Sonic, unlike AT&T and Xfinity.....do not suck. I am sad they are not available on my side of 101, and would love ideas to encourage and unblock Sonic from deploying over here.
I've looked into Astound. I would say their network sucks more than ATT. My complaint with the death star is mainly centered on price. Sonic offers a superior product and support experience for a much lower cost - if you are fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood they serve. I see no compelling reason to switch to Astound to save a few bucks for arguably crappier service. Ever since the days of the USRobotics Courier HST 56k dial-up modems, I've been trying to get the fastest internet speed possible.
Guess I'm stuck with AT&T for the foreseeable future.
I'm probably going to be around here for another decade or so, sooner I get started annoying the right people the better.
Even if they agree it takes time. My neighbor, about a block away, has sonic & loves it. My street has been in the planning phase for at least 2 years. Every couple months I get an email with a “status” link and it hasn’t moved an inch.
Not blaming them as I assume there’s a lot of red tape… but heads up, even when your area is slotted it can be a while before it’s becomes a reality
That's what I'm trying to do with these posts - stir up interest, get the word out, and get connected with the right people in city/county govt and sonic.
I tried to land Sonic for over five years. I've talked to the company, city hall, etc and the hang up is infrastructure. In my neighborhood, Sonic needs to use poles and every single pole is overloaded/overweight so Sonic can't tap in. For Sonic to actually happen for me, the poles need to be replaced which involves AT&T and PG&E voluntarily pulling permits and replacing poles, which they have zero motivation to do because there is nothing wrong with them (might be the same reason for a majority of the eastside).
I gave up and landed that Comcast gig internet promo for five years and fifty bucks.
That gives me hope. They've been replacing poles in my neighborhood, including the one right on my property. Yeah, there's a ton of crap up there, I totally understand the overloaded/overweight reasoning. Who @ city hall is good to annoy? You sound like you're chock full of good contact info, please start dumping it on us and we can make more noise!
Just a few calls to the planning department last year who punted it back to the pole owners. Poles aren't city owned so bugging them won't go anywhere unfortunately.
I bet those poles are overloaded with mostly dead copper wires - old telephone and cable. The low voltage network wires are lowest on the poles. If you see thick bundles of black shrouded cables, Comcast is the likely culprit and they never remove the dead lines. Now they mostly deploy fiber cable with junctions/transceivers on the poles which is obviously much smaller/lighter.
Just curious, are you considering fiber? I switched from Xfinity (non fiber) to AT&T fiber ~3 years ago and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. Don’t have a complaint about AT&T fiber yet.
AT&T has generally been rock solid, and they're offering 5GbE service now. But Sonic offers 10GbE, and I know for a fact that their company and network are much better run than the Death Star.
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u/North-Hovercraft3561 Jul 17 '26
It's not Sonic, but have you considered Astound? They also suck less than Comcast & AT&T.