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Chris Padilla
06-24-2010, 8:29 PM
Okay good folks of SMC, chime in here.

Who has this? Did you get a bundle package? I know it isn't fiber all the way to the house so I fear worse picture quality (i.e. compression) but it appears I can save roughly $50-100/month by combining.

I currently have Dish Network and we like it just fine. $107/month, 2 DVRs (our 2-yr committment is up so I'm free to switch or wheel 'n deal)

I have AT&T landline that I wish I could just dump altogether at around $25/month.

I have Comcast Internet (cable modem) that also works just fine at $58/month (Company paid for this for many years...now I'm footing the bill)

Finally, we have AT&T family plan for our cell phones (nothing fancy, basic stuff, we don't use our phone all that much and I still use a phone to make PHONE calls ;) ) at $57/month.

Add all that up and we're at about $250/month! :eek:

U-Verse's "max" plan is $150/month but it is a "cell phone OR landline" along with TV and Internet. I don't know what kind of break, if any, I get trying to bundle all 4 of these puppies. I also don't know what happens to the price after 1 year.


So who likes U-Verse? Who regrets the switch? Info me up. :)

Cheers,

Chris

Andy Haney
06-24-2010, 8:44 PM
...and let us know how it turns out. I wanted to bundle DSL with TV. The bundle offer "is not available to me because I'm already their customer for DSL". I'm considering NOT being their customer any more.

Andy Haney
Ottawa, KS

John Coloccia
06-24-2010, 8:48 PM
I tried to switch to U-Verse. Two or three times, in fact. They always say it's available, they sign me up, and then they say it's not. My one recommendation is whatever you do, do not cancel ANYTHING until it's in your house and working 100% with the proper performance.

Funny AT&T story, though. Years ago, I tried to get DSL at my house. I placed the order and the same thing happened: "Oh, we goofed. Hee Hee! It's not really available". OK, fine.

A month or so later, I started getting recorded phone messages from James Earl Jones. "Your DSL line is on it's way. Prepare to experience the speed of DSL", or some nonsense like that. I figured it was a marketing call of some kind.

A couple of weeks later, Jimmy (we were tight...I call him Jimmy) calls back and gives me a date that the service would be hooked up. Sure enough, a package arrives a few days before the scheduled date. It was my DSL self install kit. Hmmmm. This is getting serious now!

I hook it all up, wait for the date, and wouldn't you know it that I have DSL coming to my house. The performance was PITIFUL compared to cable so I didn't want it anyhow, but somehow I got hooked up with DSL after they told me that DSL is impossible at my house.

I call up AT&T and explain what happened. The rep started laughing. "Oh yeah. Ha Ha Ha...very funny. You're not even in our system. Have a nice day." *CLICK*. Hmmmm. A couple of calls later, I got a manager on the phone and he decided to dig a bit deeper than their billing system. Turns out that their service calls center is different than their billing center, and somehow my order was cancelled in the billing center but was NOT cancelled in their service center. Somehow, my order just hung around, and eventually an order went out to hook up my area, Jimmy baby started calling (I can call him Jimmy Baby....we're tight, you know), and voila.

End of the mess? Not nearly. To cancel the service, they had to sign me up for service, charge me for a month, activation etc, cancel the service, credit my account and cut me a check for a full refund. THANKS.

I think what happened is that some computer, somewhere (I call her Betty) took pity on me and started sending all these little orders out to folks all over the world. Little things: "Turn this switch on that street." "Run a wire to this street". Betty coordinated hundreds of people to get my DSL turned on. If I had wanted, I could have kept it more or less forever since they had basically no record of my service except for the actual mistaken activation (which no one would have ever noticed).

OK, I'll shutup now :D

Jerome Hanby
06-24-2010, 9:08 PM
I think that ATT&T Universe contains the replacement for their Callvantage voip that they killed off. If so and it has at least the same quality, take the cell, drop the land line, and use the voip. Voip is especially convienient if your house phones are cordless, just plug your base station into the pots port.

Scott Brihn
06-24-2010, 9:16 PM
I've had U-Verse for a number of years. We were early adopters. Having had a dish when HD was still novel; I would say U-Verse picture quality is not as good as the dish but acceptable.

Our installation and experience over the years with AT&T has been good. They are generally very responsive in my area.

Chris Padilla
06-24-2010, 10:57 PM
I'll have call and chat with 'em and get more details. The key could be what happens after 1 year.

Garrett Ellis
06-24-2010, 11:15 PM
i have had u-verse for about a month now, dsl and tv. Can't really comment on the picture quality, i have HD so everything looks perfect :D

however, the other day i was having some serious lag/freezing issues with the tv. it the picture/audio would freeze for 5-10 seconds, ever 5 or 10 seconds. while it was happening i looked up the problem online but could not find a clear cut answer. it stopped doing it after 5-10 minutes so i didnt pursue it anymore.

internet is fine... i don't use it all that much since i can get online with my phone. the dsl modem/router does have built in wifi, a perk i guess.

i'm paying around right at $100/mo for the smallest TV package, HD, and lowest speed internet.

Jeff Yates
06-24-2010, 11:55 PM
We've had UVerse for about 2 years now, and have loved it.

I spend a little over $200 a month for cable and internet (I don't think there is a cable package we don't have...and I've got a 12G connection).

When it was new, we had problems with connecting via HDMI, but that hasn't been an issue in the last 12 months.

I haven't had a single day of outage...outside of Hurricane Ike that is...then it was only down for 5 days.

In direct comparison to DirecTV I can say DirecTV has better quality HD, but not enough for me to want to change.

The only negative I could give is going to be the same with all of the big boy cable/internet packages...finding a competent customer service rep is challenging...

If I had Verizon available here I might try it...but I'm sold on UVerse...

Jeff Yates
06-24-2010, 11:58 PM
i have had u-verse for about a month now, dsl and tv. Can't really comment on the picture quality, i have HD so everything looks perfect :D

however, the other day i was having some serious lag/freezing issues with the tv. it the picture/audio would freeze for 5-10 seconds, ever 5 or 10 seconds. while it was happening i looked up the problem online but could not find a clear cut answer. it stopped doing it after 5-10 minutes so i didnt pursue it anymore.

internet is fine... i don't use it all that much since i can get online with my phone. the dsl modem/router does have built in wifi, a perk i guess.

i'm paying around right at $100/mo for the smallest TV package, HD, and lowest speed internet.

We had this problem as well...see my other post about HDMI Cables...

Try switching over to RGB and see if it keeps happening.

We no longer have the problem...but then again, thinking about it...I've upgraded both of those TV's to newer ones...

glenn bradley
06-25-2010, 12:08 AM
I have U-verse for internet only. $35/mo for 1 meg up, 6 meg down. The user experience is about the same as at work where we run multiple 10 gig links to the California backbone so, very acceptable for the price. My Time Warner was out once a week, at least. U-verse has not been down since it went in. The optical to electrical B-box or "hut" is right on my street ;-). Mine comes in on cable but I was offered coax or 2-wire entrance facilities; made no difference to them.

Bryan Morgan
06-25-2010, 10:47 PM
So who likes U-Verse? Who regrets the switch? Info me up. :)

Cheers,

Chris

Whatever you get, check with your neighbors to make sure it actually works right. We set a couple people up at work with U-Verse so they could work remotely. It would work ok for a day or two then crap out on both users, in different areas. They switched to whatever their local cable provider is and its been fine since.

I was really stoked when I found out Uverse is going to be available where I live. But, working with networks for a living I was smart enough to wait and let others suffer the growing pains. Glad I did. After waiting over a year I talked to some neighbors that have it. It is not reliable in this neighborhood either. I had AT&T DSL for years but that ultra reliable 2 meg connection is just not fast enough for what I need... luckily we also have Time Warner cable available so I went with that. The Uverse tops out around here at ~20 meg. My roadrunner cruises between 25-35 all day long, for the same price. I've had it for a few months now and it (knock on wood, then build something nice out of it :)) hasn't gone down once.

I can't comment on the phone or TV because we just use cell phones and I've been very happy with DirecTV (plus they give me free stuff because I've been a customer forever...)

Bill Huber
06-26-2010, 11:21 AM
I have had U-Verse for about 2 years and have no problems.

It is much better then the cable I had and also better then the Dish Network.
The cable was always going out and every time we had a big storm the dish was gone.

Any digital feed should give you the same picture quality, it is digital, its there or its not. With digital if there is a problem it will be in pixelation. I see this maybe once a month for a second or two.

I have over 3800 MP3 files on my PC that I serve over my U-Verse network which is very nice. I can also view on the big screen some 40,000 images I have on the PC.

If there is something I don't like it is their menu system, it could be much better. Setting up your channels is some what of a pain to remove a channel from you favorites. The DVR could have a larger hard drive and a better way to see how much space you have left on it.

I also really like and use a lot the ability to set the DVR from the internet. It is so nice to be at work and someone tell you about a show that's going to be on and I can jump on the net and record it.

I do not have the phone, I use Vontage for that, $17 a month for 500 min. which we never use, we have cell phones that are used a lot.

My cost for the upgraded internet and their 200 package is around $130 after all the taxes and things are added.

.

Van Huskey
06-26-2010, 4:53 PM
Tried U-verse but being a AV junkie I was not happy with the HD feed. The difference was pretty much a non-issue at 42" and below, with a 48" display is was becoming clear and at 60+ inches it was quite clear. I went back to Dish. DirectTV has arguably an even better picture but I prefer the DVRs from Dish and they mesh with my whole house system much better. I am not a bundle guy even though I could save money I pick and choose. ATT for the Iphones, Dish for the TV and a local fiber to the house provider for internet. I pay more but each of these is important to us and I feel it is worth paying for the best provider (for us) for each service.

Alan Bienlein
06-26-2010, 5:12 PM
We have had u-verse for over a year now. We have had the occasional growing problem in the area but that has been corrected. The internet connection works just fine for us and I love the fact that I can record and play back anything in any room in the house with only one dvr. I honestly can't tell the difference in picture quality. The other good thing is when we needed a service rep most of them sounded as if they lived in the USA verses living over seas.

Neal Clayton
06-26-2010, 5:49 PM
i've had it for about a year.

internet is rock solid. i've had downtime longer than 5 minutes once in that year. and when i called to report it the person on the phone knew what the problem was and gave me an ETA. good luck getting that from comcast.

the HD picture quality isn't as good as cable. on the flip side you typically get more HD channels than cable. depends on how much you value picture quality in every day TV. personally i watch any movie worth watching on bluray and just use the TV service for watching weekly/daily shows. if you watch more TV and poor broadcast HD quality bothers you, probably should look elsewhere.

for me having all channels + HD, it's about 30 a month cheaper than comcast for just the TV portion.

Bryan Morgan
06-27-2010, 12:22 AM
Any digital feed should give you the same picture quality, it is digital, its there or its not. With digital if there is a problem it will be in pixelation. I see this maybe once a month for a second or two.

Not exactly... There are different resolutions and compression ratios... Unfortunately HD is sort of a generic term and often over-hyped. Too much compression will yield artifacts in your picture...

Eric Franklin
06-27-2010, 5:54 AM
I have U-Verse for internet only and have been really happy with it.

A side note, the best HD broadcast channels you will find are OTA and you can't complain about the price.

Chris Padilla
07-29-2010, 11:28 PM
Okay, Folks, I done pulled da trigga!!

Before:
Dish Network - 107 (2 DVRs, 3 TVs serviced, no movie channels, hd channels)
Home Phone - 25
Internet - 58 (cable Modem, 3 Mbps, Comcast)

After:
ATT Uverse: U450 Pkg (all movie channels, max pkg, 4 total TVs serviced) - 133
(it is 7 per extra TV...1 tv is included)
ATT Uverse: 12 Mbps wireless/wired - 48
ATT Uverse: Voice (landline) - 35 (free long distance included Canada/Mex/others)
I also get a Belkin battery back-up for the 2Wire422 main box (this is mainly to keep your landline alive in the event of a power outage)

That totals to 216 but they knock off 60 for the next 12 months so it costs me 156. At the end of 12 months, I simply renegotiate a new contract--which everyone should do yearly on their various entertainment devices like this.

The picture looks great so I'm sold on IPTV.

Check: http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=5838 and look under Facts Sheet.

Bruce Page
07-29-2010, 11:34 PM
The Maytag doesn't look happy.

Chris Padilla
07-29-2010, 11:41 PM
Yeah, I just had them pile the boxes on the dryer until I can figure out where I want to put these things.

With all the wiring I did, I can put them just about anywhere in the house so that I shall do.

Chris Padilla
07-30-2010, 8:04 AM
So one gotcha thus far:

Only the TV with the DVR can do live rewinds, pauses, etc. The other 3 TVs have no such ability. Hmmm.....

Dan Hintz
07-30-2010, 8:11 AM
If the other 3 boxes don't contain hard drives, it's not surprising.

Zach England
07-30-2010, 8:22 AM
Do they offer MLB extra innings on u-verse now?

Chris Padilla
07-30-2010, 11:07 AM
Dan,

I need to look more carefully at the Motorola boxes but I suspect you are correct: the others don't have a harddrive. Otherwise, externally, they look identical.

Zach,

I looked at the channels and I'm not seeing MLB extra innings. They do have the NFL Network and the NHL Network and ESPN's Full Court (basketball I presume?).

They DO have FSRM (Fox Sports Rocky Mountain) and if my avatar is any indication, you know why I'm happy about that! :D

Zach England
07-30-2010, 11:48 AM
MLB extra innings is a seasonal paid package, but to carry it you have to have MLB network. Comcast has MLB network, but I believe does not have MLB extra innings. When I signed up for directv two years ago they were the only ones who carried it, but I'd like to see other providers negotiate to pick it up to have more choices. It really frustrates me that I can't seem to get all the sports channels at once with any provider. I can't get Versus on directv, and Versus carries college football, but to get it I'd have to go to someone who either does not have MLB extra innings or does not have Big Ten network.

Jim Becker
07-31-2010, 8:23 PM
Chris, the biggest issue you'll find with U-Verse is limited bandwidth since they push out the video content via IP, too. VDSL isn't the best for this when it comes to HD...they have to compress as much, if not more, than Comcast does, and you can get into trouble once you get into multiple streams. That said, they appear to have had some success recently with pair bonding to increase the available bandwidth to the home...that will hopefully help.

Of course, I'm glad I'm in VZ territory 'cause FTTH is the way to go, IMHO!

John Shuk
08-01-2010, 11:22 PM
Did you get Fios yet Jim?

Neal Clayton
08-02-2010, 3:54 AM
That said, they appear to have had some success recently with pair bonding to increase the available bandwidth to the home...that will hopefully help.

Of course, I'm glad I'm in VZ territory 'cause FTTH is the way to go, IMHO!

i have noticed a bit of an increase in picture quality of late, and noticed that they're offering 25mbps DSL to go with it, so i think there's some truth to that.

still not as good as FIOS, but not too bad.

Chris Padilla
08-02-2010, 7:55 PM
I have to say that my picture quality is right on par with Dish Network. The SI guys and software encoders have their, uh, stuff together on this! It might help that I'm less than 150' from the fiber they brought to the phone box on the side of our house, too! :D

So I have AFTTH (ALMOST fiber to the home)!!! :D :D

Oh, BTW, they black out my Rockies games on FSRM (Fox Sports Rocky Mountain) out here in California...not shocking...but it was the main reason I got the U450 package so I may downgrade to the U300 and save a few more bucks but they'll probably tell me to do that, I'll have to downgrade my DSL from 12 Mbps to 6 Mbps.

Jim Becker
08-02-2010, 9:13 PM
Did you get Fios yet Jim?

Fiber just went up in June (finally...'been waiting for like three years now) and they told me yesterday on my pre-order call that actual ordering and installation should be opening on 31 August. They have a lot more splicing to do as well as getting the terminals up on the poles along this stretch of highway. I aim to be first in line (LOL) and already have my backer board for the ONT up in the basement next to my equipment rack. (I'm requesting inside install of the ONT)


i have noticed a bit of an increase in picture quality of late, and noticed that they're offering 25mbps DSL to go with it, so i think there's some truth to that.

Theoretically, VDSL can push 25mb just fine over reasonably short distances...in fact, VZ uses it in some MDUs where they cannot run fiber all the way to apartments. The downside is that those subscribers cannot get the symetrical 25/25 or 35/35 Internet access. They can get the download, but the upload is something like 5 or 10 Mbs tops. What ATT is face with is distance from the VRAD. That's where the pair bonding they have been testing comes into play...they can get the VDSL speed up higher over more normal distances from the equipment to the home.

Mike Zilis
08-02-2010, 10:09 PM
Does anyone know if the Pair Bonding is a standard offering for U-Verse now or is it dictated by location availability? Is it dependent on which package you order, i.e. the more channels you order along with the higher speed Internet Access you want may dictate the need for Pair Bonding?

-Mike

Neal Clayton
08-03-2010, 1:44 AM
after searching around, looks to me like it's purely distance based. they're not using it to raise bandwidth to the closer people, but rather to extend availability to the further people.

my understanding of uverse is it's entirely demand based. so the number of available channels doesn't matter, since you're only pulling two HD or four SD at any given time from the box down the street.

Mike Zilis
08-04-2010, 8:29 PM
I had heard that the pair bonding was going to be used to increase bandwidth to overcome the limitation of only being able to watch (or record) two HD channels at any one time. In other words, if you've got 3 HD TVs in the house, only two of them can watch HD channels while the third is forced to a standard def channel. This two HD channel limitation was reportedly because of the limited amount of bandwidth AT&T could deliver over the copper run from the neighborhood DSLAM.

We're a DISH household now, but my wife works for AT&T so once the service is available in our neighborhood we'll be switching.

Mike

Chris Padilla
08-10-2010, 7:14 PM
Well, so far so good for us.

BTW, if I change my plan right now, I lose my nice $60/month discount so we'll be doing the U450 pkg for the next 12 months.

We had some problems with remote control response but AT&T sent out a new one and it is much better now.