Cutting the cord

December 18, 2008 – 11:04 pm


A recent survey confirms what ILEC investor calls and SEC filings have shown for some time. Consumers are moving away from land lines in favor of mobile phone products.

Eighteen percent of homes have no land lines, and another thirteen percent have land lines but rarely if ever use them. In total, this means that 30% of users don’t have or don’t want an old fashioned “plain old telephone service” (POTS) line.

Currently however, Sonic.net’s legacy AT&T delivered DSL services require land line voice service as prerequisite. While this could be very limited measured rate service, it generally means a hidden cost of between fifteen and twenty five dollars.

One of the reasons that I’m excited about our new Fusion products is that they are available standalone. If you want land line voice, we will be offering that early next year, but “dry” service (no voice) will always be available too!

This lets customers purchase only the service they want, without the voice requirement that our legacy AT&T DSL products come with today.

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  • http://www.ericabaker.com EricaJoy

    Please bring Fusion to Sunnyvale? Slow DSL download speeds are making me sad. :(

  • http://www.sonic.net/ Dane Jasper

    Erica,

    If DSL (AT&T, which is ADSL1) is real slow for you today, ADSL2+ won’t make a huge difference. It delivers way better performance (three times faster) at shorter distances, but at longer ranges the performance is similar.

    There’s a good discussion and a graphic that shows the differences here:

    http://splintax.blogspot.com/2006/01/dsl-adsl-adsl2-adsl2-in-australia.html

    -Dane

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  • sandra

    Please bring fusion to Cupertino/Sunnyvale!! You guys are great!

  • Jeremy

    I can’t wait to have a “dry”/”naked” service. Does the Fusion equipment allow for bonding?

  • http://www.sonic.net/ Dane Jasper

    We’re not yet offering bonding yet, but we do have it working in the lab and at some test premises. It’ll be available eventually!

    -Dane

  • Sean Crooks

    I will say this, I have only been a customer for 6 months, and I LOVE YOUR SERVICE ALREADY!

    I swear that you guys do it right and provide services people actually want (i.e. fantastic tech support, and even your sales team is really knowledgeable about the technology you guys provide, your reliability is fantastic, and even your ability to inform your customers of outages or upgrades is phenomenal.)

    I would also like to point out, what other company that provides services like Sonic.net, also has their CEO post information on what kind of plans you guys are unveiling? NONE, that I know of. Its actually quite humbling to know your money is going back into the business and the CEO isn’t to big to respond to his customers, where as the astronomical prices you pay with AT&T/Comcast/Verizon are going towards another corp jet or to some political campaigns or even towards the massive propaganda campaign against net neutrality.

    With that all said, I can’t wait till you bring ADSL2+ to Oakland(crosses fingers) so that I can get rid of my at&t phone and be free of that monopoly (I do realize you lease the lines from AT&T, but its still 100x better then going with cable imo).

    Keep up the fantastic work!

  • http://www.sonic.net/ Dane Jasper

    Thanks Sean!

    -Dane

  • Sun

    I recently cancelled my land line with AT&T and they also started offering dry lines as well. I’m grateful there is competition out there as AT&T still likes to move its weight around like as if it was still the monopoly it was 30 years ago. I’m a Comcast customer now and I’m relatively happy with the technology. 2 megabit up is great. I just wish the next generation ADSL could beat that.

  • Dane Jasper

    Sun,

    Today, ADSL2+ on a single copper pair delivers 1Mbps – but two things can change that. The first is Annex M, an extension that shifts the split between down & upstream, allowing for up to 3.5Mbps upload speed. The second is pair bonding. The standard allows for many pairs to be bonded – in practice today, two copper pairs are generally used. This doubles both downstream and upstream speeds.

    In the new future, Sonic.net will begin offering services based upon these technologies. They are in test here today.

    -Dane

  • http://www.sonic.net/ Dane Jasper

    Sean, FYI, we are going to be building out in Oakland. Some details here: http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2009/03/03/next-steps-in-growth/

  • http://sodabrew.com/ Aaron

    Congrats on the buildout, and thanks for the new Fusion line to apartment! I am looking forward to canceling my landline next month and spending that “hidden” $15 on faster service with you :-)

  • Jon

    Hi Dane,

    Is there any update on land line voice being available “early next (this) year”? I just dropped AT&T for Vonage over my Fusion line, and it’s great, but I’d like to hear about Sonic’s offering before I’m locked in for 2 years.

    thanks!
    jon

  • http://www.sonic.net/ Dane Jasper

    POTS (plain old telephone service) landline voice on Fusion is still being worked on. We’re getting closer, but realistically it is likely to be a couple more months.

    -Dane

  • julie

    Hi,

    Several months ago, I chatted with someone at sonic regarding this service. I was told it would be available in Cotati. I’m hoping that’s still true. And if so, any idea when?

    I considered switching to AT&T, in order to get a “dry loop” account, as they referred to it. But, I just couldn’t bear to leave the fabulous customer support of sonic!

    Thanks a bunch,
    julie

  • Dane Jasper

    Cotati is under construction now. I understand it’s about four months from going live.

    -Dane

  • julie

    That is fabulous news!! Is there a way I can be notified when it’s available?

    Thanks!

  • Dane Jasper

    For anyone desiring service, simply order at http://sonic.net/sales/fusion/broadband/ and when there is availability, you’ll get notice.

    -Dane

  • Jeremy

    Too bad I’m moving out of the Cotati serviced area and now moving into Petaluma and the website says it is out of range.

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