I was a customer of Sonic.net from March 2012 until August 2018. I purchased a DSL connection with the standard landline phone service, the bundled structure of which used and uses AT&T's (old) copper lines. The monthly charge in 2012 was $52. By 2019, with no increase in service or quality, the charge was $72. Each time my bill went up, it went up without notice.

At least, back then, I received a bill -- or invoice. Or used to.

But then in 2019, the CEO Dane Jasper made the stupid decision not to send a monthly invoice to customers. Rather, he forced them to log in to a database at Sonic.net to find the bill.

Arguing about the need for a receipt was useless. The staff answering complaints via email was ridiculously insensitive and uncooperative. The best of them would say, "I'll pass your criticism up the chain of command." The worst of them would reply, "I don't like your attitude or your conduct or use of language." Rather than try to problem-solve, the staff strove to escalate a conflict originally created by the CEO.

No sooner did I sign on with Sonic in 2012 and began having trouble with my service -- my Internet connection -- than I received a shock: All that the customer service department told me about repairmen or technicians coming out to check my connection was false -- a lie. Instead of expecting for my monthly charge, a repairman or technician to come out when the copper wires were faulty or when the modem wasn't working properly, the customer service department suddenly announced each request for in-home service would come with a $100 fee -- unless I purchased Sonic's own modem and stopped using my own store-bought one.

Trusting that the customer service department's new story was true, I bought a Sonic-serviced modem, but when I began having troubles with it and my Internet connection again, the Sonic technician team tried in every way to get me to solve my own problems over the phone rather than send one of their precious technicians all way the way from Santa Rosa to San Francisco just to repair a connection or service a modem. Sonic told me that their repairmen were overstretched, overworked, and few in number, and even if my need were an emergency, the soonest anyone from Sonic could arrive was two weeks!

It just so happened that on the day when I lost all landline and Internet connection, city workers were digging up the street outside of my apartment. I contacted the city workers' supervisor in person and told him that I had no phone and no Internet, half-wondering if a city worker hadn't accidentally cut the copper wire connection to my computer, and much to my delight that supervisor contacted Sonic and got Sonic to send out a repairman/technician that very day - within two hours -- circumventing all of Sonic's verbal bureaucratic blockade to a customer!

Issues regarding Sonic's indifference to the customer came to a head for me recently when I pulled no punches via email to the customer service department and began describing the CEO as a "$#*!," while also politically skewering the staff's emails responses about my "attitude" rather than their directly dealing with Sonic's CEO"s decision to avoid providing a customer a billing invoice as it had done for the last seven years -- AND without providing the customer a reason. I soon began receiving angry and very prissy messages about my "hate speech" and my "Jew hating" (apparently because I referred to the ideology of hate speech as having originally been created by Jews) ending up with a man calling himself a Jew, spewing his pretentious view of how "offended" he was at my email remarks -- never once saying anything factual, true or concrete about the problem many Sonic customers were dissatisfied with in not receiving an automatic receipt for their automatic monthly payment for service.

Sonic.net is memorable for its political pleadings to all its customers via email: "Help us! The feds are trying to regulate us! Send a letter to your Congressman!" I always gave Sonic what it asked. I always paid my bill, but Sonic's CEO's doesn't like reciprocation or fairness.

In the end, Sonic notified me - again by email - that it no longer wanted me as a customer. I have to tell you, I'm so sorry to have even to admit I was once associated with "progressive" PC Sonic.

I switched to AT&T -- the owner of Sonic's copper wires service. I have signed up for a regular landline again but wireless Internet connection this time -- and I lowered my bill by almost ten dollars a month.

Sonic offers poor service, poor quality, and poor customer rapport, although its technical staff is marvelously friendly and helpful - more personable and caring than any other commercial company I've ever come across. However, they know who is the CEO -- and by that I don't just mean they know his name: they know his imperious and queenly character -- and are helplessly under his thumb to alter anything.