Protection of customer privacy is one of our core values at Sonic.net. We seek to provide as much transparency as possible regarding legal processes and customer privacy, so in furtherance of those efforts, we are releasing our first annual Transparency Report.

This year we saw an increase in the number of civil subpoenas, with a total of nine in 2011. This compared to two in 2010, and both of these were related to business dispute cases that customers were involved in. All of the civil cases in 2011 were related to copyright infringement.

 We are also releasing our Sonic.net Legal Process Policy document. This document details our log retention intervals and customer notice policies.

Internet and telephone service providers have a great responsibility both to protect their customers and the public. We continually work to achieve both of these goals.

Wireless Challenge #163: Ice Storm! (Mount Saint Helena, Feb 2009)

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” –  Arthur C. Clarke

Wireless is magic. You point two antennas at each other over a span of miles, and broadband comes out the other end. Most of the time.

I hate wireless.

Today, we sold our wireless network.

It’s an issue of focus. We are focused on wireline services, and dealing with the success and growth of both Fusion and FlexLink. We are also working on our Fusion Fiber projects. Wireline (including fiber) is our future. And, wireless is difficult. So, we sold our hard-won wireless infrastructure, selecting CDS Wireless of Santa Rosa to take over our network.

CDS is focused on wireless. They love it! (And, as far as I can tell, they don’t much like the wireline services such as DSL, which they do sell — but we provide the DSL aggregation and operate that network for them.) Their focus on wireless, and as a result, I expect that CDS will be a better steward of the wireless network, services and customers.

Sonic.net is providing the Internet backbone connection for CDS, so it’s a good partnership for us. We do the part we are good at, and they focus on the their specialty. And, if a customer cannot be reached by our wireline products and they are located in CDS’s coverage area, we will refer them.

As we shift away from wireless, we are also retiring all of our free public WiFi projects. These provided WiFi access in a number of city centers. With the rise of smartphones and 3g, plus the growing challenges of maintaining aging WiFi equipment, this is also something we cannot focus on anymore. (For now at least, we will continue our partnership with Airport Express to deliver WiFi onboard their buses.)

I am very excited about the focus on where we are headed. And, I know that our former wireless customers will be well taken care of too.

Residents in Sebastopol have been noticing our construction crews in the area over the last few weeks, so we can’t keep it a secret much longer: Fiber coverage is expanding!

With the first phase of construction complete and online today, we’ve got customers enjoying both 100Mbps and Gigabit speeds today. Wondering what it’s like? Read Discovery News’s recent article Surfing at a Billion Bits per Second to get an idea about what the customers there are experiencing.

Wondering what’s next?

We have decided to expand coverage further in Sebastopol in order to bring this super fast broadband service to even more of our Fusion customers. Curious about where we’re expanding? Click the map for details on the current build-out phase, which is placed and now pending Fiber splicing, and to see the next coverage zone which is currently in engineering.

Want to bring Fiber to your city?

We are prioritizing our Fiber build-out efforts on communities where we see very high uptake of our Fusion Broadband+Phone service. (Sebastopol was our most enthusiastic community, with nearly 30% of homes opting for Fusion service.) So – sign up for Fusion, the fastest copper broadband product we can deliver today, and you are helping move forward our efforts to bring Fiber to additional communities.

Today we have made changes to our Fusion service in order to further simplify the product, to improve service delivery, and to lower costs.

Previously Fusion was a bit confusing – it’s one product, but was offered four different ways: residential single-line, residential dual-line, business single-line and business dual-line. This meant four different price points, and business users basically paid more for less: a $10 to $20 higher monthly fee, plus a penny a minute for all their calls. (More on this below!)

We have also found that residential dual-line service was rarely purchased, with only one out of twenty customers selecting this product. When it was, there were more delivery challenges due to the household wiring, and more cancellations due to delivered speed concerns.

We often found that these residential customers didn’t actually want the two phone lines, and instead were hoping for more speed, generally seeking 20-40Mbps. While bonded Fusion is double the speed of a single line, it was sometimes being purchased by folks located at longer much longer distances who were desperate for more performance. For a speed-hungry consumer on a very long loop, they frankly might be better served by a cable broadband service at those locations.

On the other hand, even at longer lengths and slower speeds, the single-line service is a compelling value: unlimited and uncapped broadband at the maximum speed that we can deliver plus home phone with unlimited usage for $39.95. It’s a very nice deal. Two lines for seventy dollars plus the applicable voice taxes just isn’t a very good fit, and it shows in the signup and churn numbers.

We have also been studying resource usage by our business customers, and we’ve found that from the perspective of voice usage, they actually use less than the average home user! This was a surprise to us, and it created an opportunity: simply eliminate the $0.01 charge that our business customers have been paying for calling. So, that’s in effect from today – Fusion phone service is now very simple: free calling, regardless of location type.

Based upon all of these findings, today we have reduced the Fusion service to two very simple products:

• For Residential customers:
• Unlimited broadband and home phone for $39.95

• For Business customers:
• Two phone lines plus double speed broadband for $89.95

Of course both of these products include all of our free features like FaxLine electronic fax, a free domain name with Personal Web Hosting, 15 email accounts, Free International calling, Voicemail and voice features like Caller ID.

For currently users of the two products we have eliminated (residential two-line service, and business one-line service) we will continue to provide the service to these customers at the current price points, so nothing changes for these established customers. (One bonus: for the business customers, they will no longer be billed for their voice usage!) For a new home customer who really wants the two line service, we will deliver the faster business service to a home location.

We are also changing the way that we provide equipment. We found that when customers re-use a modem from another provider, they often spend a lot of time get it set up, and it is always in question if there is trouble with the circuit. Is the problem the modem, or the line? If it’s the modem, who is responsible, and how much time does the customer have to spend with us to get that worked out? With an older ADSL1 modem that lacks ADSL2+ support, the customer’s speed will be limited to 8Mbps, potentially much slower than it would be with a modern unit. Also, does that old modem have a full set of the necessary filters, for all the regular telephone devices in the home?

So, equipment is now provided free for every new customer. The basic kit for residential customers includes everything that’s required, including new phone line filters, a splitter, Ethernet and phone cables and the modem itself. This should make getting set up with Fusion easier than ever, and if there is trouble – our staff know the product well, if there is trouble, we can easily swap or replace it if the modem is at fault. Of course, even things that are free there is a catch: sales tax, and shipping and handling. However, we know that the provided equipment and setup kit will make setup and support much easier for our new customers.

For those who want a device with Wi-Fi, an advanced kit is also available. It includes a modem with four-port Ethernet router and Wi-Fi access point, now offered at a discounted price of $19.95.

For our business customers, we now provide a ZyXel dual-line bonding ADSL2+ modem which has four Ethernet ports and built-in Wi-Fi. It’s a great small office solution, delivering dual-line Fusion speed and convenient Wi-Fi access.

Finally, in an effort to keep monthly recurring costs as low as possible, we are now charging a line activation fee of $35 for the residential service, or $85 for the two-line business service. This keeps most of the one-time costs of circuit ordering and provisioning in a one-time payment, so we don’t have to amortize these one-time expenses into the monthly rate that customers pay forever.

Over the last couple years, we have made many changes to improve our Fusion service, and I’m excited to be continuing the product evolution. Our team is working hard to make the product easier, faster and more useful for you, at the best possible price point.

Our Fusion Broadband+Phone service is undergoing continual ongoing improvement, with new features and greater reach as the number of customers rapidly grows.

Our last few new features have been on the voice side, so it’s time for something new on the broadband side of the product.

When we launched Fusion we wanted to keep things simple — and a bit expensive — so we only offered static IPs in one configuration: a big block of eight bridged static IPs, for $20/mo for residential customers and $40/mo for business locations*.

This allowed us to manage our IP blocks in a simplistic way, with little allocation complexity and no fragmentation. It also kept the product easy to understand and sell; if you wanted static IPs, the eight-IP block was the only option to explain.

And, from those who really needed static IPs along with the speed that Fusion delivers, we could collect a bit more money. This was back when Fusion was broadband-only, (phone service was not yet included) and pricing was up to $55 for residential, so a $20 static IP wasn’t quite as disproportionate as it is with the contemporary $39.95 product today.

Times have changed, Fusion has gotten less expensive and loaded with more features. So, our next feature is more varied IP options, including an absolutely free 1-IP static configuration for our residential Fusion customers. (Don’t know what a static IP is and why this is so exciting? See the tech briefing, “What is a static IP?” for background.)

So, the new options for static IPs for Fusion are now as follows.

Residential static IP options:

• 1 IP: FREE!
• 4 IP: $10/mo
• 8 IP: $20/mo

Business static IP options^*:

• 1 IP: $10/mo
• 4 IP: $20/mo
• 8 IP: $40/mo

And, IPs can now be set up in real-time, using our self-service Member Tools portal. You’ll find the Fusion IP configuration tool there, under Connectivity -> Fusion. There’s no need to call, and it’s quick and easy. Your new IPs and settings are provided in the tool, and the network provisioning changes are made just a few moments later, allowing you to coordinate this activity for a time most convenient for you.

Once your new IP block is set up, you will need to configure your modem, router or PC to utilize it. If this process is unfamiliar to you, reading and asking questions in the Access Forum is a good start. Please note that our free features are generally unsupported by phone, so please, look before you leap!

I hope you find this expanded set of IP options useful. Please share this article and include a comment about what you will use your new static IP address for!

^* Wondering why business IP pricing is higher than residential? Honestly, it’s what the market will bear. There is a dearth of well-priced broadband offerings that incorporate static IP for business customers. Product designed revenues are not always a direct reflection of actual costs, and some things contribute to billing at a higher level than others. That’s just the way things go.

Photo: ThinkGeek IP address doormat

Image: NASA private intranet, circa 1993

You have probably heard people talk about IP addresses, and perhaps you nod your head knowingly, or say “uh-hu” when us techie folks mention them, hoping we will quickly move on to a more interesting topic soon. But there’s a lot to talk about: static IPs. Dynamic IPs. IPv6. IPv4. (What the heck happened to IPv5? Anyone?) We can even talk about running out of IPs!

To explain it simply, traffic on the Internet is routed using numbers, much like a telephone number. These Internet Protocol (IP) numbers give information about where the packet of information should be sent next. Much like (415)xxx-xxxx tells a phone switch in New York City to hand the call toward the San Francisco Bay Area, on the Internet a packet going to 50.x.x.x is destined for someone at Sonic.net.

As with a phone number, the next numbers defines the destination more closely; (415)563-xxxx routes the call toward central San Francisco. And, with an IP address, 50.0.1.x tell Sonic.net to send the traffic toward a specific city, toward the customer.

The last segment of the telephone number and of the IP address further identify the individual destination within the local serving area – a specific destination computer in the case of the IP address; a phone that is triggered to ring in the telephone example.

Now – static IPs. A dynamic IP is temporary – it’s given to you to use for a brief period of time, but it’s subject to change. As such, you cannot practically use it for much beyond consumption online, activities where you “make” the call (click for some content), not where your own system is “called”. It’s a bit like borrowing a friend’s cell phone to make a call – you could initiate a call, but there’s no way for someone elsewhere to know the number to reach you at without some prearrangement.

A static IP gives you your very own number on the Internet, an unchanging address which you can refer to. This isn’t particularly interesting for most day to day activities online, but there are some specific situations where a static IP is essential.

One simple example is a home webcam. Want to check up on your pet while your away, or keep an eye on the street outside your home while you are at work? (Wondering if the package delivery man really does drop-kick your packages off the truck at the end of the driveway?) An inexpensive networked camera, configured behind your static IP address can make this this possible.

You might also use a static IP to configure some basic home automation, allowing you to check on your thermostat or turn off an appliance. Or, access a home PC using the built-in Remote Desktop service – there is no need to pay monthly for a service like “GoToMyPC” (which is basically just a $10 per month workaround for people who don’t have a static IP.) You might run a game server, and invite your friends to play head to head. Finally, an employer might require that you utilize a static IP as an additional layer of security for remote access by a connected worker at home.

And, with just one static IP, you can use “port forwarding”, which allows multiple devices inside the home, all accessible by specific addresses that you select and configure. Want to learn more, or have questions? Visit our Forums!

If you’re a non-technical user of the Internet and the idea of these sorts of things makes you want to go outside and pull weeds in the garden, forget I brought it up. But, if you want to do some fun Internet-connected projects, a static IP is a key component. Now you know!

I have always felt that our customers buy connections from us to use them. Abuse them. Hog up big chunks of the web. Fill up those tubes! And to just generally consume what they are buying: a big fast broadband pipe, to use however they see fit.

As more and more broadband providers have instituted caps, I have continued to say that caps are really not necessary and that even if congestion was to be a problem, consumption caps are the wrong way to address the potential problem: congestion during peak time on the network slowing everyone down.

The capping of Internet consumption is a hot topic. In the Bay Area, SF Gate’s James Temple has written about caps, and the folks at Stop The Cap have been fighting Canada’s proposed usage based billing (UBB) scheme as well as the capping by U.S. providers.

My opinion is that caps make little technical sense, and I believe that the fundamental reason for capping is to prevent disruption of the television entertainment business model that feeds the TV screens in most households.

It’s common sense — if you are selling a service bundle to a household that includes a subscription TV service, it would make business sense if there wasn’t enough broadband capacity to replace it.

As of 2008, the Nielsen Co. says that the average American household consumes just over 8 hours per day of TV. To replace this with some sort of innovative and interesting new Over-The-Top offering, it would consume roughly 480 Gigabytes per month (based upon Netflix consumption at their current top “HD” rate.)

Keep in mind that this is the normative household TV consumption, so roughly half of homes view more than this! Add in day-to-day Internet use and clearly the 150GB to 250GB caps which are typical today are an effective blockade.

Because I’ve got a contrary viewpoint on caps, when Diffraction Analysis contacted us to ask if we would participate in a study of real-world usage we decided we should put our money where our mouth was. We ponied up with anonymous, summary consumption statistics for their use in this study.

The results they’ve come out with are quite interesting. Their report, “Do data caps punish the wrong users? A bandwidth usage reality check“ is available for purchase on the Diffraction site, but the study author has also provided a summary on his Fiberevolution blog.

In it, he states that:

Data caps, therefore, are a very crude and unfair tool when it comes to targeting potentially disruptive users. The correlation between real-time bandwidth usage and data downloaded over time is weak and the net cast by data caps captures users that cannot possibly be responsible for congestion. Furthermore, many users who are “as guilty” as the ones who are over cap (again, if there is such a thing as a disruptive user) are not captured by that same net.

Their conclusion is reassuring, as it affirms our gut feelings about user behaviors and consumption: while heavy consumers may tend to be a contributor to peak load, their total consumption is a poor proxy for their impact during the potentially critical peak-load periods. We believe that if any bandwidth management were required, slowing the largest consumer down to the level of the next-largest and so on, in the specific moment during congestion conditions would be a more reasonable policy.

That said, note that bandwidth management is not used in our network. We upgrade links before congestion occurs.

What are your feelings about provider caps? Let us know in the comments!

Related reading:
Do data caps punish the wrong users? – Fiberevolution
“Bandwidth hogs” join unicorns in realm of mythical creatures – Ars Technica
The ‘Bandwidth Hog’ is a Myth – DSLReports

Toronto Harbourfront ©@gallerymagdic/Flickr

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

Our next residential Fusion feature:

Free calling to Canada!

Canada is our #1 international destination, so this will save our customers thousands of dollars every year. Just pick up the phone and call, Fusion now includes nationwide calling plus calls to Canada, free! (For up to eight hours of international calls … see all the fine print below.)

With Fusion, it’s all about the free stuff!

Fusion offers the fastest broadband without usage caps, a real land line phone service with unlimited nationwide calling, voicemail, caller ID and even free 411. And now, we’ve added free international calling to Canada!

With Fusion, you are liberated from traditional broadband and telephone services, and now you are free to call just a bit further.

The Fusion vision is to build the ideal service: fast unlimited broadband with strong privacy policies, plus unlimited phone service and lots of features included free. Thank you for your support as we continue to work to make this vision a reality.

Sincerely,

Dane Jasper
CEO & Co-Founder
Sonic.net / Sonic Telecom

P.S.: We all very much appreciate your mentions online. Your enthusiasm for our service and the team really helps keep us going — and growing. Click the “Like” button above to share this post, then click over to Facebook and hit “Like” to support us. On Twitter? Click the tweet link to tell your followers what you think about Sonic.net, and “Follow” @sonicnet for updates from our team.

* The fine print: Destinations which are billed as domestic are billed at the same rate as a domestic U.S. call would be; free for residential Fusion users, 1¢ per minute for business Fusion users. Free residential international calls to Canada are limited to 8 hours of calling per month. Business international calls to Canada at 1¢ per minute are limited to 8 hours per month. After 8 hours, calls are billed at 2.5¢ per minute.