Switching from EarthLink to Sonic

[Tak Nakamoto]

We will be switching our ISP from EarthLink DSL to Sonic DSL soon. I've been
able to live with the marginal service that EarthLink has been providing us
but our need for speed and reliability is increasing while EarthLink's
service has seemingly been declining. It is getting too frustrating.

I've read good things about Sonic for years both here on ba.internet and
other places. I'm not too concerned about the service we will get from them.

I am concerned about how to transition our service. I'm primarily concerned
that almost all our on-line accounts are based on our EarthLink email
account. And all our contacts (friends, family, clients, businesses) only
have our EarthLink email addresses. I don't know if it will be practical for
us to contact all of them before the switch over to let them know our new
email address. We plan to subscribe to an EarthLink email only account for
several months ($8/month for 3 email addresses) after we switch so that we
pick up any email from contacts that we missed informing.

This is why we've been reluctant to switch providers. It will be a lot of
work.

How do I time the start of the DSL service from Sonic, time the termination
of DSL service from EarthLink and time the start of the temporary email only
account from EarthLink?

Any tips from those who've switched ISPs?


Tak Nakamoto

[David Arnstein]

No comment on your main question, which concerns timing.

You should consider subscribing to a permanent email service such as
pobox.com. This sort of service provides an email address that you will
use forever. It silently forwards all emails from that address to a
"real" email account of your choosing.

The next time you change email accounts, you will not have to repeat
the nightmare that you are experiencing now. As well, if your main email
account suffers temporary breakage, you don't experience a temporary
nightmare either.

My pobox.com account has prevented both kinds of nightmares for me
personally, and multiple times too.

[David Kaye]

We plan to subscribe to an EarthLink email only account for several months
($8/month for 3 email addresses) after we switch so that we pick up any
email from contacts that we missed informing.

I don't recall if Earthlink has a vacation mode or not; most mail servers
do. What I'd do is set up vacation mode so that when someone writes to you
after your moveover they will get an automatic message back to them where
you can list your new email address.

On most mail servers this automatic message will happen only once for each
person writing to you no matter how many times they write, unless you change
the message, then it erases the addresses it's collected and starts replying
again.

So, I'd set up the first message when you move, "Hey, we've moved to
Sonic.net, so our email address has changed. Please write to us at
***@example.net."

Then a month later change the message to, "Just a reminder, we've moved.
Our new address is ***@example.net."

Then another month later, "Beginning next week we're shutting down this
email address, so please use our new address at ***@example.net. This
is your last message."




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[Kevin McMurtrie]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
We will be switching our ISP from EarthLink DSL to Sonic DSL soon. I've been
able to live with the marginal service that EarthLink has been providing us
but our need for speed and reliability is increasing while EarthLink's
service has seemingly been declining. It is getting too frustrating.
I've read good things about Sonic for years both here on ba.internet and
other places. I'm not too concerned about the service we will get from them.
I am concerned about how to transition our service. I'm primarily concerned
that almost all our on-line accounts are based on our EarthLink email
account. And all our contacts (friends, family, clients, businesses) only
have our EarthLink email addresses. I don't know if it will be practical for
us to contact all of them before the switch over to let them know our new
email address. We plan to subscribe to an EarthLink email only account for
several months ($8/month for 3 email addresses) after we switch so that we
pick up any email from contacts that we missed informing.
This is why we've been reluctant to switch providers. It will be a lot of
work.
How do I time the start of the DSL service from Sonic, time the termination
of DSL service from EarthLink and time the start of the temporary email only
account from EarthLink?
Any tips from those who've switched ISPs?
Tak Nakamoto

Don't get your hopes up. Sonic uses AT&T's decaying wires, same as
every other old ISP. Their amazing claims of
fiber/VDSL/ADSL2+/Uverse/whatever never get deployed beyond a handful of
people. You'll get an ADSL2+ boost if you have very short wires. If
you have long but noise-free wires, you can request a low SNR margin
that can boost throughput by 5% to 20%. You can almost double
throughput (some crosstalk losses) by purchasing two lines at twice the
total price.

[Tak Nakamoto]

"Kevin McMurtrie" wrote
Don't get your hopes up. Sonic uses AT&T's decaying wires, same as
every other old ISP. Their amazing claims of
fiber/VDSL/ADSL2+/Uverse/whatever never get deployed beyond a handful of
people. You'll get an ADSL2+ boost if you have very short wires. If
you have long but noise-free wires, you can request a low SNR margin
that can boost throughput by 5% to 20%. You can almost double
throughput (some crosstalk losses) by purchasing two lines at twice the
total price.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I understand your cautionary words. Based on our now long experience using
DSL from EarthLink on our current copper wires, I've come to believe that
not all, or even most, of our frustrations with our connection has to do
with AT&T's wires. To be sure our POTS line limits the capacity and
reliability of our internet connection between our house and the "central
office."

But I have been coming across more and more instances of our connection to
specific sites failing even as we maintain good connection to other sites at
the same time. I'm not a tech geek, but I have enough of a feel to think
that my frustration with our internet connection has to do with the
connection beyond the CO. I think that my problems are in EarthLink's
operations past the phone company's CO.

EarthLink outsources its actual connectivity in our area to COVAD. It is
opaque to me who is providing which element of my internet service (COVAD or
EarthLink) at the central office and beyond. I know that I've been
encountering too many DNS server failures lately. That is the ISP's
responsibility to provide. I'm also getting erratic results in ftp'ing large
files from sites geographically further away. For instance I download the
pdf of the SF Chronicle's daily paper from the Hearst Corp.' internet
website vendor in Colorado. My connection with that server is not reliable.
However other people I know don't have the same complaint. Even as I have
trouble with that connection, I don't have trouble with other more local
connections. I suspect that some of the trouble is due to EarthLink's
limitations within their own backbone network.

No, I don't expect that SONIC will fix the copper wire problem. But for the
bundle of phone service and internet, they are cheaper by a bit. Sonic's
customer service is superior to EarthLink's. They are more local to us. I
hope that Sonic will extend their cable service to Berkeley where they
already have many customers in my neighborhood.

Tak Nakamoto

[David Kaye]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
I understand your cautionary words. Based on our now long experience using
DSL from EarthLink on our current copper wires, I've come to believe that
not all, or even most, of our frustrations with our connection has to do
with AT&T's wires. To be sure our POTS line limits the capacity and
reliability of our internet connection between our house and the "central
office."

As I've mentioned here in the past, I have two customers who use Sonic via
AT&T's copper. But Sonic uses what they call "bonded" DSL, using two POTS
lines to provide up to about 20-25Mbps service. One customer uses it with
12 internet cameras and it works very well.

Sonic, of course, also has other options in some areas such as fiber, etc.




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[Otto Pylot]

Post by David Kaye

Post by Tak Nakamoto
I understand your cautionary words. Based on our now long experience using
DSL from EarthLink on our current copper wires, I've come to believe that
not all, or even most, of our frustrations with our connection has to do
with AT&T's wires. To be sure our POTS line limits the capacity and
reliability of our internet connection between our house and the "central
office."

As I've mentioned here in the past, I have two customers who use Sonic via
AT&T's copper. But Sonic uses what they call "bonded" DSL, using two POTS
lines to provide up to about 20-25Mbps service. One customer uses it with
12 internet cameras and it works very well.
Sonic, of course, also has other options in some areas such as fiber, etc.
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FWIW, I've been a Sonic customer for years and have been very happy
with their speed, support, and reliability. Being 3600 copper feet from
the CO certainly helps. The only issue I've ever had happened this week
when my email pw was compromised and spam started to be sent from my
account. Sonic was very quick to jump on that, froze my account, and
all I had to do was assign a new pw. I have their Fusion package and am
quite happy with it. Line is provisioned for 20Mbps and I get a
consistent 17-18Mbps.

[Steve Pope]

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
Don't get your hopes up. Sonic uses AT&T's decaying wires, same as
every other old ISP. Their amazing claims of
fiber/VDSL/ADSL2+/Uverse/whatever never get deployed beyond a handful of
people. You'll get an ADSL2+ boost if you have very short wires. If
you have long but noise-free wires, you can request a low SNR margin
that can boost throughput by 5% to 20%. You can almost double
throughput (some crosstalk losses) by purchasing two lines at twice the
total price.
I understand your cautionary words. Based on our now long experience using
DSL from EarthLink on our current copper wires, I've come to believe that
not all, or even most, of our frustrations with our connection has to do
with AT&T's wires. To be sure our POTS line limits the capacity and
reliability of our internet connection between our house and the "central
office."

I believe that, in addition to locking in purchase of the telcos'
copper for a very long horizon, Sonic has plans to migrate to
other media in the future. I think a sonic.net email address
is pretty permanent.

Steve

[sms]

Post by Steve Pope

Post by Kevin McMurtrie
Don't get your hopes up. Sonic uses AT&T's decaying wires, same as
every other old ISP. Their amazing claims of
fiber/VDSL/ADSL2+/Uverse/whatever never get deployed beyond a handful of
people. You'll get an ADSL2+ boost if you have very short wires. If
you have long but noise-free wires, you can request a low SNR margin
that can boost throughput by 5% to 20%. You can almost double
throughput (some crosstalk losses) by purchasing two lines at twice the
total price.
I understand your cautionary words. Based on our now long experience using
DSL from EarthLink on our current copper wires, I've come to believe that
not all, or even most, of our frustrations with our connection has to do
with AT&T's wires. To be sure our POTS line limits the capacity and
reliability of our internet connection between our house and the "central
office."

I believe that, in addition to locking in purchase of the telcos'
copper for a very long horizon, Sonic has plans to migrate to
other media in the future. I think a sonic.net email address
is pretty permanent.

No way. Sonic may do fiber in some cities, but not in cities that AT&T
has already locked up for fiber (like Cupertino). I am about done with
Sonic because the speeds are just untenable. I am at about 1.4Mb/s now,
and it has been deteriorating over time from 3Mb/s about a year ago.
Much as I like Sonic, that's just too slow.

[sms]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
We will be switching our ISP from EarthLink DSL to Sonic DSL soon. I've been
able to live with the marginal service that EarthLink has been providing us
but our need for speed and reliability is increasing while EarthLink's
service has seemingly been declining. It is getting too frustrating.
I've read good things about Sonic for years both here on ba.internet and
other places. I'm not too concerned about the service we will get from them.
I am concerned about how to transition our service. I'm primarily concerned
that almost all our on-line accounts are based on our EarthLink email
account. And all our contacts (friends, family, clients, businesses) only
have our EarthLink email addresses. I don't know if it will be practical for
us to contact all of them before the switch over to let them know our new
email address. We plan to subscribe to an EarthLink email only account for
several months ($8/month for 3 email addresses) after we switch so that we
pick up any email from contacts that we missed informing.
This is why we've been reluctant to switch providers. It will be a lot of
work.
How do I time the start of the DSL service from Sonic, time the termination
of DSL service from EarthLink and time the start of the temporary email only
account from EarthLink?
Any tips from those who've switched ISPs?
Tak Nakamoto

It really is not much work. You go through your e-mail archives and send
an e-mail to everyone you want to be able contact you. Respond to all
new e-mail for the next few months with an auto-response.

Don't use Sonic's e-mail, switch to Gmail.

Sonic is good if you're close to the AT&T central office. If you're far
from it then it's not good.

[Steve Pope]

Post by sms
Don't use Sonic's e-mail, switch to Gmail.

Gmail is heavily sensed for content by google. I would not
be comfortable with it.

Steve

[Roy]

Post by Steve Pope

Post by sms
Don't use Sonic's e-mail, switch to Gmail.

Gmail is heavily sensed for content by google. I would not
be comfortable with it.
Steve

The important point is to switch to using a mail provider that is not
your ISP. That way you can change ISPs without that much hassle.

The "free" email places like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook, etc will all
cost you some privacy.

[Steve Pope]

Post by Roy

Post by Steve Pope
Gmail is heavily sensed for content by google. I would not
be comfortable with it.

The "free" email places like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook, etc will all
cost you some privacy.

Yes, but only Google diambiguates all your accounts and other
identifying information and then gloats about it.

Steve

[sms]

Post by Steve Pope

Post by Roy

Post by Steve Pope
Gmail is heavily sensed for content by google. I would not
be comfortable with it.

The "free" email places like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook, etc will all
cost you some privacy.

Yes, but only Google diambiguates all your accounts and other
identifying information and then gloats about it.

Still it's better than Yahoo e-mail which seems to be endlessly hacked.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/yahoo-mail-hacked-what-to-do-if-youve-been-affected/2014/01/31/2857ef8a-8a7d-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html>

Avoid Yahoo e-mail at all costs.

[Steve Pope]

Post by sms

Post by Steve Pope
Yes, but only Google diambiguates all your accounts and other
identifying information and then gloats about it.

Still it's better than Yahoo e-mail which seems to be endlessly hacked.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/yahoo-mail-hacked-what-to-do-if-youve-been-affected/2014/01/31/2857ef8a-8a7d-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html>
Avoid Yahoo e-mail at all costs.

Isn't this just the OpenSSL vulnerability? It's been plugged,
and it affected way more sites than Yahoo -- Yahoo had the misfortune
off being selected as victim by the whitehats who exposed it.

Steve

[David Kaye]

Post by sms
Still it's better than Yahoo e-mail which seems to be endlessly hacked.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/yahoo-mail-hacked-what-to-do-if-youve-been-affected/2014/01/31/2857ef8a-8a7d-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html>
Avoid Yahoo e-mail at all costs.

I have had Yahoo email accounts for decades. One of them was hacked twice,
but that account was one I used to reply to news stories where the mail
account is tied to the comment section of a website. I don't know the
mechanism for passing mail account info to a non-related website. You know
the kind. You're replying to SFGate, for instance, and you have the option
of replying with an SFGate login or one from F*cebook, Yahoo, Google, etc.
I use a specific account for those posts and that account is the only one of
mine that's ever been hacked.




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[David Kaye]

The "free" email places like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook, etc will all cost
you some privacy.

Regardless of what anyone says I'm still a big fan of Yahoo email. I have
about 10 accounts with them for various business and personal uses. I've
been using them since they began providing email. I've also used their
groups function for email lists since the days of egroups. Aside from some
dumb interface changes from time to time I have had no problems with Yahoo.
I also use their accounts via IMAP so that at the beginning of each day when
I turn my computer on, it automatically checks each mail account for me.




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[sms]

Post by Steve Pope

Post by sms
Don't use Sonic's e-mail, switch to Gmail.

Gmail is heavily sensed for content by google. I would not
be comfortable with it.

It is a little scary. Google was advising me on when I was supposed to
check into a hotel. It read my e-mail and extracted the reservation
information.

Watch "The GMail Man"

[Keith Keller]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
How do I time the start of the DSL service from Sonic, time the termination
of DSL service from EarthLink and time the start of the temporary email only
account from EarthLink?
Any tips from those who've switched ISPs?

As others have posted, I also use a different email provider from my ISP
(I do my own, not for the unqualified). If you switch now, and start
telling people your new email address now, then the timing of your ISP
switch doesn't matter.

All the free email providers are free for a reason: TANSTAAFL. Only you
can decide whether your invastion of privacy is worth not paying someone
to handle your email.

--keith

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
We will be switching our ISP from EarthLink DSL to Sonic DSL soon. I've been
able to live with the marginal service that EarthLink has been providing us
but our need for speed and reliability is increasing while EarthLink's
service has seemingly been declining. It is getting too frustrating.
I've read good things about Sonic for years both here on ba.internet and
other places. I'm not too concerned about the service we will get from them.
I am concerned about how to transition our service. I'm primarily concerned
that almost all our on-line accounts are based on our EarthLink email
account. And all our contacts (friends, family, clients, businesses) only
have our EarthLink email addresses. I don't know if it will be practical for
us to contact all of them before the switch over to let them know our new
email address. We plan to subscribe to an EarthLink email only account for
several months ($8/month for 3 email addresses) after we switch so that we
pick up any email from contacts that we missed informing.
This is why we've been reluctant to switch providers. It will be a lot of
work.
How do I time the start of the DSL service from Sonic, time the termination
of DSL service from EarthLink and time the start of the temporary email only
account from EarthLink?
Any tips from those who've switched ISPs?
Tak Nakamoto

I went through that switch probably about 10 years ago. I paid to keep some of my Earthlink email addresses for a while but also got into a hostile exchange between one of their CSRs over some mishandling. I would agree that the best thing to do is have some non-carrier email. I have my own websites so use emails connected with them.

Also I switched from Earthlink (to ATT) because I was paying extra to Earthlink for the (unfair) charge ATT added for carrying them on their lines (damn Supremes).

[Tak Nakamoto]

So, we switched from EarthLink to Sonic exactly a week ago. And I'm very
happy with the service.

A few observations:

We signed up for Sonic's Fusion. While Fusion provides plain dsl service, it
appears to be much faster and more importantly steadier than EarthLink's
service over the same copper pair. I stream internet radio and was very
annoyed that I kept losing the connection. It still happens, but much less
often using the same equipment. I'm now able to download a pdf of the SF
Chronicle on the first try. With EarthLink, it was very erratic.

While the copper wires to the Central Office ultimately limits service, some
companies manage the use of the existing wires much better than others. I'm
very pleased.

I signed up for the previous account when it being provided by Netcom. I was
relatively happy with it then. Then Netcom was purchased by MindSpring, then
MindSpring was bought by EarthLink. Somewhere along the way, COVAD took over
the actual regional provisioning of the service. The service has
deteriorated a lot over the past years. It is as if they stopped investing
and maintaining their network. Tech support was in India and seemed have
little ability to contact regional technicians.

The other thing that I'm pleased about is the Sonic's phone service has a
spam filter. Using an application they call "nomorobo," they filter out just
about every robo call. We used to receive many every day, probably because I
have a fully listed phone number. In the past week I've received just two to
the same number. And I believe that they were local calls. This alone made
the hassle of switching worthwhile.

We are leasing the gateway (modem/Wi-Fi) from Sonic because having struggled
to configure a Wi-Fi router to work with EarthLink's modem, I didn't want to
deal with doing that again while we dealt with the switch over. I might take
another look at it when the 12 month contract is over.

In any event, Sonic's Fusion service is much cheaper than EarthLink and AT&T
phone combined.


Tak Nakamoto

[sms]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
We are leasing the gateway (modem/Wi-Fi) from Sonic because having struggled
to configure a Wi-Fi router to work with EarthLink's modem, I didn't want to
deal with doing that again while we dealt with the switch over. I might take
another look at it when the 12 month contract is over.

I thought that Sonic no longer allows you to buy your own DSL modem and
force you to rent one.

Post by Tak Nakamoto
In any event, Sonic's Fusion service is much cheaper than EarthLink and AT&T
phone combined.

I am in my last days of Sonic. Today Comcast came out and put in a drop
from the pole to the house. I was only getting 1-2Mb/s with Sonic
because I live so far from the central office. It was okay until we
dropped satellite TV service and want to use Netflix or Amazon Prime
video more. I am getting 59Mb/s with Comcast. It's $40 plus fees for the
first year, but after the first year I change to another promotional
offer. This includes basic cable service (which I don't really care
about since I have an antenna).

For phone I am going to port my number and use an Obihai box with VOIP,
it's $1/month.

[Keith Keller]

Post by sms

Post by Tak Nakamoto
We are leasing the gateway (modem/Wi-Fi) from Sonic because having struggled
to configure a Wi-Fi router to work with EarthLink's modem, I didn't want to
deal with doing that again while we dealt with the switch over. I might take
another look at it when the 12 month contract is over.

I thought that Sonic no longer allows you to buy your own DSL modem and
force you to rent one.

That is not true. They simply "strongly recommend" against it. I don't
think they will sell you a modem anymore, however.

--keith

[n***@sbcglobal.net]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
We will be switching our ISP from EarthLink DSL to Sonic DSL soon. I've been
able to live with the marginal service that EarthLink has been providing us
but our need for speed and reliability is increasing while EarthLink's
service has seemingly been declining. It is getting too frustrating.
I've read good things about Sonic for years both here on ba.internet and
other places. I'm not too concerned about the service we will get from them.
I am concerned about how to transition our service. I'm primarily concerned
that almost all our on-line accounts are based on our EarthLink email
account. And all our contacts (friends, family, clients, businesses) only
have our EarthLink email addresses. I don't know if it will be practical for
us to contact all of them before the switch over to let them know our new
email address. We plan to subscribe to an EarthLink email only account for
several months ($8/month for 3 email addresses) after we switch so that we
pick up any email from contacts that we missed informing.
This is why we've been reluctant to switch providers. It will be a lot of
work.
How do I time the start of the DSL service from Sonic, time the termination
of DSL service from EarthLink and time the start of the temporary email only
account from EarthLink?
Any tips from those who've switched ISPs?
Tak Nakamoto

What I'm disappointed in is that California apparently has a law that a city can't have municipal broadband if a commercial service already is present in the community. Some heavy duty lobbying there by Comcast, AT&T, etc in the State Assembly. That came up just the other day in tech news.

My problem is how dishonest these companies are run. Regardless of what you sign up for you might just as well bend over and get ready to be screwed. I have recommended Sonic to folks I know close to the CO (I'm not). But I'm not sure you can get it if copper is going away as it did in my neighborhood. Astound has also moved in to compete with Comcast and AT&T but they have a ridiculous 100 GB cap on their lowest priced service which would be fine even for Netflix or even VUDU's HDX. I think the people that run these companies are really out of touch with the public.

[David Kaye]

Post by Tak Nakamoto
I am concerned about how to transition our service. I'm primarily concerned
that almost all our on-line accounts are based on our EarthLink email
account. And all our contacts (friends, family, clients, businesses) only
have our EarthLink email addresses.

Since Earthlink addresses don't quite have the stigma that AOL addresses do,
why not just keep your Earthlink addresses? If you have a lot of addresses
there is probably some kind of larger group rate.

Myself, I prefer to keep the pieces separate in order to avoid problems.
So, I don't use my Comcast addresses but instead use Yahoo mail. I use
GoDaddy for my domain services but other companies for my web hosting, etc.
I never want to be put at the mercy of one company with all my stuff.

Post by Tak Nakamoto
This is why we've been reluctant to switch providers. It will be a lot of
work.

As for service, did you ever look into Sonic's "bonded" DSL service? It
uses 2 POTS lines and my two customers with it both have throughput up to
about 30 Mbps.




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[sms]

On 3/26/2015 11:36 AM, ***@sbcglobal.net wrote:
<snip>

Post by n***@sbcglobal.net
My problem is how dishonest these companies are run. Regardless of what you sign up for you might just as well bend over and get ready to be screwed. I have recommended Sonic to folks I know close to the CO (I'm not). But I'm not sure you can get it if copper is going away as it did in my neighborhood. Astound has also moved in to compete with Comcast and AT&T but they have a ridiculous 100 GB cap on their lowest priced service which would be fine even for Netflix or even VUDU's HDX. I think the people that run these companies are really out of touch with the public.

Comcast and AT&T understand the law of supply and demand as formulated
by the oil companies: "we have all the supply, so we can demand whatever
the %^&# we want.

If you're friendly with your neighbors you could share high speed
broadband with high-power 300 Mbps access points with POE mounted
properly with a good antenna and split the cost.

I guess it must be illegal to run coax between houses but no one is
likely to find out.

<https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-outdoor/>

[Keith Keller]

Post by sms
If you're friendly with your neighbors you could share high speed
broadband with high-power 300 Mbps access points with POE mounted
properly with a good antenna and split the cost.
I guess it must be illegal to run coax between houses but no one is
likely to find out.

It may or may not be legal, but it almost certainly violates the
carrier's TOS.

--keith