Review: AT&T U-VERSE

[LER]

I just ordered U-Verse Internet (10/1.5) and Voice (Staying with E* for TV, since I have 3 HDTV's and 3 ViP-622's, the U-Verse TV can't compete for number of HD streams).

Install scheduled for next Saturday (8/2).

I'm in Williamson County just outside the Round Rock city limits, and they called to sell the tv bundle, but that didn't fly.

Looks like with the bundle and the incentives my phone/internet bill will drop a bit.

(we'll see what it really looks like after all the taxes etc).

I'll post more when we're all done next weekend.

 

[BigFella]

Hey LER - Me too...

Had U-Verse installed yesterday. Internet ("Elite" 6/1) and TV (HD, U200). No phone because they don't offer it in my area yet. Household spending is getting out of hand, so we had to make cuts somewhere. Substituting Uverse for Dish should save about $60 a month when I combine Internet and TV. The huge downside is that I'm sacrificing multiple DVR's and HD streams. Last night was our first night without DVR's in our 2 bedrooms. My daughter says, "THIS SUCKS!" I reminded her that I didn't have TV in my room when I was her age (let alone a DVR)... for some reason, that didn't seem to make her any happier. Frankly, I agree with her appraisal of the situation (don't tell her that), but sacrifices must be made. Besides, if I were to cut $60 out of my Dish bill, I wouldn't get nearly the amount of TV that I'm getting with Uverse.

I'm paid up until next month with Dish, so I'm not going to call them to quit just yet - I'm going to give Uverse a fair trial first. If I can't get used to the lack of multiple DVR's and the ability to archive stuff to external drives, I may just cancel Uverse and bite the $60 bullet to stay with Dish.

 

[LER]

How long did they take for the install? Did they give you any flack about where to put the RG?

Did they give you a manual on the RG? (I can't find one online).

I watch way too much tv to kill off Dish. The Internet and Phone deal looks like it'll actually be better than I thought (I just looked at my current ATT Landline Bill...).

I have a "weird" network set up at the house, which is why I asked about the Flack.

Thanks!

 

[BigFella]

How long did they take for the install? Did they give you any flack about where to put the RG?

Did they give you a manual on the RG? (I can't find one online).

I watch way too much tv to kill off Dish. The Internet and Phone deal looks like it'll actually be better than I thought (I just looked at my current ATT Landline Bill...).

I have a "weird" network set up at the house, which is why I asked about the Flack.

Thanks!

They were at the house from 9:30AM until about 5:30PM. I had diplexed my basic cable with the Dish signal over the existing RG6 that was wired in my home. Dish passed through the diplexers just fine but Uverse doesn't for some reason. As a result, I asked them to run separate lines to each of the rooms to enable me to keep my basic cable as well. They did so without complaint, but it took them a lot of extra time - they were great.

No manual on the RG but I got into it without any problems (the info is on the bottom of the unit) and its GUI is very friendly. I renamed the SSID and set up my Slingbox without issue. The RG is located in my loft/office and it back-feeds the TV signal downstairs to my garage where it is split and distributed throughout the house. The cool thing about the TV STB's is that they each have an Ethernet port on the back panel. As a result, all of the devices that were connecting wirelessly downstairs through a Buffalo wireless to Ethernet adapter (PS3, XA2, Slingbox, Dlink, Wii) are now connected by wire (albeit 10/100 - not 1000).

 

[LER]

Thank you for the info. I got the impression that the GUI was good, just looking to be prepared. Apparently from what I can find, it doesn't have a DynDNS Client in it (not a biggie, I can run one on the FreeBSD box at the house).

Just looking to be prepared.

Since I'm getting the TV service, just need to get the RG in my "computer room" (the game room upstairs), and get the telephone back-fed to the alarm panel and the rest of the jacks (via an On-Q panel near the alarm panel).


I mapped out (for them) all the IP's and computers and crap. We'll see what they do on Saturday.

 

[BigFella]

All of my devices/computers got IP's from the RG without any issues (DHCP is a wonderful thing) behind its Firewall. Thank you for keeping this thread alive and I look forward to hearing about your experience.

 

[BigFella]

Hey! I just noticed that we joined Satellite Guys at the same time - you're a day older than me though...

 

[JIGGIEFLY]

I am getting my install on thursday 7/31 am getting the (Elite 6/1) and tv U300 with HD i get first month of tv free and am getting $200 in cash back rebates $100 check & $100 visa gift card because i am leaving Comcast i will report back on how my install goes and my thoughts on the system. Hope all goes well with your guys installs i have heard a lot of good things about this system so heres there chance.

 

[LER]

Hey! I just noticed that we joined Satellite Guys at the same time - you're a day older than me though...

Hehe

Glad you're here!

 

[LER]

The DynDNS Client I was refering to was so that the dynamic OUTSIDE Ip I get will be in the DNS so I can find my house from work, etc.

 

[BigFella]

The DynDNS Client I was refering to was so that the dynamic OUTSIDE Ip I get will be in the DNS so I can find my house from work, etc.

Gotcha - I was referring to your note: "I mapped out (for them) all the IP's and computers and crap."

 

[BigFella]

I am getting my install on thursday 7/31 am getting the (Elite 6/1) and tv U300 with HD i get first month of tv free and am getting $200 in cash back rebates $100 check & $100 visa gift card because i am leaving Comcast i will report back on how my install goes and my thoughts on the system. Hope all goes well with your guys installs i have heard a lot of good things about this system so heres there chance.

Best of luck to you. My service has been fine so far except that I did notice last night that all of my upstairs phone extensions no longer have a dial tone. I guess the installer accidentally disconnected a wire or two. I'll call them today to come back out to fix it.

 

[LER]

I have a couple of printers and computers with static IP's. and ports mapped from outside to them. We'll see what they say when they're here Saturday.

 

[LER]

Internet is up, VOIP will be on Wednesday....
The 2wire gateway actually allowed me to map both static and DHCP addresses into the firewall to allow the remote access.

Here's my new speedtest from the U-Verse max (10/1.5) Internet:

The VOIP was put off till Wednesday AM (some snafu between the halves of ATT).

 

[LER]

May get the VOIP tomorrow, assuming the computers will talk to each other.

The ethernet that I had ends put on doesn't seem to be working, but I still have my wireless bridge set up (actually changed from the SVEASOFT to DD-WRT on the WRT54GS, and went into client-bridge mode.

Seems to work well for jumping between the floors.

The speed is great

 

[chrispina]

just signed up!

Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough review and all of the helpful information in the comments! This thread has caused me to call at&t several times to verify what we are signing up for.

Here are our details:

We signed up yesterday when a sales rep came to our door. We chose the u200 plan (similar to what we have with TW) with HD and a second box and the elite (6 mbps) internet service. We don't have a land line phone and have no plans to add one.

We live in Round Rock, TX, and currently use Time Warner for cable and internet. We have an HDTV (but no HD service) upstairs that we mostly use for gaming and a 27" SDTV downstairs that we use for tv watching. We have one DVR with 2 tuners, so we can record one show while watching another. Our current official download speed is 7 mbps, with a recent speed test at 6702 kbps down, 435 up on hubby's laptop upstairs near the router and 4812 down, 263 up on my desktop downstairs, both wireless. We certainly weren't thrilled with the performance, so it didn't take much of a price drop to convince me to try out U-verse.

We were paying around $135 a month for TW before tax. U-verse will run us $109 before tax. We will be getting a free install, 1st month of TV free, $100 cash-back, and access to at&t wifi hotspots (starbucks, etc.).

The rep said that we would have 4 streams, including 2 HD. The whole house DVR should be up and running in September/October. He told us that it was fiber to the home, but I didn't understand that well enough at the time to ask for details. Since reading this thread, I have called in and confirmed that it will be FTTH, not FTTN.

The sales rep was polite and helpful and not pushy at all and he was very patient when I left multiple times to look things up online, called TW to ask about our current service, or IM my husband to get his opinion. I think it helped that I was obviously interested, but the entire sales experience was very pleasant.

They had an install date available this Saturday, but we were busy. We are scheduled for installation on the 16th. I'll comment again and tell how the installation went and how we are liking the service. I'm really looking forward to the new DVR and the whole house DVR. Sometimes you really need access to the Pirates episode of Backyardigans on both TVs.

 

[LER]

Welcome to the site, Chris!

You and I are close neighbors (I'm also in Round Rock, I'm near O'Connor and RR620.).

I just had U-Verse Internet and Phone installed. I didn't get the TV as they can't replace my Dish stuff (see below).

Where are you that you are getting FTTH? (I'm FTTN).

Thanks for joining!

 

[BigFella]

An update...

I can't take it anymore... DVR's are my "Crack":yikes. After UVerse was installed, I discovered that they were feeding me a line regarding the "whole house DVR". The two non-DVR receivers I have in our bedrooms cannot access the programming on the DVR that I have recorded in my living room. That, combined with the fact that caller ID is not displayed on my TV (Uverse voice is not available in my area and caller ID will not work with POTS) and there is no means of external storage or protecting your recordings, have made my mind up. I'm going back to Dish for TV and I've already hooked it back up (I never actually stopped my Dish service). However, I plan to keep Uverse for internet (Elite 6/1) if they'll have me.

Anyone know of a coax to ethernet adapter that will work with the Uverse RG? The ethernet connections on the Uverse STB's (that I'll be returning) come in quite handy in remote areas of the house that only have coax strung.

BTW, as I mentioned earlier, they disconnected my upstairs phone extensions when they installed the RG. I called to have it fixed and a second tech came out from ATT. Even though the Uverse installer screwed the line up, they would not come out to fix it and insisted that a "regular" ATT tech come out to take a look. He came out the next day, fiddled around for a couple of hours, complained about the shoddy workmanship of the previous, Uverse installer and said that he needed a "special" tool and would be back the next evening to fix it. He never showed up... I took a look at it over the weekend and noticed that the first guy had hijacked the pair of wires that connected to my upstairs extensions and connected them to the new Uverse RG. This past weekend, I connected the RG to another pair and reconnected my phone extensions to the original pair and repaired the problem myself - no "special" tools needed.

 

[chrispina]

LER:

Thanks for the welcome! I'm in NE Round Rock, off of University. My neighborhood is across the street from Teravista.

 

[Bigjoo]

Long time reader, first time poster.

I am scheduled to recieve my U-verse U400 package with 10mpbs internet on 8/13/08 and I had a couple questions.

Have they added the ability to order live events? This is a big deal and the person i was talking to couldn't/wouldn't give me a straight answer. Also i was wondering if they have improved the dvr functionality at all concerning the remote DVR viewing and whatnot. Thanks in advance.