<div dir="ltr">I have a different take on Sonic (A good one, shockingly enough)<div><br></div><div>ATT was pressuring us to convert to their bundled (bungled?) "Uverse".</div><div>They phoned several times a week with one lame ass tactic aftrer another.</div><div><br></div><div>"They dont make DSL anymore"</div><div>I reminded them that Uverse *** IS *** DSL (OK actually Uverse is DSL3 and ATT was discontinuing DSL2)</div><div><br></div><div>"Connect to our fibre network"</div><div>I told them we didnt have fibre in the area</div><div>"Oh, the fibre is inside the modem"</div><div><br></div><div>I pointed out that we wanted analog phone service which Uverse so that the phones would work during power cuts.</div><div>They offered to sell us a UPS.</div><div>But the repeater cans between us and the CO only have 4hr battery in them.</div><div>They said power never goes out for more than 4 hrs.</div><div>We actually have a cut over 24 hrs every 2 or 3 years or so,</div><div><br></div><div>(I was not predicting PGEs games this year when we were out 30 hrs)</div><div><br></div><div>We didnt need a lot of bandwidth, so I had gone with an unadvertised tarrif and set us up for 700k.</div><div>We never broke 130k.</div><div>When they promised us high bandwidth, I reminded them that they couldnt even give us what we contracted for, </div><div>how would I trust them for over a meg?</div><div>I also reminded them that they were not maintaining their lines, so i didnt think they could deliver.</div><div>They told me that Uverse was wireless.</div><div><div><br></div><div>Each time I caught them in a lie, they would hang up on me.</div><div><br></div><div>After 2 years of this, they simply killed our internet, but not the billing of course.</div><div><br></div><div></div></div><div>Friends had been telling us to move to Sonic for a couple years, but we really wanted to stay with ATT anyway.</div><div>Finally I talked to Sonic. (Thanks Michael!)</div><div><br></div><div>I got technical people who werent bullshitting me at every turn.</div><div>They gave me a written guarantee that we were analog all the way to the CO, with no voice repeaters in the path.</div><div>The gave me written promise that the phone would work during any extended power cut and as long as I could power the modem, </div><div>our internet would continue.</div><div><br></div><div>I found out after we made the change, that Dad had several calling plans, </div><div>and after the first year, they had raised out internet charge to premium price, despite the lack of bandwidth.</div><div>Our phone bill was well over 100/mo</div><div><br></div><div>What we got was, 6.5meg, flat rate analog calling in the US, and all for 50/mo.</div><div>They gave us a chance to cancel on the spot if they couldnt get a us a decent line pair.</div><div><br></div><div>Wait times to reach a tech on the phone are a tad long, I admit, but after installation, I never needed help.</div><div>All in all, I got 100% professional experience.</div><div><br></div><div>Then, PGE cut the power in late Oct.</div><div>Without working UPS at our end, I dont know what happened to net access.</div><div>The voice worked perfectly.</div><div><br></div><div>When the power returned, the modem didnt come back to life.</div><div>I spent an hr on the phone for support.</div><div>The greeting wanrned us that most of the support dept was in evacuation centres due to the fire and unable to make it in to work.</div><div>Several times I was given the option to have them call me back when it was my turn in the queue.</div><div>Several more times I was given the option of remaining on hold in silence.</div><div><br></div><div>I remained on the line, music and all and finally got "Brian", a very pleasant kid who was evacuated from home, </div><div>and one of a handful of tech support people camiong under their desks, </div><div>enjoying the overtime that would be financing a trip to Hawaii later this winter.</div><div><br></div><div>This was not a "Is it plugged in?" type guy.</div><div><br></div><div>Shipping a new modem would be 4 days, perhaps less.</div><div>I asked him to check and he was agreeable to exchange the modem in the parking lot if I drove to Santa Rosa.</div><div><br></div><div>When I got there, all the cracks around all the doors were sealed with packing tape except one door.</div><div>Obviously the lobby doors were sealed with tape.</div><div>They had even sealed the roll up loading door.</div><div>We did the modem exchange, there was no charge for the exchange.</div><div>I plugged the modem in and pointed my web brouwser at a URL and suddenly everything ewwas working.</div><div><br></div><div>My experience was freaking fantastic.</div><div><br></div><div>When we made the change, It was a 2 day process.</div><div>Because of thweir relationship (shotgun wedding) with ATT, they had to cut us over to a Sonic phone number, </div><div>so we had outgoing voice with almost no downtime, but calls to our ATT number rang unanswered for a day while they </div><div>ported out original number over to us on the second day.</div><div>We have had that number since Labor Day of 1963.</div><div><br></div><div>During the cut over, I asked if I could use one of several DSL boxes I already had.</div><div>They said it was possible, but incredibly messy and would require multiple tech support calls to make it work.</div><div>They were willing, but they wanted us up and running ASAP and reusing one of the ATT DSL boxes would take time.</div><div><br></div><div>The DSL box that came with the service was SOOOOO superior to anything I had in my junque box, that I was glad to just go with the PACE.</div><div><br></div><div>In Sonics defense, they have a home business and a business business.</div><div><br></div><div>While I note that Sonic is running their own fibre and a certain abount of copper,</div><div>likely not trusting ATT to maintain plant.</div><div>I am not privvy to whats involved int he ATT/Sonic relationship, but I suspect that some of the restrictions could be related to said relationship.</div><div><br></div><div>It appears that Sonic has its own DSLAMs in our local CO, which is the only reason I can get the service I got.</div><div><br></div><div>Normal home net connectivityis pretty cheap, because most homes dont have static addresses, nor mail & web servers.</div><div>Home users need to surf the web, download porn, read mail, and spend obscene ampounts of time on "Face Crack"</div><div><br></div><div>Obviously, business have all sorts of stuff running and lawyers to scream when something breaks.</div><div><br></div><div>Home service does not usually require mail & web servers running or static addresses.</div><div>We tecties who do need these things are rare and straddling the two classes of service.</div><div><br></div><div>In the defense of Sonic, people needing static addresses, running web & mail servers, really should just go for business class of service.</div><div><br></div><div>I do not believe the restrictions on home service are anything evil.</div><div>I believe they have defined a logical home service and are offering it.</div><div>Anything else, really does seem to be business, even if you are not turning a profit on it.</div><div><br></div><div>I note that when it got out that ATT customer info was being sold, </div><div>Sonic came out and stated that their customer info was "not for sale" and would remain so.</div><div><br></div><div>You may not be able to get everything you wanted out of the home plan and I get that.</div><div>Please dont call them evil because you cant get everything you want.</div><div>We (Conspire) are better than the "Deadbeat in Chief"</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 12:04 PM Howard Susman <<a href="mailto:hsusman@scsurplus.com">hsusman@scsurplus.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div>On 11/15/19 9:15 AM, Rick Moen wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Quoting Michael Paoli (<a href="mailto:Michael.Paoli@cal.berkeley.edu" target="_blank">Michael.Paoli@cal.berkeley.edu</a>):
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>You might also check <a href="http://www.wavebroadband.com" target="_blank">www.wavebroadband.com</a> to see if they can reach
you with their cable modem service. I think static IPs would be
available on their business service if service is generally
available. It's same technology as Comcast but their own network if
they can reach you.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>Wave Broadband called to say that my street address in West Menlo _is_
within their service area for fibre but not for copper cable, so I
expressed interest and they're doing a site survey over the next couple
of days. So, I gather that if I were to sign up, they'd do a short run
of fibre optic from somewhere on Altschul Drive to my house.
I gather that with a lot of these services, a lot depends on what
cabling they have near a target address.
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I called Wave Broadband. They cannot service my address.</p>
<p>I received this from Mike Durkin:</p>
<div style="font-family:-moz-fixed;font-size:14px" lang="x-western">
<pre>Howard,
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<pre>On 11/12/19 12:19 AM, Mike Durkin wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<pre>Howard,
You'll be able to keep the hosting as you suggested on your voicemail,
it's the basic Internet access that needs to change. I will see
what I can find for options for your area and email you in a couple
days. If you have something you're considering, let me know and
I'll look at it and advise.
thanks, Mike
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>Thank you for your help. I hope you find something. I did call AT&T and
the best they could offer me was speed up to 3Mbs. The price quoted for
that was $60 a month. I would really want a higher data rate than that.
I will see what you find and keep looking myself. Thank you very much
for your assistance.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>Note your service from us is 1.5Mbps/384Kbps, so 3Mbps would be faster,
but if I put your address in on AT&T's website it says 1.5Mbps for
$50/mo plus $10/mo equipment and applicable taxes (there shouldn't
be any taxes on pure Internet, but could be monthly sales tax
on the equipment rental (which is dumb because that could be avoided
if AT&T just pays sales tax on the device at time they purchase it)).
If they can get you 3Mbps for the same price then it'd be a bit faster.
I checked <a href="http://business.comcast.com" target="_blank">http://business.comcast.com</a> for your address and they're showing
service as being available, and faster speeds (generally if cable
modem service is available, all the speeds available in the area
will be available at all addresses). They also show some equipment
rental fees in addition to the headline monthly price, and they have
some deals with a bundled phone line. At somewhat higher speeds
they also have a 4G LTE backup option which sounds interesting...
basically I think if your cable modem link goes down, the router
automatically maintains your connection over cellular without
any changes to your computer. You might want to talk to them on the
phone and see if they can put together a package for you with a lower
end connection, like the 25Mbps they show at the low end, but with
the 4G LTE backup. And even better, if they can sell you just the
cable modem connection but give you an enforcable promise to let
you add the LTE backup later at some known cost if you decide
it's needed, so that you can evaluate the cable modem reliability
and not incur the cost if it's sufficient.
I'd also suggest double checking with a live person at Comcast
to ensure you can actually get it to your building and how long
it'll take to install. They don't have ubiquitious service to
business locations, so I wouldn't want to rely on the website
being right, and they may also have listed your address as
available but some construction with a long leadtime might be
needed. Maybe see if any of the other businesses in your building
(or adjacent buildings that are physically connected) have
Comcast since that'd be a very good sign for you being able to get
it, and you can also check with them on what their experience
is with reliability.
I'd be careful about changes to your voice service, whether moving
it to Comcast or moving it to some other product with AT&T. You'd
need to make sure that it has whatever features you need. I think
you just had 4 line telephones or something, so if you have 4
lines in a hunt group but never receive more than 3 incoming calls
at once, you could for example move the 4th line to Comcast outside
of the hunt group and be mindful to place outgoing calls on that
line (maybe with blocked caller ID so people don't call you back on
it). But in any case, it can get dicey to manage special cases like
that so maybe you want to get just Internet and leave phone service
alone. On the other hand, if you're paying regular AT&T landline
rates, you're probably paying a lot these days, and maybe switching
it to something more modern could save you money. Over the top voip
separate from whoever you get the Internet connection from could also
work, as long as the Internet connection is reliable (and some
voip providers may be able to setup failover where they forward
calls to a cellphone if the voip link is down, and cheap cell service
for voice if you don't care much about cellular data can be gotten
for < $20/mo these days.
I don't know of other wireline services you might be able to get
at commodity rates (ie. decent speed for under $200/mo) but you
might be able to find a fixed wireless provider that could do it.
<a href="http://www.wiline.com" target="_blank">www.wiline.com</a> and <a href="http://www.ethericnetworks.com" target="_blank">www.ethericnetworks.com</a> are two in the area
I'm aware of, but I'm not certain about their coverage areas or
typical pricing.
thanks, Mike
I called Comcast and they offered me this;
Recommended Solution
</pre>
<table width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border-top:2px solid rgb(0,108,183)"> <br>
</td>
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</tbody>
</table>
<table width="100%">
<tbody>
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<td style="display:inline-block;text-align:left;font-size:11pt;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:ProximaNovaRegular" width="60%" nowrap> <b>Monthly Charge: </b>$81.85/month
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<table style="background-color:rgb(0,108,183);width:100%;padding:20px 5px 20px 20px">
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<td width="60%"> <span id="gmail-m_-6845933099259087291j_id0:emailTemplate:j_id3:j_id4:j_id6:j_id7:j_id38">
</span><span id="gmail-m_-6845933099259087291j_id0:emailTemplate:j_id3:j_id4:j_id6:j_id7:j_id47">
</span>
<table width="70%">
<tbody>
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<td><span style="font-family:BrandonGrotesque;font-weight:bold;font-size:11pt;color:rgb(0,108,183)">SOLUTION(S):</span>
<br>
</td>
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<td style="text-align:left;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-family:ProximaNovaRegular"> <b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:165%">Business Internet</span>
</b>
<table>
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<td style="padding-left:10px"><span style="font-family:ProximaNovaRegular;font-size:10pt">Business
Internet Starter, Business Wi-Fi
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<td style="text-align:left;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-family:ProximaNovaRegular"> <b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:165%">Business Voice</span>
</b>
<table>
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<td style="padding-left:10px"><span style="font-family:ProximaNovaRegular;font-size:10pt">1
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<tbody>
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<td width="60%"> <b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:165%">Term Agreement:</span>
</b> 36 Months<br>
<b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:165%">Installation Charge:</span> </b>
$29.95<br>
</td>
<td colspan="2" width="40%" align="center">
<table width="55%" align="center">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border:1px solid rgb(0,108,183);border-radius:2px;display:block" valign="middle" bgcolor="#006CB7" align="center"> <a href="https://business.comcast.com/gateway/esign?ID=ff82b684-1521-4326-8813-7c1b7661a0ee×tamp=1573842370502&securityHash=eyUx7KMb5brRE/5KBEwkaxIx5Jw=&accessType=edit" style="border:none;background-color:rgb(0,108,183);font-family:ProximaNovaSemibold;font-size:12pt;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;text-align:center;width:100%;padding:10px 0px;display:inline-block" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(255,255,255)">Continue</span></a>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><br>R "Texx" Woodworth<br>Sysadmin, E-Postmaster, IT Molewhacker<br>"Face down, 9 edge 1st, roadkill on the information superdata highway..."<br></div>