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Sonic (ISP)

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Sonic.net, LLC
Company typePrivate
IndustryInternet and Telecommunication
FoundedSeptember 1994 (1994-09)
Founders
  • Dane Jasper
  • Scott Doty
Headquarters
Santa Rosa, California
,
United States
Area served
California
Key people
Dane Jasper, CEO[1]
Websitewww.sonic.com

Sonic is a telecommunications company and internet service provider based in Santa Rosa, California, acting as a competitive local exchange carrier in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.[2][3]

History

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Sonic began as an effort to bring network connectivity and Internet access to staff and students at the campus of Santa Rosa Junior College. In 1994, Sonic began formal Internet operations by way of a partnership between Dane Jasper and Scott Doty, both of whom had worked on the network at the college.[4] In 1995, Sonic moved into its downtown Santa Rosa location.[5]

In 2011, after becoming concerned about increasing requests for users' data by private law firms, mostly related to copyright infringement involving pornography, Sonic cut the time it stores logs of user activity to two weeks.[6][7]

Later in 2011, the US federal government forced Sonic and Google to provide e-mail addresses of people who had corresponded with WikiLeaks volunteer and Tor developer Jacob Appelbaum. Sonic and Google fought the secret court order, which CEO Dane Jasper characterized as "rather expensive, but the right thing to do," and the court agreed to lift the seal on the Sonic order to give Appelbaum a copy of it.[8][9]

In 2012, Jasper told TorrentFreak that Sonic would not be participating in the so-called "six strikes" plan, in which major US internet service providers would begin to warn and punish people suspected of infringing copyrights, saying that ISPs are not equipped to police the actions of individuals, and that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had not invited small, independent ISPs to participate.[10]

In late 2014, Sonic.net rebranded as Sonic, after acquiring sonic.com and the @sonic Twitter handle.[11]

In April 2015, the company partnered with AT&T to expand service, using fiber-to-the-node. Due to this partnership, Sonic customers connected via that service are required to comply with AT&T's upstream policies, and may be subject to government spying. Sonic customers can utilize a VPN to avoid AT&T policies, and Sonic requires a lawful court order for any information requested by law enforcement.[12]

In December 2018, Sonic announced a partnership with Eero—now owned by Amazon—creator of the first whole-home WiFi mesh system, to improve WiFi connectivity across the entire home.[13][14]

Services

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Sonic offers a number of services including:

  • 10 Gigabit Fiber – residential product.[1] Sonic's XGS-PON implementation uses many components of their Gigabit Fiber offering: they use a transition box to terminate their fiber between their drop cable and customers', use of an ONT[15][16] and a variety of residential gateways.[17] Sonic only rents the eero Max 7 at $20/month as the only gateway that supports 10 gigabit; however, customers are free to provide their own gateway to avoid any monthly equipment rental fee. As of 2024, Sonic has focused on building only 10 Gigabit service and there is no longer a telephone requirement for 10 gigabit service. Per one of their sales people, the OLT splits each fiber to 32 customers.[18]
  • Gigabit Fiber – combined voice (VoIP) and data service offering up to 1,000 Mbit/s per line using Passive Optical Networking,[1] with unlimited nationwide land line voice. Sonic has full control of the line: subscribers are on Sonic's IP space. Available in select markets, currently only Northern California locations.[19]
  • Fusion ADSL2+ – combined voice (POTS) and data service offering up to 20 Mbit/s per line, with unlimited nationwide land line voice. Sonic has full control of the line: subscribers are on Sonic's IP space.
  • Fusion VDSL2 – combined voice (POTS) and data service offering up to 75 Mbit/s[20] with the same limitations as Fusion ADSL2+. This subscription is served from a CO where Sonic has full control of the line cards and therefore remove any artificial limitation in speed that a subscriber can get. The requirement for getting this service is an individual has to be relatively close to the CO, up to 4000 feet.[21] X2 is also available which will roughly double the speed.
  • Fusion FTTN (VDSL2) – combined voice (VoIP) and data service offering from 20 Mbit/s up to 75 Mbit/s through bonding (X2), with unlimited nationwide land line voice. This is resold AT&T U-verse. Single pair connection is limited to 50 Mbit/s even if the line is capable of more than that; bonded pair is limited to 75 Mbit/s. Sonic has some control of the line such as not enforcing transfer caps, but customers are on AT&T's IP space. VoIP connection defaults to G.729ab[22] and uses less than 50 Kbps.[23]
  • FlexLink – midband Ethernet service offering symmetric speeds from 1.5 Mbit/s to 500 Mbit/s.
  • AT&T DSL – ADSL service delivered over an AT&T voice line. This service is obsolete and Sonic is no longer accepting legacy ADSL1 subscriptions.
  • Hosting – website hosting services.
  • Colocation – datacenter colocation in Santa Rosa, CA.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Dane Jasper interviewed on the TV show Triangulation on the TWiT.tv network
  2. ^ "CLEC Update". Sonic.net. January 5, 2008. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  3. ^ "Moving Outside: From ISP to OSP". Sonic.net. July 31, 2011. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  4. ^ Hiltzik, Michael (July 5, 2018). "Sonic is a small ISP that competes brilliantly with the big guys — so they're trying to throttle its business". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 9, 2018.
  5. ^ "The History of Sonic". Sonic.net. Archived from the original on October 7, 2010. Retrieved 2010-10-26.
  6. ^ Greenberg, Andy (22 June 2012). "CEO Of Internet Provider Sonic.net: We Delete User Logs After Two Weeks. Your Internet Provider Should, Too". Forbes. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  7. ^ Greenberg, Andy (11 July 2012). "Five Ways Wireless Carriers Could Rein In The Government's Surveillance Of Your Phone". Forbes. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  8. ^ Angwin, Julia (9 October 2011). "Secret Orders Target Email: WikiLeaks Backer's Information Sought". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  9. ^ Brooke, Heather (11 October 2011). "How the US government secretly reads your email: Secret orders forcing Google and Sonic to release a WikiLeaks volunteer's email reveal the scale of US government snooping". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  10. ^ "Has Your ISP Joined the US "Six Strikes" Anti-Piracy Scheme?". TorrentFreak. 3 August 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  11. ^ Allemann, Andrew. "Why Sonic.net rebranded as Sonic, and how it got Sonic.com". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  12. ^ Gogola, Tom (19 August 2015). "Sonic Truth". Bohemian.com. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  13. ^ "Sonic Partners with Eero Inc. For More Secure WIFI". Mirror Review. 2018-12-13. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  14. ^ "Sonic introduces new service to boost Wi-Fi reception". The North Bay Business Journal. 2018-12-14. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  15. ^ "AdTran 622v".
  16. ^ "AdTran 822v".
  17. ^ "Sonic WiFi Powered by eero".
  18. ^ "10G to Desktop Plan Review". 25 October 2024.
  19. ^ "Get Better, Faster Internet. Get Sonic Gigabit Fiber".
  20. ^ "Will Sonic upgrade DSLAMs to VDSL2? (if not already done?)". forums.sonic.net. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
  21. ^ "Will Sonic upgrade DSLAMs to VDSL2? (if not already done?)". forums.sonic.net. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
  22. ^ "Fusion FTTN VoIP settings". forums.sonic.net. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  23. ^ "Fusion x2 same as FTTN??". forums.sonic.net. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
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