Thoughts on AT&T U-verse

[rondvu]

Anyone have feed back on AT&T's TV, likes dislikes etc? Please let me know.

[Tex]

I've had AT&T U-verse for a little bit over a week and it's been a headache. Only because of Cox and AT&T battling over cable connections. But I'm trying to stick with it to give it a chance.

As far as TV goes, there are two ways to receive U-verse TV service. One is through traditional coax cable. If you live in an apartment complex it may not be possible because Cox owns the coax utility boxes. With coax you can run a cable wire from the any cable outlet in your house to your U-verse receiver. Since they couldn't install u-verse through coax they have to go through a CAT5 line. Basically a modem is connected to your phone jack and a CAT5 ethernet line is run from the modem to your TV. Well my modem is in my office so I have an annoying wire running across my apartment. The less TVs the better in this situation. Overall picture quality is great in HD and picture transition is quick when changing channels. The U-bar feature is cool where you can view your photos uploaded to your flickr account, view stocks, weather, traffic, yellow pages, and yahoo games. You also have DVR remote access where you can program and delete shows on your DVR from any computer.

I have U-Verse internet and it is completely slow. Even for the 2nd best package. I recommend staying with Cox internet.

U-verse TV should be less expensive than Cox and with their free installation with internet as well as rebates now may be a good time to subscribe to U-verse.

[actionman]

My neighbor had it installed and it was a nightmare. This is more in regards to installation services than the actual TV/Internet Services. It was then a nightmare to get it out. Here are the highlights.

1. They take over the wiring in your house and modify it as they see fit. Whether it is the coax line or the traditional 4 lines of copy. They will cut and snip what they need so if you need to remove it you will probably need professional wiring help to get your house back in order.

2. Pretty bad incompetence on the install. It took several days and a couple of technicians to get it.

3. Once he had had it for awhile and decided to back out he asked them to put his house wiring back in order. I saw no less that three AT&T trucks over there trying to figure out what the installers did.

Somewhat related was the pre-sales process. AT&T outsources their sales to another company. A hard sales company that uses barely competent young salesmen IMO. What AT&T was doing in my neighborhood was coming by with a carload of salesmen and dropping one off *for the day*. This happened over a 2-3 day period every day. He was then responsible for going to every house within walking distance and putting the hard sell on them. When he was taking a break or just done he'd just sit around on our curbs because he had no ride back. At one point he went up to one of my neighbors and asked to use her dryer to dry his pants! Having him around our neighborhood all day long was kind of creepy. At one point my wife called the cops on him and he got questioned as to why he was hanging around our neighborhood all day.

YMMV.

[EvokeCoffee]

I'm glad someone brought this up. I keep seeing the commericals for this new service and was going to take some time today to look into it. It seemed to good to be true, really. While I think it is probably a great time on the money side of things to get involved with it, It seems they have a few issues that need to be worked out before it is worth getting.

Thanks for the insight, guys. That helps alot an saved me quite a bit of time!

..be bold

[Toadrax]

In theory, u-verse should be superior for TV viewing.

I'm suprised there isn't someone out there happy with it? The installers can't all be bad.

[rondvu]

My sister and her husband who live in Edmond had U-verse installed in January and they love it. They saw U-verse at his sister's house in Moore. I called them as asked them if they had any issues and they did not and was surprised. Both were happy with the installation and love the U-verse options. They say the picture is clearer and like the 4 channel recording capibilty on the DVR and they were cable fans for years. They however had internal AT&T managers come to their house and said they were knowledgable and very professional. I wanted other opinions before I made the leap. I guess I need to find the AT&T managers that come to their house.

[Midtowner]

AT&T is a very backward thinking company, IMHO. The service isn't even available in downtown OKC. I just don't like the way AT&T does business. Once they lock you into a contract, good luck getting any kind of service -- at least any kind of service not based in India.

I prefer Cox. I can call 'em at 2 a.m. (I've done it) and they've fixed my DVR over the phone and even switched my movie channels around right then and there. Hold times are also minimal and the person I talk to is stateside -- bliss.

Rondvu, you seem knowledgeable about this service, Cox uses fiber to transmit their signal, does AT&T pipe their signal down their old copper lines? If that is the case, if all my neighbors sign up, isn't that going to impact my service? I don't know much about U-Verse, educate me.

Also, with AT&T's history, what is going to keep them from handing over my usage history to the government without the government having a warrant (again)?

[rondvu]

Thanks for the compliment midtowner but I really don't. I ask alot of questions. I have checked with my brother-in-law and he showed me some information that he was left. It seems U-verse is fiber optic to your neighborhood and then it goes through the traditional phone lines. You are the sole subscriber to the line. My brother-in-law had cable back when it was Mulitmedia Cablevision and swore never to change. He was so impressed with what he saw at his sister's house he went out and bought a HD TV and orderd the service. I have satillite and it does look better then what I have. I asked some friends and they say their cable gets knocked off and their internet speed is sporadic. They say all Cox's customers share the same lines. Maybe it's where you live, I don't know. I am a bit odd I try to have plan B,C,D and E. I was not inconvieniced during the icestorm I have a generator and a gas hook up to run the house. I also found some information at uverse.att.com hope this helps.

[Midtowner]

What was your brother in law's contract with AT&T? How long did he have to sign up for?

[rondvu]

Midtowner I just got off the phone with him and he said he does not have a contract. He told me he as a guranteed price for two years. Looks like earlier in the there is some positive things about u-verse. From what I am making out the product itself is good but, the installation process could use some improving. What are you thinking?

[Martin]

from what i understand, u-verse's fiber doesn't go all the way to your door so you're not going to get fiber speeds. basically, what at&t is marketing here is dsl on steroids. pretty much every review i've seen rates it slower than cable. furthermore, if anything breaks you're going to get craptacular dsl-like customer service... which basically amounts to a bunch of finger-pointing.

i use cox. the u-verse guerilla marketing team infiltrated my neighborhood this past spring. they offered to give me a $120 gift card for switching... that was enough to tell me that they had a product that couldn't sell itself. i've been very pleased with cox's product and with their customer service.

so... if somebody offered fios to my door, maybe we'd talk. otherwise if i were deciding on internet service today i'd still pick cox.

-M

[Luke]

U verse isn't available in my neighborhood. I have AT&T everything bundle and this seems to be a better alternative to the Dish portion of my bundle.

[Easy180]

Had the door to door salesperson come around yesterday...Had never heard of it and was intrigued...Now have concerns based off this thread

rondvu did you make the switch?...Wasn't real thrilled with the wiring post from actionman

[bretthexum]

I've heard good and bad. I guess some homes can use the existing coax and others need to be re-wired.

[SWOKC 4 me]

My parents had it installed on Friday. That evening their tv, phone, and DSL service went on and off intermittently. After a 2 hour phone conversation with tech support they decided to send another installer out to check everything out. The next installer came out on Saturday. He was there for about an hour and when he left he said the first guy didn't install something correctly and now they should have no problems.

Later that evening their phone and DSL service worked fine but they still had problems with their TV service. They called support back on sunday and after being disconected from the call 3 different times he finally got with a rep that agreed to send another installer out today. I just left their house at 1:55pm and the installer that was supposed to be there between 8:00am and 2:00pm had not shown up. Nedless to say my dad was pretty upset and is about to tell them to unhook the whole thing.

[bishop186]

My roommates and I have AT&T U-verse in Edmond. Honestly, the installation was quick (I wasn't living there at the time, but I used to hang around enough to have been there when they installed it) and it worked immediately. The installation guy was cool though he did forget his tools and ended up asking my friend for the favor of driving them to him (which we did, nothing else to do).

The service is pretty consistent though we have had a couple of outages but I haven't had the headache that my parents and I had with Cox's internet service though that was partially because of bad wiring and overloaded circuits at my parents' house.

Recently the DVR has started to skip a minute every day at a time which happens to be when one of our programs is recording. I don't know what this is yet, an update or what, but if it doesn't stop soon I will call it in.

We have 4 boxes and they all work just fine simultaneously and the nice thing about the boxes that aren't the box that's hooked up to our (AT&T provided; more about this later) router is that they have a CAT-5e connection in the back to hook up a computer or X-Box to. Also, this last update to the DVR/boxes brought with it the ability to watch DVR (but not record) on the satellite boxes throughout the house (it used to be just the main box). No ability to pause live TV on the satellite boxes still, however.

The biggest complaint I have is the router that's provided with the internet service. I don't know the make and model so I can't properly find the documentation on it. It's a wireless b router, and I'm concerned that when wireless n comes out they won't supply a wireless n router for a while afterward (and I don't think we can use our own router because the router also seems to provide the DVR to the main/recording/living-room box but it's something I'll definitely be asking when wireless n gets officially implemented).

[Easy180]

I ended up passing on her offer when she stopped back by this evening...Looks promising but I think it might be best at this point to see if they improve on the installation and service before pulling the trigger

Can't say I am disappointed at all in Cox but the demo on their website made U-verse pretty enticing

I hope it does become successful as it will force Cox to make continual improvements and hopefully offer up an improved DVR in the near future

[ddavidson8]

How is the picture on uverse?

[proud2Bsooner]

I've had u-verse for a year now. There were some issues with my particular house that lingered for about 1-2 months. I lucked out because the service was new to the area and trying to get off the ground. So they gave me an extra check and took some good chunks off my bill early on. I had to have a tech come to our house about 5 times in my first two months. Someone finally figured out that my problems were due to a bad board and I haven't had any problems since. It has been very reliable and I am totally happy with it.
I don't enjoy ATT customer service. You get handed off a lot when trying to make calls for tech or customer service. But I rarely have to make those calls. One drawback is the Weather Channel. It is not local on the 8's. It is national that scrolls through all the big cities only. The other thing I miss is Cox/News9 on channel 53. But with ATT I can DVR the news, since the DVR is free.
A few cool things for me is the free flickr Pro account (would normally cost $30/yr.). You can view your photos on TV, and they also have some TV games that are kind of cool when you're trying to pass the time.
My mom has Cox, and I don't miss them at all. I had numerous billing issues with them, and I'll never go back. U-verse feels more "high tech" than Cox too. Just looks cleaner and the picture is great. Last thing...the internet is better than someone advertised on here. I don't know, I'm not an expert, but I had DSL (slow) and Cox. Uverse interweb feels every bit as fast as Cox and I do some big down/uploads frequently.
I would recommend Uverse.

[route66gal]

My parents had it installed on Friday. That evening their tv, phone, and DSL service went on and off intermittently. After a 2 hour phone conversation with tech support they decided to send another installer out to check everything out. The next installer came out on Saturday. He was there for about an hour and when he left he said the first guy didn't install something correctly and now they should have no problems.

Later that evening their phone and DSL service worked fine but they still had problems with their TV service. They called support back on sunday and after being disconected from the call 3 different times he finally got with a rep that agreed to send another installer out today. I just left their house at 1:55pm and the installer that was supposed to be there between 8:00am and 2:00pm had not shown up. Nedless to say my dad was pretty upset and is about to tell them to unhook the whole thing.

About the same thing happened to my mom, her phone was off for 2 days!! All kinds of problems, she had to switch back to Cox.

[OKCMallen]

AT&T is a very backward thinking company, IMHO. The service isn't even available in downtown OKC. I just don't like the way AT&T does business. Once they lock you into a contract, good luck getting any kind of service -- at least any kind of service not based in India.

I prefer Cox. I can call 'em at 2 a.m. (I've done it) and they've fixed my DVR over the phone and even switched my movie channels around right then and there. Hold times are also minimal and the person I talk to is stateside -- bliss.

Rondvu, you seem knowledgeable about this service, Cox uses fiber to transmit their signal, does AT&T pipe their signal down their old copper lines? If that is the case, if all my neighbors sign up, isn't that going to impact my service? I don't know much about U-Verse, educate me.

Also, with AT&T's history, what is going to keep them from handing over my usage history to the government without the government having a warrant (again)?

Wasn't available in my neighborhood by 50th and Western, either.

[rondvu]

I did take advantage of U-verse. I live near 63rd and Meridan and the install took about 6 hours. Two techs came out; this was on a thursday. On friday I realized there was not enough cable to move my tv cabinet and called them. They come out the next morning to correct. Over all I am pleased with U-verse. I have a very clear picture ( no high def here). I am glad I made the switch My DSL has been great.

[circuitboard]

I had uverse for 10 days. Cancelled and went back to Cox. The channels kept freezing. The internet box/router combo kept losing signal. Tech came 3 times! Finally said enough is enough. The customer service is horriable. I kept telling the guy I did'nt want the service, and he kept going on and on about it would get better.

[chembree]

I never had any problems with Cox television (well - some channel quality issues about 4 years ago), but my internet would drop CONSTANTLY -- serously, the service would drop 5-6 times an hour (This was when I was paying attention - who knows how often it dropped when I wasnt looking!!) --- I live in an apartment complex and that may have had something to do with it, but Cox would never fix the problem ....

That said, the pushy guys came in October, but they were really nice, but pushy -- I signed up and been using the service for about 2 months -- I dont know if the internet is great because i really dont know what i may have been missing, but at least Im constantly connected and service is much, much faster - I havent experienced a disconnect.

The installation was kinda rough, the guy came at 8:00am -- the phone lines in the apartments were 'locked' or something and he had to call a second tech -- the installation started about 10:00 am and ended about 4:00pm -- he even added a second wall outlet in the upstairs bedroom at no extra cost (It may have been free anyway, but it was not on the work order) -- The guy was very nice and helped clean up some of my extra cables that were behind my TV!

The TV is service is also very good, about the same as Cox, however they put a copy protection signal on alot of network shows, I tried to copy an image off the OU/Mizzou football game onto a DVD (The image with the Texas Fan Crying .. LOL) but it had a copy protection (I never experienced that with Cox), i played around and found a few shows are also protected (Pushing Daisies, How I Met Your Mother and im sure a few others) - thats not a big deal to me - I like to copy images of fans crying and send to my friends, but something other people may be interested in knowing about. You also get Fox Southwest Channels for Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, not much different, but its nice to have.

The service and product seem to work great for me, and it is strange that they advertise like they are all over, and lots of people cant get the service, but Im enjoying everthing so far --- also, Im not locked into any contract.