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Sonic (ISP)

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Sonic.net, LLC
Company typePrivate
IndustryInternetandTelecommunication
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

Sonicis atelecommunications companyandinternet service providerbased inSanta Rosa, California,acting as acompetitive local exchange carrierin theSan Francisco Bay Area,Sacramento,andLos Angeles.[2][3]

History

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Sonic began as an effort to bring network connectivity andInternet accessto staff and students at the campus ofSanta 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 tocopyright infringementinvolvingpornography,Sonic cut the time it stores logs of user activity to two weeks.[6][7]

Later in 2011, the US federal government forced Sonic andGoogleto provide e-mail addresses of people who had corresponded withWikiLeaksvolunteer andTordeveloperJacob 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 toldTorrentFreakthat 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 theMotion Picture Association of America(MPAA) andRecording 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 and the @sonicTwitterhandle.[11]

In April 2015, the company partnered with AT&T to expand service, usingfiber-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 withEero—now owned byAmazon—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]
  • Gigabit Fiber – combined voice (VoIP) and data service offering up to 1,000 Mbit/s per line usingPassive 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.[15]
  • FusionADSL2+– 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.
  • FusionVDSL2– combined voice (POTS) and data service offering up to 75 Mbit/s[16]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.[17]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 resoldAT&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[18]and uses less than 50 Kbps.[19]
  • FlexLink – midband Ethernet service offering symmetric speeds from 1.5 Mbit/s to 500 Mbit/s.
  • AT&T DSL –ADSLservice delivered over anAT&Tvoice 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. ^abcDane Jasperinterviewed on the TV showTriangulationon theTWiT.tvnetwork
  2. ^"CLEC Update".Sonic.net. January 5, 2008.Retrieved22 October2013.
  3. ^"Moving Outside: From ISP to OSP".Sonic.net. July 31, 2011.Retrieved22 October2013.
  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.RetrievedJuly 9,2018.
  5. ^"The History of Sonic".Sonic.net. Archived fromthe originalon October 7, 2010.Retrieved2010-10-26.
  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.Retrieved7 August2012.
  7. ^Greenberg, Andy (11 July 2012)."Five Ways Wireless Carriers Could Rein In The Government's Surveillance Of Your Phone".Forbes.Retrieved7 August2012.
  8. ^Angwin, Julia(9 October 2011)."Secret Orders Target Email: WikiLeaks Backer's Information Sought".Wall Street Journal.Retrieved7 August2012.
  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.Retrieved7 August2012.
  10. ^"Has Your ISP Joined the US" Six Strikes "Anti-Piracy Scheme?".TorrentFreak.3 August 2012.Retrieved7 August2012.
  11. ^Allemann, Andrew."Why Sonic.net rebranded as Sonic, and how it got Sonic".Domain Name Wire.Retrieved18 June2018.
  12. ^Gogola, Tom (19 August 2015)."Sonic Truth".Bohemian.Retrieved25 August2015.
  13. ^"Sonic Partners with Eero Inc. For More Secure WIFI".Mirror Review.2018-12-13.Retrieved2020-04-03.
  14. ^"Sonic introduces new service to boost Wi-Fi reception".The North Bay Business Journal.2018-12-14.Retrieved2020-04-03.
  15. ^"Get Better, Faster Internet. Get Sonic Gigabit Fiber".
  16. ^"Will Sonic upgrade DSLAMs to VDSL2? (if not already done?)".forums.sonic.net.Retrieved5 May2015.
  17. ^"Will Sonic upgrade DSLAMs to VDSL2? (if not already done?)".forums.sonic.net.Retrieved5 May2015.
  18. ^"Fusion FTTN VoIP settings".forums.sonic.net.Retrieved14 May2015.
  19. ^"Fusion x2 same as FTTN??".forums.sonic.net.Retrieved29 April2015.
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