Author: Dane Jasper

Sonic Meets Ongoing Demand for Affordable, High Speed Internet

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Chronicle: "This is Sonic's biggest fiber expansion yet."

We’ve talked about 2019 being the year of fiber expansion, and Sonic has kicked it off with its biggest fiber rollout to date. In addition to our growing reach in San Francisco and the East Bay, our high speed Gigabit Fiber service will soon be available in the Peninsula for the first time ever! I’m also really excited about our first big fiber to the home project in the North Bay, in Petaluma.

The expansion will reach 19 new Bay Area cities and neighborhoods including Burlingame, San Mateo, Hillsborough, South San Francisco and portions of Cow Hollow, parts of Pacific Heights, Lower Pacific Heights, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Chinatown, North Beach, San Carlos, Belmont, San Bruno, Millbrae, Redwood City, North Fair Oaks, Emerald Hills and Petaluma. See the Chronicle today for more details.

Current Sonic Fusion customers in these areas will receive an early installation invitation automatically, so just keep an eye on your email for updates as construction progresses.

For those of you who are not yet Sonic members, fiber pre-orders for these new locations are now available on the Sonic website. You will get your installation invitation shortly after our current members. Installations will begin this spring. So please, tell a neighbor what we’re up to!


Sonic technician Tom Sherrill works on securing the cable to the utility wires through branches as he installs fiber optic cable in Berkeley.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

Our massive expansion shows the demand in the Bay Area for affordable, very high-speed internet service and our ongoing determination to bring it to you. Together, we can fix what’s broken with internet access in America.

As interest in Cable continues to decline and streaming services gain more traction, having high-speed, reliable internet is no longer a luxury. It’s a must-have. For those looking to escape cable’s monopoly, Sonic provides a fast and affordable alternative that can power everything from streaming entertainment services to laptops and tablets to smart home devices. We intend to continue keeping up with evolving technologies and household broadband and WiFi needs, and by kicking off 2019 with our broadest fiber expansion yet, we’re doing just that.

This year not only marks our biggest expansion ever–it’s also the year of Sonic’s 25th anniversary. Since 1994, we have been committed to supplying our shared local communities with fast, affordable connectivity.  We look forward to many more years of continuing the momentum toward our ultimate goal of building a better, faster and more affordable internet in the Bay Area and far beyond.

-Dane

Privacy Matters

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This week Congress overturned internet privacy rules that would have applied to carriers like Sonic, and this presents a good opportunity for us to reiterate our position on privacy.

Sonic has long supported privacy efforts which would protect the rights of our members, and has engaged in ongoing advocacy on this issue for many years. We disagree with industry members who have lobbied for the ability to monitor internet usage by consumers. The health of the internet ecosystem critically depends upon confidence by creators and consumers that their usage will not be monitored or sold.

As we have said before, we believe many of the issues related to carrier practices and policies are fundamentally a competitive market failure. This includes net neutrality and privacy, but also product design and pricing, usage caps, customer service and more. If consumers could choose from fifteen different internet service providers, the competitive market would reward the best policies, prices, reliability and practices.

Sonic and a few other competitive internet service providers aside, the US does not have an adequately competitive market. And until that is achieved, regulation of some carrier policies and practices is important.

The pending repeal of the broadband privacy rules provides an opportunity for Sonic to clarify our policies, and to call out some specific policy points:

  • Sonic never sells our member information or usage data, nor do we voluntarily provide government or law enforcement with access to any data about users for surveillance purposes.
  • Sonic minimizes data retention, keeping data from 0 – 14 days for dynamic IP addresses and other logs and commits to EFF’s privacy-friendly Do Not Track policy. We believe that user data should not be retained longer than necessary, and that users deserve to have a clear understanding of personal data held by service providers.
  • Sonic is also against the re-authorization of Section 702 (the law behind the PRISM and Upstream programs). Governments and other entities should not collect huge quantities of phone, email or other internet usage data directly from the physical infrastructure of any communications provider.

We have also updated further our policy document, adding new language regarding notification of customers when legal process is served under seal.

2016 Transparency Report

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Protection of customer privacy is one of our core values at Sonic. 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 sixth annual Transparency Report.

In 2016 we saw processed just one civil subpoenas, as compared with two in 2015, zero in 2014, one in 2013 compared with nine each in 2011 and 2012. Law enforcement subpoena activity increased compared to 2015, with 20 orders, but only 30% of these were provided responsive data. Note for those comparing year to year activity: Sonic’s membership is growing so it is not possible to make a direct comparison in volume from year to year.

As in years past, we can only publish the broad bracket related to National Security Letter (NSL) items, we are limited to a disclosure of a range rather than a specific quantity.

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

2015 Transparency Report

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Protection of customer privacy is one of our core values at Sonic. 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 fifth annual Transparency Report.

In 2015 we saw processed two civil subpoenas, as compared with zero in 2014, one in 2013 compared with nine each in 2011 and 2012. Law enforcement subpoena activity decreased compared to 2014. Note also that Sonic’s membership is growing so it is not possible to make a direct comparison between the years.

As in years past, we can only publish the broad bracket related to National Security Letter (NSL) items,  we are limited to a disclosure of a range rather than a specific quantity.

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

Dear Mr. President

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President Obama talk about broadband speed

President Obama recently called out San Francisco for being America’s slowest-connected large city. And that’s ironic, because San Francisco is the cradle of so much technological innovation. Companies here are building amazing things, including some notable Sonic customers such as Maker Media.

But when they go home, San Francisco residents are worse served than consumers in much of the rest of the country. Indeed the US as a whole has some of the worst connectivity in the developed world.

Here is the chart that President Obama is pointing to above, and he’s calling out you, San Francisco:

Screen Shot Internet Download Speeds By City

Mr. President, we are changing that, right now. Sonic now provides Gigabit (1000Mbps) Fiber to the home service in San Francisco!

San Francisco, and indeed every city, deserves for its residents and businesses the fastest possible connections, without caps, tiered pricing, or crappy customer service. We can do better. Sonic’s continuing mission is to build and deliver a better Internet service. Whether it is crushing artificial data caps and tiers, fair policies that protect our lawful customers, or just a simple, all-inclusive price, we’ve got a better way.

In San Francisco specifically, the race is on now, and Sonic has the lead. As the first to deliver consumer-priced Gigabit Fiber to the home in San Francisco, we are thrilled to see our customers posting up awesome speeds, and telling us how thrilled they are with their new Sonic Fiber service.

So with all of this in mind, Mr. President, I want to assure you that the city of San Francisco, cradle of so much innovation, is well on its way to getting the widely available Gigabit Fiber connectivity it deserves. (And, it’s time to update your chart!)

And for the people of San Francisco, to help bring Gigabit Fiber to every home, I have just two requests: Please join Sonic as a member, and even if we are not yet offering Fiber in your area, please click here to share what we are doing. Together, we can fix Internet access in America.

Sonic Fusion Gigabit Fiber Now Available in San Francisco

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Underground conduit buildAfter years of planning and construction, I am happy to announce that Sonic has launched our Gigabit Fiber service in San Francisco.

Sonic’s Fusion Fiber service delivers Internet access at one Gigabit per second, and is currently available for ordering or pre-ordering in the Sunset and Richmond Districts in San Francisco. Residents can visit our Gigabit page to learn more and check for available Sonic services.

Sonic’s Fusion service is $40 per month. In addition to broadband at up Gigabit speed, Fusion also includes home phone service with nationwide calling, plus unlimited international calling to fixed lines in sixty six countries.

Gigabit Fiber Internet access delivers speed of up to 1000 Mbps to the devices in your home. This is some of the fastest residential Internet available in the United States, with performance roughly 100 times faster than the average Internet connection in the United States today.

Sonic’s Fusion service also includes home phone service with unlimited nationwide calling, plus now unlimited global calling to fixed line numbers in 66 countries and US territories, including popular destinations such as Mexico and India.

Sonic has previously delivered Gigabit Fiber in Brentwood and Sebastopol, plus business parks in Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Windsor. Sonic is proud to be the largest Gigabit Fiber Internet provider in the Bay Area, and now, San Francisco’s first Gigabit Fiber Internet provider.

Please tell a friend!

Go, Monopoly! Go! Go!

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Screenshot 2015-11-17 17.02.48

I’m flying across the US today, enjoying in-flight Internet access along the way. Internet access in the sky changes the equation for travellers, particularly for business users, allowing them to stay in touch and productive, despite zipping along at 550mph.

While I’m feeling a bit spoiled by this handy access (and a bit disloyal to GoGo as I post this), the in-flight monopoly reminds me of some of America’s issues with terrestrial Internet access. Up here in the sky, I’ve got one choice, just as most Americans have just one choice for fast Internet access in their homes.

And just as consumers on the ground do by switching providers frequently, or calling for a better price every year, I’ve got to game the billing system in order to get a fair price. In my case, by connecting via VPN in order to buy a flight pass using the Sonic IP, yielding a much lower price than is offered onboard. (Is charging me more once I’m on the plane fair? Maybe @GoGo will respond with a comment below. Tip: If you forget to pre-purchase before your flight and are feeling gouged, buy 30 minutes of access, then use the Sonic VPN to connect to gogoair.com and buy more time or a segment pass at a lower cost than is offered onboard.)

At Sonic, our goal is to deliver more and more value for our members, at a fair and simple price. While we do from time to time run specials (like a month free, or a free Roku, or a monthly discount, or $5 off with a television bundle, etc) for new members, we don’t do the routine “call the cable company every year to threaten to cancel, fight, renew/re-negotiate” with our customers. No matter how you come in, you end up in the same place in the long run. That’s fair.

Why? Because we’ve got a mission: fixing the state of Internet access in America.

We want to partner with our members in that mission, and part of that is the financial support which you provide every month by being a member. Every dollar supports building a better product for you, our Sonic members.

Fixing the Internet will take a huge movement, which is why we work so hard to recruit new members to our mission. That’s is why we love seeing our members referring their friends, family, and workplace to Sonic. Thank you very much for spreading the word about our mission.

Together we can build a new Internet access model for America, beyond just one choice, beyond cable. One without artificial tiers and usage caps, with $40 gigabit fiber, while protecting the privacy of our lawful customers. It’s going to take time, and a lot of money. But it is possible, and I look forward to doing it, with the support of our members.

FCC validates Sonic robocall blocking efforts

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Last year Sonic partnered with the award-winning Nomorobo robocall blocking solution for our Fusion landline phone service. Last Friday, the FCC validated that choice, affirming in a 3 to 2 vote a carrier’s right to offer robocall blocking to its customers.

The FCC’s Chairman, Tom Wheeler, wrote “For the first time, we clarify that there is no legal reason carriers shouldn’t offer their customers popular robocall-blocking solutions, so that consumers can use market-based approaches to stop unwanted calls.”

Sonic was the first US telecommunications carrier to integrate and deploy Nomorobo, and we are pleased that the FCC and FTC have supported our consumer-friendly policies on annoying and often fraudulent robocalling. Until this decision last week, it was possible that our decision to offer this free feature would be challenged, so we appreciate the FCC’s decision, and we thank the commissioners for their action on this issue.

Sonic’s Nomorobo blocking feature has blocked over five million spam calls so far, saving huge amounts of time and frustration for our members. The Nomorobo feature is free for Sonic members, who can enable or disable it via our Member Tools.

To learn more about robocalls, see Federal Trade Commission’s Robocalls page, which includes a thorough infographic on how robocalls work. Sonic’s integrated Nomorobo solution was a winner of the FTC’s 2013 Robocall Challenge.

To learn more about Sonic’s Nomorobo feature, see the brief video here:

 

2014 Transparency Report

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Protection of customer privacy is one of our core values at Sonic. 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 fourth annual Transparency Report.

This year we saw zero civil subpoenas, as compared with one in 2013 compared with nine each in 2011 and 2012. Law enforcement subpoena activity increased again in 2014, but as in the past, Sonic’s membership is growing so it is challenging to make a direct comparison between the years.

This year we have added the broad bracket related to National Security Letter (NSL) items, where we are limited to a disclosure of a range, rather than a specific quantity. Sonic participated in filing an amicus brief recently on this topic, which can be found here.

We have also made a number of updates to improve our Sonic.net Legal Process Policy document. The update makes clearer our retention policies for various types of customer records, and provides additional customer notification information.

We have now begun tracking law enforcement orders which are subsequently withdrawn before customer information is provided. In 2014, three law enforcement orders which requested non-disclosure were withdrawn. One of these was re-issued under seal.

Finally, we are stating for the record our position regarding compelled inclusion of back doors, deliberate security weaknesses or disclosure of encryption keys. Sonic does not support these practices.

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

Protection of Customer Privacy

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Protection of customer privacy is one of our core values at Sonic. We seek to provide as much transparency as possible regarding legal processes and customer privacy. Internet and telephone service providers have a great responsibility both to protect their law-abiding customers and the public. We continually work to achieve both of these goals.

Today, Sonic joins 43 other advocates, companies and organizations in urging the White House and Congress to move forward with reform of the National Security Agency’s methods for bulk collection of data. The NSA Coalition Letter calls for termination of these practices under the USA PATRIOT Act, a revised bill containing transparency and accountability mechanisms for company reporting as well as declassification for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decisions.

See the letter to the President and members of Congress below for details.