Does Sonic.net not provide service in Berkeley? Back when I lived in the Bay Area, I switched from Comcast purely because Sonic.net isn't an utterly loathsome company. Turns out with Sonic I didn't have to reboot my modem every other week either.
I've used Sonic many different times throughout SF and while their support guys have been great, any and all problems I've had were usually a result of the copper. And AT&T couldn't care less.
Currently I have 50Mbps FTTN service from Sonic and it's rock solid. It's never been down in the few years I've had it. It does, however, still use AT&T infrastructure. But this is the only time I've used Sonic over AT&T and been pretty happy with it.
Oh how I've pleaded with them to bring fiber here. I remember when they announced that Berkeley was on the shortlist about 5 years ago.
Now, I'm in Cincinnati and have excellent fiber service from Cincinnati Bell, so it's possible to have good quality from the incumbent carrier.