I’m guessing that a lot of Napa area wineries may be interested in reviewing their current Internet connections.  The new network brings long range T1 products online at aggressive new pricing, as low as $229/mo.  For a business in a more remote location, this is a great product and price!  For details, contact us!

Cotati and Sonoma were left out in the initial wave of deployment last year because both are awkwardly situated with relationship to many of the customers in the serving area. For example the Sonoma central office is actually in Agua Caliente, and this limits the availability of Fusion services for many Sonoma residents. (Agua Caliente residents on the other hand are very well situated.)

That said, for our business clients, broad FlexLink availability is important, so it’s nice to have wrapped these two locations up. Many wineries in the Sonoma area for example have previously had only expensive T1 or wireless options available, and can now take advantage of the speeds and low prices of FlexLink symmetric products.

These two offices complete our near term Sonoma County coverage, and we are now focusing construction efforts in Marin, Napa and the East Bay.

(One pair and two pair jacks)

Today we began offering pair bonded (four wire) Fusion Broadband, which can offer up to double downstream and upstream speeds for residential and small business users.

DSL technology has made just a few revolutionary steps in the last decade, and this is the next step.

In 1998, we offered the initial version of ADSL1, which topped out at speeds of up to 6Mbps.

Then, in 2008 we offered ADSL2+, with a maximum speed of 18Mbps.

Today, with the roll-out of pair bonding, we have passed another milestone in bringing faster Internet access to customers, with speeds of up to 30Mbps.

Services are available with dynamic IPs, or with eight static IP addresses.

Currently our Fusion Broadband products are offered on a standalone basis, without POTS voice telephone service.  For customers who want a standard voice line delivered with Fusion, that service will be available soon.

For those seeking mobile voice service, Fusion Broadband can be bundled with Sonic.net Verizon mobile service, yielding up to $5/mo savings for a full year.

Fusion Broadband can also be bundled with Sonic.net DirecTV, for a $10/mo savings for eighteen months on the television bill.

To check availability and product pricing, please visit the Fusion Broadband page.

Update: we don’t have a full pricing table on the web page yet, so I’m putting the numbers up here for reference:

Pair Bonded, Residential locations, dynamic IP:

• 3Mbps/2Mbps $60/mo
• 6Mbps/2Mbps $65/mo
• 12Mbps/2Mbps $70/mo
• 18Mbps/2Mbps $75/mo
• 30Mbps/2Mbps $80/mo

Pair Bonded, Residential locations, 8 static IPs:

• 3Mbps/2Mbps $85/mo
• 6Mbps/2Mbps $90/mo
• 12Mbps/2Mbps $95/mo
• 18Mbps/2Mbps $100/mo
• 30Mbps/2Mbps $105/mo

Pair Bonded, Business locations, dynamic IP:

• 3Mbps/2Mbps $70/mo
• 6Mbps/2Mbps $80/mo
• 12Mbps/2Mbps $90/mo
• 18Mbps/2Mbps $115/mo
• 30Mbps/2Mbps $145/mo

Pair Bonded, Business locations, 8 static IPs:

• 3Mbps/2Mbps $100/mo
• 6Mbps/2Mbps $110/mo
• 12Mbps/2Mbps $130/mo
• 18Mbps/2Mbps $160/mo
• 30Mbps/2Mbps $190/mo

We’ve also seen some inquiries about qualification distances for these products.  While qualification distance can vary based upon individual conditions, here are the general guidelines.  This is subject to change based upon our observations about performance in the field, because we never want to over promise and fail to deliver.

• 3Mbps/2Mbps: 11,100ft (2.1 miles)
• 6Mbps/2Mbps: 9,500ft
• 12Mbps/2Mbps: 8,000ft
• 18Mbps/2Mbps: 6,600ft
• 30Mbps/2Mbps: 5,000ft

For existing customers, price reductions will be reflected automatically on your next billing cycle.

With these price reductions, existing customers should consider upgrading their speed if their location is qualified.  If you’d like to upgrade an existing circuit, please write to sales@sonic.net to get the process underway.

Residential locations, dynamic IP:

• 1.5Mbps/1Mbps $35/mo
• 3Mbps/1Mbps $40/mo
• 6Mbps/1Mbps $45/mo
• 10 12Mbps/1Mbps $65/mo $50/mo
• 18Mbps/1Mbps $80/mo $55/mo

Residential locations, 8 static IPs:

• 1.5Mbps/1Mbps $60/mo $55/mo
• 3Mbps/1Mbps $65/mo $60/mo
• 6Mbps/1Mbps $70/mo
• 10 12Mbps/1Mbps $90/mo $75/mo
• 18Mbps/1Mbps $105/mo $80/mo

Business locations, dynamic IP:

• 1.5Mbps/1Mbps $60/mo $45/mo
• 3Mbps/1Mbps $65/mo $50/mo
• 6Mbps/1Mbps $70/mo $60/mo
• 10 12Mbps/1Mbps $90/mo $70/mo
• 18Mbps/1Mbps $105/mo $80/mo

Business locations, 8 static IPs:

• 1.5Mbps/1Mbps $70/mo $55/mo
• 3Mbps/1Mbps $75/mo $60/mo
• 6Mbps/1Mbps $80/mo $75/mo
• 10 12Mbps/1Mbps $100/mo $85/mo
• 18Mbps/1Mbps $115/mo $100/mo

I am very pleased with the growth in customer signups for Fusion and FlexLink products on our new network, and I appreciate everyone’s continued patronage. Please tell a neighbor about Sonic.net Fusion!

Note: Product speeds noted above are delivered as a range from the next lower product up to the maximum, for example 18Mbps/1Mbps service may be delivered as any speed greater than 12Mbps (the next product down) up to 18Mbps, with upstream of up to 1Mbps. Actual delivered speed is based upon copper line quality and distance. If the delivered sync rate does not meet the range of the product ordered, a downgrade and pricing reduction to the lower speed product tier is applied.

The idea is to over deliver a little bit extra to Fusion customers who are obtaining the maximum speed in their selected tier. So, a customer who buys “up to 6Mbps” Fusion now is actually set to a profile of 6592kbps in the DSLAM, and an “up to 18Mbps” customer is set 19776kbps.

Maybe racing stripes really do make things go faster!

This week we have demonstrated ADSL2+ connection speeds of 46Mbps downstream and 4.8Mbps upstream. Our network design team achieved this speed in the lab environment, on a short copper loop.

Because of longer loops and interference, this is not a speed that we will see in the real world, but it is very exciting to see the full potential of ADSL2+/Annex M.

Today we have staff with real world loops running at over 30Mbps, so that is a more realistic goal.

Two pairs of telephone wire were used in the test to deliver a bonded (double pair or four wire) ADSL2+ link, with Annex M (double upstream) capability turned on. Actual FTP transfer speeds were demonstrated at over 42Mbps upstream and 4.5Mbps outbound after overhead.

We are working on the wrap-up of product design and pricing for our new pair bonded Fusion products, and we plan to announce the details shortly.

Sonic.net Fusion Broadband continues to bring customers innovation in Internet access.

Sales are going well, both in enterprise and residential. This is particularly interesting considering that a key product for both is voice. We are unable to make quite a number of business sales because they want an integrated voice and data product, and we are unable to make a lot of residential sales because they want POTS voice.

Notable also is that batch hot cut (where the existing AT&T voice pair is moved from them to us, meaning the household/office wiring doesn’t have to be re-done) and LNP (local number port) have the potential to really ease installation of residential products, bringing us true self-install for residential. We’re doing our first attempt at BHC now for a customer in Berkeley.

In total, we are serving over 200 total accounts on the platform today, and that’s growing quickly, even absent significant promotion for residential (which we can really get into once we have BHC/LNP as noted above.)

We’ve been paused on building new COs for a couple months now, and it’s time to get that pipeline moving again. Because it takes in total almost six months from order to turn-up, making those decisions now is key.

In the ideal, if we can continue to prove the business model, I’d like to see us turning up an average of two new COs per month.

So based upon this goal, we have been studying next CO opportunities. The decisions are based upon a number of data points. These include current coverage (filling in holes and creating continuous overlays), brand awareness, existing current DSL user counts, density and distances, RT vs. CO served footprint, estimation of the size of the symmetric & voice business market, drive time for installation, and plain guesswork.

This list of six CO choices allows us to get the ball rolling, and with the one per two week goal, it buys us three months before we must decide on what’s next after these.

So, first up:

Cotati, which has long loops and not a ton of residential opportunity, but it completes our Sonoma County 101 corridor coverage, and provides some great opportunity for T1 and other long reach products in the Northern business parks of Petaluma.

Sonoma and Napa. Both have reasonable residential loop lengths, are close to home, and we have decent brand recognition (in Sonoma at least.) Both have some great opportunities for T1 and voice for wineries, and I believe that this along with the residential opportunity will make them cash flow.

These three will be built first, and there is some synergy with the driving for build-out and for installations. Stop at Sonoma on the way to Napa, etc.

Next up are San Rafael and Oakland. San Rafael has two COs, but the main downtown one is the one we can more clearly justify build-out in. It’s got good residential and business penetration, and it’s on the 101, so there’s some benefits for installers and build-out.

Oakland has four COs, but we’ll be building the Northern two of them. These serve far more existing residential users, and the downtown business district. These two also directly connect to Berkeley and that to Albany, so it creates a large single coverage block for us. That’s
good for installations and sales, keeping drive time down.

These six COs will be kicked off this week, and we will begin planning for the hardware and build-out.

After these, the choices become a bit more difficult. For example, Mountain View is the next logical one based upon our current DSL users, but it’s a long drive and we don’t have a lot of brand awareness. San Jose is a good business customer opportunity, but there are four COs
meaning high build-out costs, and it’s got a lot of competitive options we’d have to face. We’ll cross these bridges when we come to them, in a couple months, with more information about the profitability of our current COs to inform us.

Feeding the television production’s main Sat-Link truck, Sonic.net provided a 10Mbps/10Mbps FlexLink Ethernet connection. This circuit was delivered with just two weeks notice. (The typical turnaround for these type of products is 30 days.) The fast Ethernet symmetric connection was used to deliver a LAN for a day throughout the High-Def TV production area, serving various production trailers.

In Railroad Square, Sonic.net provided a fast DSL connection to deliver video to the “Jumbotron”, keeping race fans updated with news on the race.

We are very excited about our new FlexLink Ethernet and Fusion ADSL products, which are available for both business and residential users. Sunday’s event was a great chance to show off the capabilities of these fast products.

FlexLink offers 1.5Mbps (T1) up to 30Mbps Ethernet connections for business users. FlexLink includes strong service level agreements with a four hour repair response which is essential for business. FlexLink Ethernet has widespread availability, going beyond the length restrictions of consumer DSL connections.

Fusion Broadband DSL provides asymmetric broadband service using a dedicated line, with optional conventional line shared voice telephone service coming soon. Speeds offered range from up to 6Mbps/1Mbps to 18Mbps/1Mbps. In the future, Fusion Broadband will offer pair bonding for faster speeds at all distances, and faster upstream speed options are also in the works.

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We have been getting push-back from customers on the policy that Fusion is only available with a single static IP. While we’d hoped that NAT & PAT would allow for whatever capabilities people need, the bottom line is that customers want more than one static IPs.

So, in the near future we’ll begin offering four and eight IP blocks with Fusion. We cannot do this immediately because we simply don’t have enough IP address space; it eats up a lot because we must allocate at least a full /24 to every single CO, which we haven’t done at this point, and we simply don’t have enough address space.

(Sidebar: Today we route each CO a /25 (half a class C) for statics, and had planned to accommodate 125 static IP broadband users in that block. With eight IP blocks, we can only fit 14 customers in a /25. Because of this, we have to get bigger blocks to each CO before we can begin these larger allocations.)

Pricing is to be determined – it is likely to be a slightly different price point for each level of IPs.

If you want more than one static IP address, I encourage you to wait to order Fusion until the product is defined, priced, and integrated into the ordering tools.

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

-Dane