The Fastes Internet on the Westcost for $70

Update 12/14/11
Sonic to bring fiber to SF!
Well to a lucky 2000 customers in the Sunset --hopefully I will be one of the.

“San Francisco is our fastest-growing market for copper delivered Fusion Broadband+Phone service today, so we are very excited to bring our Fiber-optic upgrade process to the city,” said Dane Jasper, CEO & Co-Founder of Sonic.net. “There is a huge demand in San Francisco for higher bandwidth services, and fiber is the only long-term way to meet this demand.”

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9036346.htm

Sonic.net, a local independent Internet Service Provider, is rolling out its new 1Gbps (1000Mbps) fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service, which includes both Internet and phone service for unheard of price of $70 a month. In comparison Comcast's offers a 105Mbps-- the fastest tire they offer,  for a whopping $200-- that's not including the modem fee and phone services. AT&T speeds don't even come close to Sonic.net services in price or speed. they top out at 6Mbps.

I have to be honest, I have been a customer of theirs for about two years, so I might be more excited about this news more than others. I would say that Sonic.net has been by far the best ISP I have ever had.  In the past two years I have seen two different price cuts on my monthly bill. That is unheard of with AT&T or Comcast which jacked up their prices year after year. Plus I get free future upgrade every couple of months like my own fax number, fax to email and email voice mail for free.

The company recently expanded into fiber, having secured the contract to manage Google's own 1Gbps fiber network that will connect 800+ faculty homes at Stanford University. The new fiber-to-the-home deployment is a trial and will reach about 700 homes in Sebastopol when complete. Sonic.net pulls fiber optic cable from their own head office all the way to the customers house.  This eliminates the need to rent space and old copper phone lines from AT&T.

They price their new services the same as their old DSL services. If the pilot in Sebastopol goes well, Sonic.net hopes to expand the service across the Bay Area.

Sonic.net has been around since 1994,  it was founded by Dane Jasper and Scott Doty, both worked on the computer network at Santa Rosa Junior College. After setting up the Junior College's frist internet service, they decided to start their own localized ISP.

They began with dial-up Linux shell access, and then they used conventional phone lines from Pacific Bell and 16.8kbps modems to provide internet access. Fortunately, they were able to avoid the resource problems that plagued many local ISP start ups during the "Internet Boom" and crash of the late 2000's.

In the last year, Sonic began offering bonded DSL service with speeds upwards of 40Mbps--which bundled with phone serves adds up to $70. Keep in mind this is double the curent maximum speed of AT&T DSL.

They accomplish this by renting 2 phone lines from AT&T and installing their own equipment in the phone company central office.  The 2 phone lines are bonded -- making them one circuit. Sonic then uses a DSL standard called ADSL2+, that allows for higher speeds then regular DSL. This gives them the ability to provide higher speeds at a lower price.

Jasper is unlike your typical US Internet CEO; he made clear that his company avoids purely manufactured limits as a way to make more revenue. "I believe that removing the artificial limits on speed, and including home phone with the product are both very exciting."



For more info about Sonic.net click on the video.