Review: AT&T U-VERSE

[Eric_C]

I am very excited to hear about this.

For one the price. $129 for everything is dirt cheap. Right now I pay around $80 to Dish for Silver HD, Showtime, Locals, 1 622, and that damned phone fee.

On top of that I pay $55 to the cable company for a 3mbps internet service.

So for less money I get more than I am paying for and get away from the cable company.

Hopefully by the time its available here they will have the HD issues sorted. Once you have a 622 its going to be tough for a lot of people to move to something that will not record more than 1 HD channel at a time.

I believe they will be competitive since the upgrading will be more centralized rather than having to upgrade everyones box physically.

 

[vmanu2]

No you don't need landline telephone service to get the Internet.

While this is DSL service, is it not standard DSL and has no PPPoE. I uses the same VDSL signal as the video service uses.

I am happy to report that as of this morning all is working! Including remote DVR programming, I will review it later.

Thank you.Looking forward to your review.There are rumors going around about AT&T rolling out U-Verse here in the Dallas area next month.If I'm patient enough for them to give us service,I think I can be patient enough to use it.
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[johnner1999]

any idea when this will move up north in CT like in Torrington

 

[rad]

Hopefully by the time its available here they will have the HD issues sorted. Once you have a 622 its going to be tough for a lot of people to move to something that will not record more than 1 HD channel at a time.

Just remember, it's only 1 HD stream so if you're recording one HD channel you can't be watching another HD channel.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

any idea when this will move up north in CT like in Torrington

I don't know, but I have seen a lot of the pole mounted VRADs popping up in my area...

 

[johnner1999]

I don't know, but I have seen a lot of the pole mounted VRADs popping up in my area...

do you have a photo of what to be looking for?

thanks for any help/hope -- as I really want to dump CableVision and I have too many tree's in my view of either D* or E* :-( (well I could get dish but only HD Voom)

 

[Steelwind]

Hi, I am a Uverse tech here in houston, texas. We have the VRADs that are next to the SAI boxes. Could you take a picture of one of these pole mounted VRADs please?

 

[vmanu2]

Hi, I am a Uverse tech here in houston, texas. We have the VRADs that are next to the SAI boxes. Could you take a picture of one of these pole mounted VRADs please?

http://i18.tinypic.com/2q0t7af.jpg

 

[johnner1999]

wow that looks BIG? how many - errr how often will they have one of them on the pole?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Just got a call from my wife telling me that she just had someone from AT&T stopped by and they dropped off a $50 American Express Gift Check for us because of the mix up on Saturday, plus an thank you card and hes going to try getting us the first month of DSL for free, plus he also left his info incase we have problems again.

Now that is what I call customer service. THANK YOU AT&T.

 

[MyDogHasFleas]

I'm currently a Time Warner cable subscriber. I was thinking of going to satellite, but I'm now going to wait for UVerse to be available in my area (Austin).

The big reason for me is no additional wiring in my house... since it's all IP over Coax or Ethernet, I can install this using the existing Coax home-run wiring in my house. I'm already an AT&T DSL subscriber so that'll be an easy conversion. And I'll be able to get rid of my POTS line since the UVerse DSL has a dry option.

AT&T has announced that they will increase the bandwidth to the home over copper significantly in the second half of this year, which should allow for multiple HD streams. Plus they'll have whole-house DVR by that time.

And the prices look great.

 

[scud77]

I was under the impression that you needed to get a TV/Internet bundle to get U-verse... am I correct that you can select just to get the U-verse TV service if you already have a good internet connection (per Scott's first post)?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

You can just get TV service, however other features such as Remote DVR Programming won't work.

 

[Dudleydog73]

Thank you.Looking forward to your review.There are rumors going around about AT&T rolling out U-Verse here in the Dallas area next month.

I am in the McKinney area. Where did you hear these rumors of possible next month turnup? Any ideas which areas they will target first?

--DD73

 

[vmanu2]

I am in the McKinney area. Where did you hear these rumors of possible next month turnup? Any ideas which areas they will target first?

--DD73

I've talked to a couple of different people that work at the AT&T Experience store at the Northpark Mall.They both said MAYBE sometime in February for the Metroplex.Now,I don't know if that is a general answer that they are supposed to tell everybody or it may be true.So that is why I called it a rumor.

 

[Dudleydog73]

I've talked to a couple of different people that work at the AT&T Experience store at the Northpark Mall.

Hmm, interesting. What do they have in the Experience store? Any demos of U-Verse or any other fun stuff? I may go check that out this weekend.

--DD73

 

[vmanu2]

Hmm, interesting. What do they have in the Experience store? Any demos of U-Verse or any other fun stuff? I may go check that out this weekend.

--DD73

No U-Verse stuff.They have the AT&T/Dish and Homezone demos.It's on the 2nd floor.If you get anything new out of them please post.

 

[cheddarbob]

I find it funny how there is a head room of 70megs on the copper coming into the house, but they can only allow one HD stream, (though it could be head end bottle necks) Then there is the fact that they are still limiting the Broadband speed to 6mb, I have AT&T Dsl right now, and I am on the 6 meg connection, that is regular adsl, when the tech tested my line, i was capable of 20 megs, on copper, but they won't un cork it for me I would think with that kind of bandwidth, they would give the option to do internet only if you wish and have a 20 meg connection on VDSL... But well, I guess we don't have a choice yet, if I want any faster speeds I have to go with Cable, and well, I don't feel like bending over for an Un reliable internet connection... charter sucks here.

Ok, I guess I just had to chime in, there's my 2 cents.

 

[rad]

I find it funny how there is a head room of 70megs on the copper coming into the house, but they can only allow one HD stream, (though it could be head end bottle necks) Then there is the fact that they are still limiting the Broadband speed to 6mb, I have AT&T Dsl right now, and I am on the 6 meg connection, that is regular adsl, when the tech tested my line, i was capable of 20 megs, on copper, but they won't un cork it for me I would think with that kind of bandwidth, they would give the option to do internet only if you wish and have a 20 meg connection on VDSL... But well, I guess we don't have a choice yet, if I want any faster speeds I have to go with Cable, and well, I don't feel like bending over for an Un reliable internet connection... charter sucks here.

Ok, I guess I just had to chime in, there's my 2 cents.

While Scott's location gets him 70Mbps, a house a few blocks away may not due to distance, maybe they'd only get 25Mbps, there's a farily rapid drop off on speed the farther you get from the VRAD. So AT&T probably just says this is what we can offer based on the lowest common denominator so folks don't call up and say he get's two HD channels or 15Mbps DSL why can't I.

 

[scud77]

Here is the pricing information.

https://uma.sbc.com/assets/files/compare_offers.html

What do they charge you for the gateway? And is there a separate monthly fee for the DVR and non-DVR boxes?

Thanks!