio or LMI? Reliability, etc.?
Tak Nakamoto

LMI says there's no contract so go for it. You can keep Fusion until
the fiber connection has proven itself stable. I kept Fusion while
Comcast Business cycled me through various defective modems.

AT&T is committing suicide and taking Sonic down with them. I don't
understand why Sonic didn't IPO a long time ago to get their FTTH
product out while the whole world was begging for it.

[David Kaye]

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
AT&T is committing suicide and taking Sonic down with them. I don't
understand why Sonic didn't IPO a long time ago to get their FTTH
product out while the whole world was begging for it.

I've been noticing that as well. I understand the idea of growing
organically, but they knew and we knew that it was just a question of time
before AT&T would be more pain than gain for Sonic. If Sonic is going to be
able to compete they've got to build out quickly, and that takes lots of
capital.

[sms]

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
AT&T is committing suicide and taking Sonic down with them. I don't
understand why Sonic didn't IPO a long time ago to get their FTTH
product out while the whole world was begging for it.

Sonic could not have generated enough capital to do FTTH outside their
home area. Stringing fiber is very expensive. Sonic is being partitioned
out. AT&T is not sharing their FTTH and Xfinity is not sharing their
FTTN. Google could have bought out Sonic to manage their FTTH rollout.
Sonic was doing a fiber installation for Google for Stanford
<https://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2010/12/13/sonic-net-selected-by-google-to-operate-stanford-fiber-network/>.

I still know people that are satisfied with Sonic Fusion DSL but they
live close to the CO and are getting acceptable data rates in the high
teens. I was getting less than 2Mb/s on Sonic, and that was on a good day.

Sonic's value proposition of including landline phone service worked
okay when a lot of people were paying $20-30 per month for an AT&T
landline, and they wanted to keep a home phone. Now, that value
proposition has ended due to all the low cost VOIP services.

I was using Ring.To on an Obi 202 for "home phone" service. Ring.To is
shutting down their VOIP service, using an ATA, on March 31, 2016 so I
had to switch VOIP providers. I ported out to Google Voice. Setup on the
Obi device with Google Voice was a breeze and Google Voice's call
screening system has eliminated junk calls.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Post by sms

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
AT&T is committing suicide and taking Sonic down with them. I don't
understand why Sonic didn't IPO a long time ago to get their FTTH
product out while the whole world was begging for it.

Sonic could not have generated enough capital to do FTTH outside their
home area. Stringing fiber is very expensive. Sonic is being partitioned
out. AT&T is not sharing their FTTH and Xfinity is not sharing their
FTTN. Google could have bought out Sonic to manage their FTTH rollout.
Sonic was doing a fiber installation for Google for Stanford
<https://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2010/12/13/sonic-net-selected-by-google-to-operate
-stanford-fiber-network/>.
I still know people that are satisfied with Sonic Fusion DSL but they
live close to the CO and are getting acceptable data rates in the high
teens. I was getting less than 2Mb/s on Sonic, and that was on a good day.
Sonic's value proposition of including landline phone service worked
okay when a lot of people were paying $20-30 per month for an AT&T
landline, and they wanted to keep a home phone. Now, that value
proposition has ended due to all the low cost VOIP services.
I was using Ring.To on an Obi 202 for "home phone" service. Ring.To is
shutting down their VOIP service, using an ATA, on March 31, 2016 so I
had to switch VOIP providers. I ported out to Google Voice. Setup on the
Obi device with Google Voice was a breeze and Google Voice's call
screening system has eliminated junk calls.

I think Sonic could have raised the money. Sonic announced fiber plans
in 2010 while AT&T was stuck below 6 Mbps and Comcast predictably
collapsed every evening. It was actually influencing home prices in
Silicon Valley. Investors would have come forward even if it was for no
better reason than getting their own home wired.

I would have bought stock in Sonic.net back in 2010. Now I'm moving
everything off of them because they're just too obsolete.

[David Kaye]

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
I think Sonic could have raised the money. Sonic announced fiber plans
in 2010 while AT&T was stuck below 6 Mbps and Comcast predictably
collapsed every evening.

I agree. Sonic has customers from Healdsburg to Gilroy and whatnot. They
have satisfied customers. They have marketing in place. In short, they
have/had more going for them than most start-ups, especially since they've
been turning a profit, unlike most start-ups.

[Mike Hunt]

Post by David Kaye

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
I think Sonic could have raised the money. Sonic announced fiber plans
in 2010 while AT&T was stuck below 6 Mbps and Comcast predictably
collapsed every evening.

I agree. Sonic has customers from Healdsburg to Gilroy and whatnot. They
have satisfied customers. They have marketing in place. In short, they
have/had more going for them than most start-ups, especially since they've
been turning a profit, unlike most start-ups.

I'm looking forward to becoming a sonic customer myself next Tuesday
(Fusion FTTN x2).

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Post by Mike Hunt

Post by David Kaye

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
I think Sonic could have raised the money. Sonic announced fiber plans
in 2010 while AT&T was stuck below 6 Mbps and Comcast predictably
collapsed every evening.

I agree. Sonic has customers from Healdsburg to Gilroy and whatnot. They
have satisfied customers. They have marketing in place. In short, they
have/had more going for them than most start-ups, especially since they've
been turning a profit, unlike most start-ups.

I'm looking forward to becoming a sonic customer myself next Tuesday
(Fusion FTTN x2).

Good luck with that. It's a resell of AT&T Uverse so it comes with all
of AT&T's problems - AT&T dynamic IP address, blocked ports, rental
fees, crippled router, marketing monitoring, NSA monitoring, and the
general feeling that AT&T doesn't want to exist. Sonic says that their
added value is the ability to VPN through AT&T, though they never got
that working as a full-time feature.

Read here: https://forums.sonic.net/

Comcast is really awful but they suck less if you pay extra for "Comcast
Business" service.

[sms]

<snip>

Post by Kevin McMurtrie

Post by Mike Hunt
I'm looking forward to becoming a sonic customer myself next Tuesday
(Fusion FTTN x2).

Good luck with that. It's a resell of AT&T Uverse so it comes with all
of AT&T's problems - AT&T dynamic IP address, blocked ports, rental
fees, crippled router, marketing monitoring, NSA monitoring, and the
general feeling that AT&T doesn't want to exist. Sonic says that their
added value is the ability to VPN through AT&T, though they never got
that working as a full-time feature.

You can VPN through AT&T (or Comcast), with a third-party VPN service,
and the VPN service will give you a big choice of VPN servers throughout
the world which can be useful. I'm doing that now. Not free, but not
very expensive. See
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403388,00.asp>. I'm using the
first one. It's now $31.95/year, I think I paid a little less than that
though.

I can get AT&T Gigabit service for what Sonic is charging for 50Mb/s
service. Less actually. Sonic's VOIP service is no better than what I
get from Google Voice, not as good actually.

[Roy]

Post by sms
<snip>

Post by Kevin McMurtrie

Post by Mike Hunt
I'm looking forward to becoming a sonic customer myself next Tuesday
(Fusion FTTN x2).

Good luck with that. It's a resell of AT&T Uverse so it comes with all
of AT&T's problems - AT&T dynamic IP address, blocked ports, rental
fees, crippled router, marketing monitoring, NSA monitoring, and the
general feeling that AT&T doesn't want to exist. Sonic says that their
added value is the ability to VPN through AT&T, though they never got
that working as a full-time feature.

You can VPN through AT&T (or Comcast), with a third-party VPN service,
and the VPN service will give you a big choice of VPN servers throughout
the world which can be useful. I'm doing that now. Not free, but not
very expensive. See
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403388,00.asp>. I'm using the
first one. It's now $31.95/year, I think I paid a little less than that
though.
I can get AT&T Gigabit service for what Sonic is charging for 50Mb/s
service. Less actually. Sonic's VOIP service is no better than what I
get from Google Voice, not as good actually.

Try this VPN service. Its free. You have your choice of servers all
over the world. Seven in the US are active now

http://www.vpngate.net/en/

[Roy]

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
...
Good luck with that. It's a resell of AT&T Uverse so it comes with all
of AT&T's problems - AT&T dynamic IP address, blocked ports, rental
fees, crippled router, marketing monitoring, NSA monitoring, and the
general feeling that AT&T doesn't want to exist. Sonic says that their
added value is the ability to VPN through AT&T, though they never got
that working as a full-time feature.
Read here: https://forums.sonic.net/
Comcast is really awful but they suck less if you pay extra for "Comcast
Business" service.

There are three different ways of getting DSL from Sonic depending on
where you are

1) Resell of AT&T DSL and backbone. IP address is from AT&T.

2) Sonic backbone but AT&T DSL. You would get an IP address from Sonic

3) Sonic backbone and DSL but AT&T wires. AT&T only provides the wires.
You would get an IP address from Sonic

I don't know what the product names for these are or if they are all
bundled under the Fusion name.

[Mike Hunt]

Post by Kevin McMurtrie

Post by Mike Hunt

Post by David Kaye

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
I think Sonic could have raised the money. Sonic announced fiber plans
in 2010 while AT&T was stuck below 6 Mbps and Comcast predictably
collapsed every evening.

I agree. Sonic has customers from Healdsburg to Gilroy and whatnot. They
have satisfied customers. They have marketing in place. In short, they
have/had more going for them than most start-ups, especially since they've
been turning a profit, unlike most start-ups.

I'm looking forward to becoming a sonic customer myself next Tuesday
(Fusion FTTN x2).

Good luck with that. It's a resell of AT&T Uverse so it comes with all
of AT&T's problems - AT&T dynamic IP address, blocked ports, rental
fees, crippled router, marketing monitoring, NSA monitoring, and the
general feeling that AT&T doesn't want to exist. Sonic says that their
added value is the ability to VPN through AT&T, though they never got
that working as a full-time feature.
Read here: https://forums.sonic.net/
Comcast is really awful but they suck less if you pay extra for "Comcast
Business" service.

My Sonic FTTN installation happened today. Nothing too noteworthy there -
remove the old copper and dropped a new copper line. It is not a bonded
pair like I expected - this is only running on one pair.

My IP resolves to a sbcglobal.net name. I did not get a static IP (it's
not an option due to AT&T restrictions, according to sonic). The only
port I've noticed being blocked is outgoing 25 (no option to open due to
AT&T restrictions, according to sonic). So I'm funnelling all of my
outgoing email through mail.sonic.net:587 (using my sonic
username/password to authenticate). My speed is ~45mpbs, which is ~9X
better than what I had for DSL. My landline number is being ported over
to it now - that process should take less than 2 days. Total cost is
$76/month.

[Mike Hunt]

Post by Mike Hunt
My Sonic FTTN installation happened today. Nothing too noteworthy there -
remove the old copper and dropped a new copper line. It is not a bonded
pair like I expected - this is only running on one pair.
My IP resolves to a sbcglobal.net name. I did not get a static IP (it's
not an option due to AT&T restrictions, according to sonic). The only
port I've noticed being blocked is outgoing 25 (no option to open due to
AT&T restrictions, according to sonic). So I'm funnelling all of my
outgoing email through mail.sonic.net:587 (using my sonic
username/password to authenticate). My speed is ~45mpbs, which is ~9X
better than what I had for DSL. My landline number is being ported over
to it now - that process should take less than 2 days. Total cost is
$76/month.

And as of today, I'm with DSLExtreme's trueSTREAM. This is over the exact
same AT&T physical line that I was using with sonic. However, DSLExtreme
is able to give me:
- static IPs (5)
- outgoing port 25 is unblocked (I just had to ask)
- was able to buy a modem so don't have to rent one

I think the monthly bill will end up being $94.91 - certainly more than
the $76 from sonic (DSLExtreme charges $15/month for static IPs). Sonic
was having some serious issues with my low volume outgoing mail (about 1
message every 20 minutes) - my account was often flagged by them for "SPAM
abuse" and they would lock out my account (internet would work, but email
would stop going out). They never could tell me what "too much" was or
what emails they considered SPAM (I'm filtering 85-90% of mail as SPAM).
These emails are just emails that came in to my box and are being
forwarded out to users' personal accounts. Plus, they were charging me an
additional $25/month for "Charge repeated spam". It got pretty unusable
so I had to bail on them.

[Mike Hunt]

Also, in the middle of my short run with sonic, they turned off their news
servers. This posting wouldn't even be possible if I stuck with them.

Post by Mike Hunt

Post by Mike Hunt
My Sonic FTTN installation happened today. Nothing too noteworthy there -
remove the old copper and dropped a new copper line. It is not a bonded
pair like I expected - this is only running on one pair.
My IP resolves to a sbcglobal.net name. I did not get a static IP (it's
not an option due to AT&T restrictions, according to sonic). The only
port I've noticed being blocked is outgoing 25 (no option to open due to
AT&T restrictions, according to sonic). So I'm funnelling all of my
outgoing email through mail.sonic.net:587 (using my sonic
username/password to authenticate). My speed is ~45mpbs, which is ~9X
better than what I had for DSL. My landline number is being ported over
to it now - that process should take less than 2 days. Total cost is
$76/month.

And as of today, I'm with DSLExtreme's trueSTREAM. This is over the exact
same AT&T physical line that I was using with sonic. However, DSLExtreme
- static IPs (5)
- outgoing port 25 is unblocked (I just had to ask)
- was able to buy a modem so don't have to rent one
I think the monthly bill will end up being $94.91 - certainly more than
the $76 from sonic (DSLExtreme charges $15/month for static IPs). Sonic
was having some serious issues with my low volume outgoing mail (about 1
message every 20 minutes) - my account was often flagged by them for "SPAM
abuse" and they would lock out my account (internet would work, but email
would stop going out). They never could tell me what "too much" was or
what emails they considered SPAM (I'm filtering 85-90% of mail as SPAM).
These emails are just emails that came in to my box and are being
forwarded out to users' personal accounts. Plus, they were charging me an
additional $25/month for "Charge repeated spam". It got pretty unusable
so I had to bail on them.

[David Kaye]

Post by Mike Hunt
Also, in the middle of my short run with sonic, they turned off their news
servers. This posting wouldn't even be possible if I stuck with them.

Just about everybody turned them off. The "official reason" was fear of
kiddie porn being distributed via Usenet. Of course they could have done
what the news feed companies have done and simply ditched all binaries. But
the real reason I'm sure was that Usenet was a pain to maintain and not a
revenue center. And it probably wasn't worth it to the carriers to offer
Usenet service given the small number of people who use it these days.

[b***@MIX.COM]

Post by David Kaye

Post by Mike Hunt
Also, in the middle of my short run with sonic, they turned off their
news servers. This posting wouldn't even be possible if I stuck with
them.

Just about everybody turned them off. The "official reason" was fear of
kiddie porn being distributed via Usenet.

I thought that excuse was obselete. Or at least really really old now. Heh.

News is alive and well (sans binaries, but that's for performance) at Panix.

I also really like Highwinds (formerly Easy News and Pure Gig) which DSL
Extreme provides. Retention for years and an extremely fast network, so
it doesn't much matter that their news cluster is on the east coast.

Billy Y..

[David Kaye]

Post by b***@MIX.COM
I thought that excuse was obselete. Or at least really really old now.
Heh.

"....Finally, some newsgroups have been used to post child pornography and
have been subject to increasing criticism from state attorneys general. In
reality, just as with Web sites, only a very small percentage of groups have
been used for such purposes. "

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2009/11/how-to-access-newsgroups-when-your-isp-dumps-usenet/index.htm

[David Kaye]

Post by Mike Hunt
They never could tell me what "too much" was or
what emails they considered SPAM (I'm filtering 85-90% of mail as SPAM).
These emails are just emails that came in to my box and are being
forwarded out to users' personal accounts. Plus, they were charging me an
additional $25/month for "Charge repeated spam". It got pretty unusable
so I had to bail on them.

That's unfortunate. Does Sonic have a different business rate? With the
various forwarding it sounds like you're running a business and maybe Sonic
doesn't like that?

[Mike Hunt]

Post by David Kaye

Post by Mike Hunt
They never could tell me what "too much" was or
what emails they considered SPAM (I'm filtering 85-90% of mail as SPAM).
These emails are just emails that came in to my box and are being
forwarded out to users' personal accounts. Plus, they were charging me an
additional $25/month for "Charge repeated spam". It got pretty unusable
so I had to bail on them.

That's unfortunate. Does Sonic have a different business rate? With the
various forwarding it sounds like you're running a business and maybe Sonic
doesn't like that?

I never called and asked specifically about that but that did come up in
two of my conversations and both times the person I was speaking with
didn't have any information about that and didn't have the answers to that
question.

I'm not running a business, I only handle email forwarding for myself, my
wife and my dad.

[Keith Keller]

Post by Mike Hunt
I never called and asked specifically about that but that did come up in
two of my conversations and both times the person I was speaking with
didn't have any information about that and didn't have the answers to that
question.
I'm not running a business, I only handle email forwarding for myself, my
wife and my dad.

Sonic does have business accounts, but I don't know what the cost would
be.

https://www.sonic.com/business#business-small

It's probably overkill for your purposes.

--keith

[sms]

On 3/29/2016 9:52 PM, Kevin McMurtrie wrote:

<snip>

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
I would have bought stock in Sonic.net back in 2010. Now I'm moving
everything off of them because they're just too obsolete.

I was a huge Sonic fan and got them quite a few subscribers. But even
back then, it was clear that they didn't have a clear plan to move
beyond DSL, except in their home area.

If their FTTN service wasn't so expensive I'd probably go back to them.
It should sell for $40 per month and you should be able to purchase the
equipment rather than paying additional leasing fees. Now they are much
more expensive than what I'm using now: Comcast 50Mb/s plus Google Voice
for a home phone. They just have to understand that the home phone
service they include is not worth much anymore when you can get Ooma for
less than $5 per month in taxes & fees, or Google Voice for about $1.25
per month (that's the fee for 911 service if you want it, and I wanted it).

[poldy]

Post by sms

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
AT&T is committing suicide and taking Sonic down with them. I don't
understand why Sonic didn't IPO a long time ago to get their FTTH
product out while the whole world was begging for it.

I still know people that are satisfied with Sonic Fusion DSL but they
live close to the CO and are getting acceptable data rates in the high
teens. I was getting less than 2Mb/s on Sonic, and that was on a good day.
Sonic's value proposition of including landline phone service worked
okay when a lot of people were paying $20-30 per month for an AT&T
landline, and they wanted to keep a home phone. Now, that value
proposition has ended due to all the low cost VOIP services.

I just checked my address for the first time in a long time. It never
showed availability for years but now they say 50 Mbps for FTTNx2 for
$76 a month.

That's slower than Comcast and more than Comcast.

[Keith Keller]

Post by poldy
I just checked my address for the first time in a long time. It never
showed availability for years but now they say 50 Mbps for FTTNx2 for
$76 a month.
That's slower than Comcast and more than Comcast.

Presumably you're paying extra in order not to be on Comcast.

I just checked Comcast's web site. They have a promo for 100Mbps for
$50, but after the promo ends the price goes up to $75/month. 25Mbps is
$60/month post-promotional period. My assumption is that Comcast also
won't let you have a static IP or run servers, something Sonic allows.
Are there enough nerds here who want to do this to keep Sonic in
business? I don't know but I suspect so. (None of these prices include
TV service, so it's still reasonably comparable to Sonic.)

--keith

[Roy]

Post by Keith Keller

Post by poldy
I just checked my address for the first time in a long time. It never
showed availability for years but now they say 50 Mbps for FTTNx2 for
$76 a month.
That's slower than Comcast and more than Comcast.

Presumably you're paying extra in order not to be on Comcast.
I just checked Comcast's web site. They have a promo for 100Mbps for
$50, but after the promo ends the price goes up to $75/month. 25Mbps is
$60/month post-promotional period. My assumption is that Comcast also
won't let you have a static IP or run servers, something Sonic allows.
Are there enough nerds here who want to do this to keep Sonic in
business? I don't know but I suspect so. (None of these prices include
TV service, so it's still reasonably comparable to Sonic.)
--keith

You just can't compare 100Mbps to 50 Mbps. What are the upload speeds?

I have 100/3 from another cable company for $55. I gladly would give up
some download speed for upload but its not an option.

[poldy]

Post by Roy

Post by Keith Keller

Post by poldy
I just checked my address for the first time in a long time. It never
showed availability for years but now they say 50 Mbps for FTTNx2 for
$76 a month.
That's slower than Comcast and more than Comcast.

Presumably you're paying extra in order not to be on Comcast.
I just checked Comcast's web site. They have a promo for 100Mbps for
$50, but after the promo ends the price goes up to $75/month. 25Mbps is
$60/month post-promotional period. My assumption is that Comcast also
won't let you have a static IP or run servers, something Sonic allows.
Are there enough nerds here who want to do this to keep Sonic in
business? I don't know but I suspect so. (None of these prices include
TV service, so it's still reasonably comparable to Sonic.)
--keith

You just can't compare 100Mbps to 50 Mbps. What are the upload speeds?
I have 100/3 from another cable company for $55. I gladly would give up
some download speed for upload but its not an option.

Yeah I wouldn't mind more upload speed either but I'm not running
servers or doing anything exotic. I do connect to a VPN server from
outside the home so that is where upload speeds would help.

But mostly I'm doing a bundle deal so even though the Internet cost is
somewhat hidden, it's clear taking the Sonic deal and then paying for TV
separately would cost more.

Yeah I'd like to see more independent ISPs but the notion of an
unbundled line is not even entertained by the FCC.

[sms]

On 3/30/2016 5:24 PM, poldy wrote:

<snip>

Post by poldy
I just checked my address for the first time in a long time. It never
showed availability for years but now they say 50 Mbps for FTTNx2 for
$76 a month.

When I had Sonic it was DSL only, and very slow. Then they stopped
offering new service in my neighborhood. Now it's back with the FTTNx2.
Same as you got, $76/month plus taxes and fees. And the thing that
really ups the taxes and fees is the landline,
<https://www.sonic.com/taxesfees>.

The way they justify charging so much is that they are assigning a value
to the landline service that is way too high. How many people are paying
$30+ to AT&T or Comcast anymore? Either they have no landline at all, or
they have something like Ooma, or one of the other low-cost (or free)
VOIP services.

There are still some nice things about Sonic. They include VPN, which
now I pay extra for each year. They include a second phone number as a
FAX line and handle outgoing FAX as well. Their international rates are
pretty good.

But they need to get that 50Mb/s service down to $40 or $50 per month
and drop the requirement for voice service since it causes such high
taxes and fees to be assessed. With Google Voice the only cost is paying
for E911 service through a third party ($15 per year).

I _really_ like Google Voice as a "landline." With their call-screening
feature, the junk home phone calls are gone. With my prior service, even
though they did junk call filtering, and you could add numbers to the
blacklist, a lot of calls got through because the junk callers spoof the
Caller ID and keep changing the numbers they use. Also, it could take a
ring or two before their filtering system terminated the call so I'd get
a lot of calls with one or two rings.

[Tak Nakamoto]

"Tak Nakamoto" wrote:


LMI Inc., our local ISP has signed on with Paxio to provide a fiber optic
service to West Berkeley in April 2016. It looks like the service area will
only be in zip code 94710. I live in the area.

http://www.lmi.net/phiber

_______________

LMI announced today that implementation of this service has been pushed back
to August.

I'd like to know what knowledgeable customers think of LMI and Paxio. I have
a few more months before I can opt for this service.

Tak Nakamoto