I’m very excited to announce that on July 1st, we will be launching a new equipment program for our residential Fusion Broadband+Phone service. The new equipment is a super-fast ASDL2+ modem/router with four Fast Ethernet ports, high-powered WiFi “N” and an easy-to-use web interface. Built-in Firewall protection for your home network is also included.
Our new Fusion equipment will also streamline our support systems, and allow us to upgrade firmware, manage configuration and roll out new features. For example, in future this capability will be used to offer IPv6 to customers.
The new equipment will be owned by Sonic.net and rented to customers as part of the Fusion home service, for $6.50 per month. This assures you’ll always have working equipment – we can remotely troubleshoot it, and replace it for you at no charge if the equipment fails.
Existing customers are of course welcome to continue to use the equipment that they already own, or you will be able to upgrade (starting next week) to new rental equipment if you find the features compelling.
I think Greg’s comments, while a tad bit harsh, are very valid. I’ve been a very happy Sonic customer for many years (especially this last year or so once Fusion was available in my area) but I too balked a bit at the $6.50 service fee. It’s not a lot of money, now, but will it eventually go to $7.00, $7.50….? I’m assuming that the additional fees Greg pointed out are for new customers ($75 installation fee, $35 credit/debit use fee) and not for those of us who choose to upgrade to the newer modems or need to replace our ZTEs because of failure or problems. It would appear the the use of the new modems will be an eventuality for most of us so how about waiving all of the additional fees (shipping, installation, etc) for existing, long time customers (we are the ones who have helped you grow) and just send us out a new modem when requested and/or needed and charge only the $6.50 service fee?
I think Sonic.net is going the wrong direction. It tried to get more customers by adding features like Static IP, free call to Canada, free call even to Guam/Puerto Rico/US Virgin Islands, 250MB Disk Storage, 1GB hosted bandwidth that majority of people don’t really need. All those cost money. To make up for it, they charge this rental fee which angry all their customers which in turn no one promote Sonic.net anymore. If they want to make more money, they should just cut those features that majority of customers don’t need(charge some small fee for those that want them). Come up with new features that they can charge monthly fee but not something like modem that cost <$70 to buy it out right.
I just priced out ATT service for something similar to fusion as I’m looking for access to espn3 online – something you can’t get with Sonic. The equipment fee was waived for a 12 year contract and if you go fewer months than that you pay a flat fee for the equipment. With the new modem rental fees fusion is now very close in price to ATT.
I have been a Sonic/Fusion customer for just shy of two years. I am tending toward liking this development.
Eventually IPv6 will actually be required. This seems like a good way to help get there with less stress.
I am at about the 10,000 foot range, so this change does not do much for me one way or the other, so I might wait until it is time to replace my wifi router. When that time comes I suspect I will be happy to switch to the lease.
@Aleksey
The “gateway.sonic.net” thing is a fake/intercept address that will point at the Sonic.net interface on your CPE (router/modem). It’s not Cisco-style hijacking or anything.
My Vonage V-portal device does the same sort of thing (if I hit “v-configure.com” from behind it, I get the management web interface on the ATA). It should also have an IP address of course, so that if your DNS overrides this interpretation, you can still manage the box.
I have got to agree with Greg and Scott. This change is not something that makes me comfortable recommending Sonic to other people. $6.50 per month is not a good deal. Sure, some people will like the convenience of not having to worry about equipment, but I know I do not want some mandated piece of equipment to access your service. The only piece of equipment that I have no choice about is a Comcast CableCard (for which they credit me $2.50 a month to take in lieu of a cable box). I have not and do not intend to ever take a mandated modem/router for a fee disguised as a service benefit. It disappoints me that a company I previously had no problem recommending now seems no different from everyone else, activation fees, modem fees (and to add insult to injury shipping fees), installation fees. I hope that it improves your bottom line in the short term, but I think in the long term you are digging yourself into a hole.
If I was a new customer looking for service today, I would certainly no longer pick Sonic.
I will no longer be recommending Sonic to my friends because of this change. It was bad enough that you forced phone service with Fusion along with the phony official sounding required $6.50 subscriber line fee, now you charge another $6.50 modem fee.
And the excuse of everyone is doing it so we will too is ridiculous. Both AT&T and Comcast allow customer-owned equipment. They don’t force rentals. Not to mention your business model was built being different in a good way from the big companies.
Does this new recurring charge and movement to following the “industry norm” mean we’ll be able to get ESPN3 now… (for an additional recurring charge).
http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2010/06/16/full-circle/
Before I left for vacation I decided to switch ISPs from Comcast to Sonic. I didn’t place my order then due to the duration of my trip. Sadly, when I returned and wanted to place my order Sonic had a new package which requires new subscribers to rent equipment. This is a huge disappointment and turn-off!
@R Agreed… Even with AT&T U-verse they allow you to purchase the modem if you are only getting internet and phone.
I was just about to sign up, but this deceptive way of doing business makes me mad and disappointed. I thought sonic was different from the major providers, but sadly I was wrong. You will not get my business or recommendation any longer.
Do the new Sonic-provided modems support ADSL2 Annex L
(reach-extended ADSL, for your distance-challenged
customers)? If so, does Sonic have any actual
experience with customers using Annex L?
Yes, the new equipment does support Annex L, and the DSLAM, when in the standard Multimode configuration, will use Annex L if it determines that it is the best configuration for a given loop.
As for experience, we do have customers using Annex L today, as it’s automatic, but honestly I don’t believe we’ve done any comparative testing between Annex A and Annex L for these customers to see what the gains are.
(I’m late to the party on this topic.)
I can understand Sonic’s desire to simplify installation and maintenance; trying to support a mixed-bag of CPE can be a support nightmare, especially for a service that has a lot of other variables such as DSL. But what a lot of people here are choking on is the economic rationalization of the monthly fee. Will there be any promise (guarantee?) of a modem upgrade at any point in the future? A few years from now the original device will be generations behind (no 802.11ac, MIMO support, etc.) yet we will still be paying the same $6.50 per month. That makes us feel like suckers, and that does not make for happy customers.
I have a proposal for Sonic: pro-rate the modem fee after the first year and let us feel better about continuing to use older equipment. Drop it to zero after three years. Your best customers are the ones who never call for support and simply pay their bills every month. Give long-term and loyal customers an incentive to recommend your service.
(If, instead, your business projections include the modem fee as part of your future revenue, raise your price instead and be honest about it. We can handle that, but non-negotiable equipment rental is unpalatable no matter which industry does it.)
I was a happy Sonic.net customer at the place I lived some years back before a couple moves. The reputation for excellent customer service, value, and none of the crap pulled by other ISPs was well earned and lead me to recommend them to many people in the years since.
I’ve had my eye on the Fusion DSL service for awhile now, and when our AT&T uVerse modem died I figure it was a good time to switch since it is now available here. I have another compatible modem, but AT&T wouldn’t activate it since it wasn’t provided by them. Fortunately I knew that Sonic.net would function as long as it met the standards. I called up the sales number tonight to check on prices and times and was told that I could use my modem, but I would have to pay an equipment rental fee anyway.
What?? There must be some mistake! I am talking to Sonic.net? The service is $40 / month, right? That’s what I saw advertised.
That’s right.
But there’s also a mandatory additional charge whether or not I use my own equipment? If it’s part of the monthly price, and not optional, why isn’t it advertised as such?
I decided not to order the service. I figured the sales person I spoke with must have been confused, so I came online to search for more details, and found this post. This cannot be! I come to Sonic.net because I know there are no gimmicks, no games, just straightforward service. Don’t throw away your sterling reputation this way. If your costs or margin are too low, raise your prices, that’s fine. But don’t become just another service provider that I cannot trust and must carefully scrutinize the fine print for gotchas to let me down. For now, I will stop recommending Sonic.net to my friends.
Please, please reconsider this change and return to providing honest excellent service for a transparent cost.
Are you going to stay with U-Verse, and pay their $6.00/mo equipment fee?
They haven’t been charging that to me so far. Perhaps it’s because I have dry loop DSL, but they are actually not charging any extra fees, just the exact $38 / month quoted. If they allow me to purchase a modem for a reasonable price that will continue to work with them without extra fees, then I will stick with them. At least for now.
Dane,
I know that you’re just waiting for the noise to die down and for people to accept your modem rental, but believe me, you would be more appealing to future customers if you would just admit that this was a marketing blunder and raise your monthly base rate. That is far more acceptable to customers like me than for you to add this bogus “rental” fee. You are still the best deal in my area even at the higher rate.
We are certainly continuing to think about and discuss the responses and the business model. With the move to equipment rental of our main competitors, it seemed impossible to avoid while allowing prospective customers to compare products and price points on equal footing.
Since the roll-out in July 1st, we have been watching both prospective customer feedback and our sign-up statistics, and the results are mixed. Some new customers are expressing that they like the better new equipment, and some existing customers are upgrading from the rather basic ZTE equipment to the new more powerful modem/router/firewall. Meanwhile, new customer signups are down, off about 20% in the first two weeks of July versus the weeks prior. Some have cited the new higher cost of service as a barrier, while others have expressed that they like the “no worries” equipment inclusion, and the features such as MIMO-2×2 400mw WiFi-N, etc.
As an existing customer with equipment, you are in the best position: you can choose to keep using that equipment, or you can choose to upgrade. It’s up to you. Clearly, when the price went up for new customers, we are going to attract less new customers, I think that’s to be expected.
(Ironically, with our competitors it is generally the new customer who gets the short-term lower cost intro price, while the established customer pays more. Is that fair?)
candl’s comment++
I think it’s worth noting that I work for a large network tech company, people turn to me to ask what do I recommend, I was always saying sonic.net. I asked someone who is more senior than me, and left the bay area 12 years ago, it was that person who suggested sonic through their connections.
I think this company does very well from it’s reputation, and that’s a hard thing to resurrect when it’s gone.
Dane,
How about “grandfathering” in existing Fusion customers when they need to/want to upgrade and just apply the fee to new customers?
Yes, this is exactly what we have done. Existing customers already have equipment, which they of course own and are welcome to continue to use. They could replace it in future if they wanted to, either by buying equipment at retail, or they are welcome to opt in to the new equipment offering. It’s quite flexible.
So if I decide to upgrade my Comtrend, what is the cost of the new “modem” and will it be fully supported if I buy it outright and not opt to pay the monthly $6.50 service fee?
I’m glad I found this thread. I have been planning to sign up with sonic.net (have been with speakeasy for years), and have always heard good things about sonic. I was getting ready to put in an order. The mandatory equipment rental absolutely means I will not go with sonic. Either sell the hardware one time, or support other hardware. Otherwise there are a large number of users you will never acquire.
Sonic is still one of the best ISPs around, especially if you can get their Fusion service, and their customer support is top notch. This new service fee is definitely a blemish on their otherwise excellent reputation. I’m not happy about it either so I sincerely hope they reconsider this.
I’m curious if Sonic is willing to listen to some of the concerns raised here? Obviously, it has touched a nerve, as there are 125 responses on this thread already.
1) Choice of equipment.
Will third-party equipment (customer-owned modems) still be allowed on Sonic’s network for new subscribers (not just grandfathered subscribers), or will third-party equipment be banned?
2) Purchase option.
Is there a way to get out of the $6.50/month price increase by buying the modem outright, or perhaps buying it over time on the installment plan (as Pacific Bell used to allow, back in the days of expensive telephones)? Otherwise, it isn’t a “modem rental”, but an unavoidable surcharge. Which leads me to:
3) Honesty.
It would seem much more honest if Sonic were to simply announce a base price increase of $6.50/month and drop the entire idea of the separate “modem rental” charge. Only the most naive of all customers fall for the old trick of lowballing the base price (making it up on surcharges), and Sonic’s customers tend to be exactly the opposite!
Thanks for reading this!
Josh
I wonder how much of the pushback is because of the integrated router, versus just the modem. Some people are (justifiably) selective about their routers, whereas a modem is just another piece of faceless telco equipment.
Sonic understandably wants to streamline the DSL installation and maintenance, and bundling their own modem makes sense to eliminate variables. I personally wouldn’t mind so much if the cost went up, say, two dollars a month and included a ‘rental’ modem, if it helps Sonic with the troubleshooting.
But the router is a different matter. Not only are they subject to rapid development (and thus obsolescence in some cases), but many people have personal preferences and features that they desire. Sonic’s response is to turn their equipment into a bridge and still use your own personal router, but then the monthly rental fee really stings.
I don’t know if such a DSL modem exists (probably not), but what if Sonic offered, for less per month, an optimized modem as part of their monthly fee that served their diagnostic needs, but left the choice of router to the customer? (They could still offer the new modem/router as an upgrade for those who want it.) Would people find that more acceptable?
@Don – I would not find that more acceptable (I already have a GigE router attached to my own router/modem).
I do not necessarily object to Sonic charging more money, because I want them to be able to stay in business. I do very much object to Sonic hiding how much people are paying in tiny footnotes and layers of obfuscation, while approvingly saying they are adopting industry standard practices. If I wanted industry standard treatment of customers I’d be on Comcast – and getting much higher download speeds than Fusion can deliver.
It’s nice and all that as a current customer I am not currently affected by this new behavior – until they change their minds – but meaningless compared the loss of trust in Dane that I’ve had as a result of how he’s approached this issue. As a direct result of this I will no longer recommend Sonic to potential new customers.
Dane – If you refuse to sell the Pace 4111N with the Sonic custom firmware, would you at least provide a link so users can install the firmware themselves, on their own Pace 4111N’s?
@Drew,
I’ll look into this. We upgrade firmware using the remote management platform for the devices we own, and I really don’t know if our customized firmware is something we can release. It’s just not something we’ve discussed with Pace. We’ll see what they say!
Grandfathering in old customers is great, as long as you happen to be an old customer. I’ve had my current dsl line for almost 10 years. From the Sonic reputation I was expecting to do the same with Sonic. Maybe I’d be grandfathered into some new setup at some point. But now I don’t know if I’ll ever find out.
I’m in the unfortunate boat of planning to switch to sonic but only now getting around to it… after 1 July. I am responsible for two friends switching to sonic earlier in the year (and they’re both happy as clams), at a time when I was unable. I’m now able but I’m really torn as to whether I’m still willing. The whole modem fee fiasco (which is what I consider it to be) really grates. It was a shock when I went to the web page today to start the sign up process and found extra fees. Especially given what I know about the past history of sonic. This is the last thing I expected to find – Sonic apparently behaving just like any other big company out there.
I have no problem paying a reasonable cost (one time!) for a specific *modem* the provider requires to connect the line. But to pay $6.50 per month just doesn’t sit right when that fee will/should pay for the router many times over in the end. How much will that fee be next month? Or next year? Will the line fee be bumped one month and the router fee the next in order to hide aggregate increases? Etc.
The gig switch I have just died so I figured I’d upgrade my old wireless router to N along with gig lan ports. If I had bought that and gone with sonic it’d be essentially worthless. Either that or, from comments above, I could use the DMZ setting on the sonic router in which case I’m paying $6.50/month for… a modem.
The rental fee and all that it implies along with the way it was presented has me once again looking for a new internet provider. And that’s too bad because there was so much good about sonic… until this.
Remember, goodwill is one of the hardest of things to obtain and easiest to lose.
Finally, I’ll note that along with my line I was going to have two family members switch (1 comcast, 1 att) to sonic. Now I’m not so sure that’ll be happening either.
So today a friend asked me: “who was that ISP you loved when you were in the San Francisco?”
So I said “well, it’s complicated”, and have sent them to this link…
@dane New police of requiring customers to rent a modem is a huge disappointment. I’m moving to another place and I was recommended by sonic support to order a new service before the move. I’m glad that Sonic support advised of possibility of keeping my old equipment and not renting a new one – otherwise I would cancel my order for a new service.
It is complete obstruction of truth that both evil companies (or industry as you say) does not allow BYOD. You can buy Pace 411N from ATT for $100 and you can BYOD to Comcast. Both of them are just having rental option as a default, but you have a choice. If you short on revenue – just say that your service costs $44 not $40, but give us a choice.
I’m fine with buying a new equipment to simplify things for Sonic, I’m even fine with buying Pace 411N if you wish, but I will use it as a modem – I don’t need any new security holes in my home network.
As concerning Sonic offering – I’m and old school and I want POTS service in my new place. I almost do not use it as in fact Sonic internet because of the slow connection speed, but I want to have it as a backup for Comcrap services just in case I need it and static ip option seals the deal.
I hope that Sonic will re-consider it’s policies about rental equipment and it will offer a choice for a willing customers…
Thanks in advance,
Roman
I hope soon you will update the boulder creek area. I one of alos of high techer’s that would like to get off att and get real 12mb internet.
Gary
I just found this link after someone I recommended Sonic.net to told
me they had to lease a modem.
So, here are my thoughts:
1) Saying Xfinity or others rent equipment is disingenuous at best, as
I just bought my sister-in-law a modem from Costco that we use on
Xfinity. Indeed, when I called them, they said “yup, sure, here’s the
list of approved devices”:
http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.net/
Woa. Now, I hate the cable companies, but, really, this was really
cool. And arguably the right thing to do.
2) Saying “We bake custom firmware for our modems” is great. I’m
totally fine with that. I’m even fine with a list of one device,
purchasable only through you. In two years, you’ll pay $156, or $56
over what @dane said is the rough cost of the modem. I’ve been with
Sonic.net for 6 years. If this had been in place since when I
started, I’d have paid $468 for that $100 modem.
3) What’s the upgrade policy? Because if someone I recommend goes
this route, I’d also suggest they email every month and ask if there’s
a new modem they can get. Because if you’re leasing it, you should be
able to get the latest and greatest with every release, right?
4) One thing I love about Sonic is that it is the ISP not only known
for quality, but for the fact they have a clue. And that attracts
people like me, that (hopefully) have a clue. Run their own
equipment, web servers, mail servers, etc. I was annoyed before that
I can’t get rid of my sonic.net email address, but at least they
forwarded it to /dev/null. Until Sonic.net *ONLY* notified my
sonic.net email address when I switched to Fusion. . . Grr. Anyway,
my point is, you (the collect Sonic.net you, not just @dane) have
angered a bunch of geeks who know better. Your arguments are great if
you are striving to be the next Comcast, and connect just anyone. And
I’m not against that. I just think you should have a “I know what the
heck I’m doing” switch and let those of us who think we know what
we’re doing flip it. And get a straight-up bridging device.
5) I think it’s insane that your Equipment Policy states that we don’t
have to use the equipment, but we have to keep it (see “Fusion &
Legacy DSL Customers under
https://wiki.sonic.net/wiki/Equipment_Policy). Seriously? I’m even
fine with you just saying “Fusion costs $6.50 more per month, with or
without equipment”, ’cause I ain’t gonna keep your equipment in a box
waiting for the day I need it.
6) What on earth are these features? I mean, the only thing the modem
should be doing is handling the signaling on the line. What is going
to require specified equipment on the downlink for IPv6? You’re
saying the downlink will use voodoo magic to get packets to the
router/modem, and that device will transmogrify them into actual
ethernet packets that are legitimate IPv6 packets?
7) Stop telling people to double-NAT. That’s unnecessary and a waste
of processing power, and all it does is add latency. Sure, it’s
small, but come on. I control my own PTR records and expect to be
able to get packets from IPs I control and send them out with
addresses I specify. I don’t want to screw around with some stupid
web interface when I have my PF rules set up on my OpenBSD firewall to
handle it all.
I cannot argue the benefits of a lease option on the router.
Undoubtedly it’s the greatest thing since the Internet was invented,
and you’ll have accolades heaped on you for how great it is to just
get this magic box that does everything.
However, it would appear there are plenty of us who don’t want that,
and clearly only a small number of us have found this thread and
bothered to comment.
I was looking forward to FiOS when it came into town. Now I’m
concerned. I don’t mind having to have a special piece of equipment
on my end — but I *REALLY* bristle at the notion of renting
something. For all the bluster about how you guys can manage,
upgrade, handle, fix, diagnose, make the world a happier place, the
truth is by not letting us buy the equipment, you’re just lining your
pockets. Unless you put your money where your mouth is and send out
replacement routers when something new comes along.
Just my $0.02.
Sean
Sean,
Thanks for the comments – I think you’ve pretty well summed up the feelings of many of the folks who have posted. I’ve previously addressed some of these points, so I’ll just respond on a couple.
You asked about features, and in specific, “What is going
to require specified equipment on the downlink for IPv6? You’re
saying the downlink will use voodoo magic to get packets to the
router/modem, and that device will transmogrify them into actual
ethernet packets that are legitimate IPv6 packets?”
Yes, this is basically how it works. We will offer native IPv6 to client systems using 6RD, which is one of the methods of supporting IPv6 on ISP networks. 6RD is deployed or planned at Charter, Free (France), Softbank (Japan) and Swisscom to give some other carrier examples. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_rapid_deployment for more details, or RFC 5569: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5569
Our goal is reliable service delivery to a rapidly growing group of customers, and we have found that modems are a huge source of instability and support interaction. In one block of calls last year, we found that nearly 20% of our support calls were related to helping customers configure modems which were not acquired here. (Generally changing settings from PPPoE to DHCP.) A lack of ownership at the network edge creates an inherent problem of blame: is it the loop, or the equipment? We also spend an astounding amount of time trying to divide responsibility here when equipment is customer owned, even when it was purchased from us. Providing known good and remotely manageable equipment which we can swap as needed at no cost to the customer is a part of solving the issues of scaling our service delivery.
(Sidebar: If we had call centers off-shore, we might not care so much about wasting their time and yours fussing around with potentially bad equipment – but here in California, with talented support reps and a recognition that our customer’s time is also valuable, I would much rather be able to say “we think it’s likely the modem, we will ship you a new one and it should arrive tomorrow.”)
Hi Dane,
I appreciate your candor in responding to the inputs here, and I appreciate that you are running a business, not just trying to keep us happy. But I was very disappointed by this latest hiccup.
FYI, I ordered sonic.net a few months ago, had a great experience with it, and recommended it to my daughter, who is setting herself up as a starving student in a new apartment. She just got dinged with the new additional $6.50 for “required equipment rental”. (Not helped by the fact that it was back-billed to 2 weeks before her service started.) I was willing to help her out by covering the insane phone taxes that Fusion comes with because Sonic won’t unbundle the DSL from the phone service she doesn’t need, but this no longer makes economic sense. AT&T is willing to sell her a modem + router for $100, offers a dry DSL line for $19.95/mo for a year (about what Sonic bills for the DSL part of Fusion), doesn’t impose the equipment rental fee, and doesn’t charge any phone-line taxes. Even after the rate bumps up to their regular one, it’s still going to be cheaper than Sonic by about $18/month – over $200/year. That’s a lot for a student.
Addressing the repeated requests to allow people to buy your modem/router might help address some of the anguish – that does seem to be the main gripe, even though it’ll still not address more than half of the AT&T price advantage.
By the way, I still haven’t seen any answer to the repeated questions about equipment upgrades.
Thanks for listening.
@dane,
thanks for the pointer about 6rd. So, the implication is you’ll be using your address prefix? for my local network? And when I go elsewhere, I guess I don’t take my IP6 addrs with me (not unlike today, but I was hoping. . .)
One thing that really chaffs with me is that a) you own the router, b) it’s *WAY* more than I actually want (I have always just wanted a pipe, not a web site, email address, wireless AP, router, etc — I *DO* like the POTS line, however), and c) because you own the router, you can do whatever the hell you want to with it. That last bothers me, since now I now longer have control over when, how or if my router gets a firmware upgrade.
I’m not thrilled with the IPv6rd stuff, either, as it’s a riff on 6to4. Sounding rather like FCoE in a way. 🙂 Regardless, I’d prefer to see you folks have a true IPv6 infrastructure, and my IPv6 router can talk to your IPv6 router, and my packets can egress your network to the larger Internet. And my modem be just a modem, a means of sending packets to the other side.
Much as Audiophiles have, for years, had discreet components which individually could be upgraded and purchased to provide the best possible sound reproduction, many of us geeks want to do essentially the same thing with our network gear.
Being forced to pay for that all-in-one stereo rental (8-track included!) when you just want the amplifier. . . Sigh.
At least you’re listening. And responding.
Sean
Oh god how I wish I signed up for Sonic.net 1 year ago; I got baited by AT&T’s 15/mo for 1 yr deal… 🙁
I just want to add that I am not happy with this mandatory/no option rental fee either. It does make me suspicious of Sonic, the company I went with 15 (or more?) years ago because it was different, better, personal; it seemed to treat its customers as individuals, allowing them great options and a unique, exemplary service. Does it now mainly want to be bigger– in which case it will end up only being the same.
I was about to make the switch from ATT DSL to sonic.net but after seeing the mandatory rental fee I have reconsidered to go to try out Comcast.
Sorry to hear that Lawrence. I think you will find if you look beyond the teaser rates, you will find Fusion is less expensive, even with the equipment fee.
Sonic, I guess the mandatory Modem fee is about money, nothing else. The modem cost what a 100 dollars. I thought Sonic was anout service being the best and cost effective, not taking your customer for a modern fee.
The justification that this is “industry standard” is horrible reasoning. Poor customer support also is “industry standard”. A change like this creeps sonic.net closer to being like comcast and AT&T. I would think sonic.net’s modus operandi would be to differentiate themselves as much as possible from these two horrible firms. Luckily, I know that you guys still do differentiate, but this puts a dent in my enthusiasm when doing word of mouth (not to mention the hidden voice fees, at a time when more people do not want landline voice service and see this as an unnecessary tax).
I look at a DSL modem as a long term investment. I expect my modem to last 4+ years. The DSL modem we have at work has latest 10 years. I really do not like the idea of paying for a $780 modem.
Dane, how much would it cost to pay for the modem and whatever future support and services you are highlighting by this move? $100? $150? $200?
Why not price the modem at whatever this cost is? You can charge a high price and justify it with “future support and service”. You’d get upfront capital and the “look at the complete investment” customer is happy now that they get to own their equipment and will pay less in the long term. It may still cause some disgruntlement but I bet it’s less than mandatory equipment rentals will. And I’d expect most would still fall for your rental scheme anyway.
Prospective customer here, shopping for new service for the first time in a long time.
sonic looked great until I read about the new modem rental policy. I’ll be continuing my search.
Saying modem rentals are industry-standard practice really doesn’t mean anything to me – I’m looking for alternatives to AT&T, not more of the same.
I’ve been a customer for about 12 years now. An equipment rental would come to $936 over that time. Nor do I recall ever calling over equipment issues related to my modems.
I read thru this entire blog and it strikes me the major complaint is the more than 10% increased usage fee (13-16% depending what you use as a base). I’d bet $3/mo wouldn’t have provoked so much antagonism.
I’ll stay with sonic because I like the acceptable use policy compared to the majors. But I am glad I beat the cutoff date.
Maybe after 18 months or so you could re-evaluate the cash flow and decide to amortize the equipment over 2 years and charge a lower ongoing monthly maintenance fee for your longer running customers. Maybe even split the charge up. If you did that, you could offer the option of customers purchasing their equipment solely from you (because of the customization) and getting the lower monthly cost upfront. Probably have to sign a waiver to allow your technicians access for remotely updating. You might even have an accountant look at it and find your cash flow improves overall.
After all, one desirable aspect of sonic is allowing customers choice. If you could do that and still remain profitable, why not?
I just wanted to be the first customer to note that it’s 2013… and despite 5 months of terribly negative feedback about the new requirement to lease equipment that increases costs by roughly 20%, Sonic has responded with justifications, but no changes. This company has turned an important corner without us on board and is not looking back. Maybe if everyone destroyed the modem they would really start considering costs. Like Ghandi’s Salt March, only instead of making salt, you’re twisting transistors until they say “Uncle” and let you buy your own equipment with the understanding that they won’t support it unless you agree to pay extra for that service…But not $78/year. Come on Dale. It’s New Year’s Resolution time…and fyi, my Sonic modem just stopped working, or Oakland’s DSL is seriously down since the first 3 hrs. of the year with no support in sight for 1/1/13.
I’ve been with Sonic DSL a year and just switched to Fusion…I have referred others…my most recent referral told me yesterday about the $6.50 mandatory rental fee after I told her her modem was usable per your website…she’s exploring other options as I write…on the subject of mandatory $6.50 this shows up under the tax portion of my invoice…interesting that with DSL intro rate, I paid $14.95 no taxes/fees…hmmm! I guess $6.50 is the operative number these days…I do think your Customer Service is great! My download speed is better! While I’ve eliminated noise on my line, my upload service is a problem right now but I’m sure your fantastic English speaking and savvy techies will help me resolve that…If I make any more referrals, I’ll just have to be sure to tell them about the mandatory modem rental and fees.
We are considering leaving Comcast, very unhappy with their service, but we are definitely not willing to rent equipment where after a little over a year we have effectively paid for it outright and start to lose $7/month.
I was hoping to scroll down to the bottom of all these comments and learn that you have resolved this issue. Between this and the very high fee to have someone come out and “install” the modem (in our household of professional geeks) – it’s not looking too promising we will switch over.
Justifications about it being “normal” does not help, but is actually pushing me in the other direction as it sure seems like corporate greed. We are trying to get *away* from bogus fees like this.
Curious move in the Bay Area, where you have a higher per-capita of tech savvy customers who see through this, own more equipment, and have custom setup requirements.
this is to Jen: shortly after my post on 1/22 Dane told me they were stopping the mandatory rental of the modem; haven’t been following this since but somehow i was advised of your posting today.