AT&T U-Verse

[lacks focus]

I'm seriously considering switching our Comcast cable and AT&T "high-speed" internet, plus standard AT&T phone service over to a bundled AT&T U-Verse fiber-optic setup.

Does anyone here have any experience with U-Verse? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Craig in Indy

[dale armbruster]

We switched back in October. We had AT&T phone and internet and DiectTV but they came knocking at the door with a sales pitch. They got us to switch to uverse and all bundled they saved us $17/month plus gave us $400 in credit.

Call and see what they will give you in credit.

The service is fine and everything works well.

Dale

[Sawduster]

We switched last summer from TW Cable and High Speed Internet with AT&T land line over to U-Verse for telephone, cable and internet. We were paying more for cable and internet from TW than all three services through U-Verse, and we even have one more "box" with U-Verse than we did with TW. We also now have DVR which we didn't with TW, though we haven't used that at all. We really don't watch much TV so a lot of the fancy services included are wasted on us. But broad band internet is a necessity, and that only comes with all of the TV stuff.

We had some problems early on with the signal dropping out for a couple minutes at a time, but that seems to have been fixed now. The only other issues we have are the complexity of TV system and that is more due to our unwillingness to spend the time to learn how the stuff works. One frustrating issue is that we can't figure out how to increase the audio volume of the signal from the "box". With the TV volume turned all of the way up it is just loud enough for the LOML, but I have some hearing loss so I have to turn on the tuner for the Home Entertainment Center and pipe the audio through there in order to hear it well. I'm sure there is a way since the volume on the TV in the bedroom is sufficient. Just a matter of figuring it out.

[rrich]

Craig,
The only thing that I've heard is that AT&T uses twisted pair from the hub to the home. This technology has less capacity than coax (cable TV) or fiber optics (Verizon FIOS). I believe that you are limited to two simultaneous HD channels. That is something to think about when you have a digital video recorder and more than one HD TV set. The DVR can suck up two HD channels.

I recently switched back to cable (TW) after almost 2 years on FIOS. When it works, FIOS is superb and about the best there is. When FIOS doesn't work the Verizon customer service organization is about the worst there is. I found that I was spending too much time managing problems in the FIOS network. Every problem was a fight with FIOS CS. The final straw was an Internet routing issue (The route from Southern California to Goggle or Yahoo was going through Denver and Chicago respectively. The Goggle and Yahoo servers are in the San Francisco area.) and Verizon insisted on reloading the set top boxes. At that point I asked my neighbor to install our TW service.

[Sawduster]

Rich,
I believe that U-Verse is AT&T's new technology product. Phone, TV and internet all come into my house via the same coax installed from the street to the house by TW with TV and internet using the existing coax in the house and the phones being connected to the existing phone lines. Some months back they were in my neighborhood installing new cables, fiber optic, I believe.

They're advertising the capacity to record 4 shows simultaneously via DVR. There is instant replay of live TV and all sorts of other stuff.

[rrich]

AT&T may have "seen the light" and corrected their initial short sighted decision. I'm in a GTE (Verizon) area so I've only gone with what I read in the press.

[WoodDrummer]

The way it was explained to me by local AT&T was that U-verse was fiber trunks and coax to the house. No trunking in my neighborhood so we have to wait.

[arcticfox46]

I agree - I really want to offer some good old American Compitition to Comcast and tell them to not let the door hit them in the a$$ on the way out, but I am not sure of the alternatives.

I switched to Direct TV - but with significant problems. Left me hanging with comcast.

I HAD verizon DXL or whatever that is - and that was really painful.

So I am gunshy about alternates.

I thought about FIOS - and Rich had that - but now what he said about switching back makes me wonder about that.

After my stint with Direct TV - I think I am going to bite the bullet and go bach to just Comcast.

They get you on the bundles. If you don't bundle - you are stuck.

It's all a scam.

We really don't have much control over these huge conglomerates. That is where I tend to thing some regulations are needed - but yes - I also don't really want government intervention. I feel that it's a catch 22 -- you're damed if you do and your damed if you do.

[lacks focus]

Thanks for the feedback everybody. After checking online, and at a couple of their storefronts, the best deal I could get is $250 cash back with free DVR and router and free installation, all without a contract and no money out of pocket. The net monthly will be a few bucks more than our current melange of Comcast cable, AT&T DSL and AT&T standard land line, but we'll have more channels (most of which we have no interest in), better picture quality (I hope) and even at the slowest internet tier, much, much faster access. Plus unlimited free long distance to US and Canada on the land line.

Of course it all depends on whether we can get it going. I spent a couple of hours at one of the stores this morning while they tried to enter it all into their computer and it kept either dumping everything and making us start over (repeatedly), or timing out on the connection to their home server. Not exactly confidence-inspiring. We're gonna try it again tomorrow from another location.

Craig in Indy

[WoodDrummer]

Honestly Leo, no telecom company has good customer service that I know of, but I too had Verizon FiOS and you could not pay me to go back. The picture was fine and the Internet worked, but when there was a problem, forget it.

I have told Verizon stories here before, I will not be going back to them. HORRIBLE customer service is the only thing I remember from my experience with them, I couldn't wait to move and drop them!