Uverse internet finally available

[Foxbat]

Well, today brought some good news and some bad: the good is UPS has the replacement RG arriving tomorrow. The bad is I got my first phone bill for U-verse and they are charging me for the phone calls I placed on the Friday the service was installed. It's like the billing cycle starts the following day, so Friday is pay-as-you go. This is a Family-friendly site, so I won't type what I'm feeling right now.

So while I'm virtualizing an old Windows server tomorrow, I'll be talking to U-verse billing to get this cleared up. Hopefully, I'll get these charges eliminated and the credit for service that was supposed to be applied to my account, but is mysteriously missing from the bill.

I guess I should have gotten the Ooma to start with. Live and Learn, I always say...

 

[Foxbat]

So far I must say that the AT&T representatives I have dealt with on the phone have been extremely helpful and easy to work with. They had already corrected their error with the Off-Network charges, refunding that amount, and when I asked about the free install offer, the CSR said that he would fix that right away as my order had been re-entered wrong when I had to delay it for a week.

Hopefully there will be a UPS package from AT&T waiting for me (currently showing status of On Vehicle for Delivery Today) when I get home from work.

 

[Foxbat]

Whee!!! I'm back, baby! I have a dial tone! I have WiFi that actually goes somewhere other than my home LAN! And I can Fold again!

 

[Ronnie-]

Woop Woop!

Posted Using The New SatelliteGuys Reader App!

 

[lern4483]

Whee!!! I'm back, baby! I have a dial tone! I have WiFi that actually goes somewhere other than my home LAN! And I can Fold again!

Awesome!

 

[Foxbat]

I hope the rest of my U-verse experience is totally boring and uneventful.

I turn on my Apple TV and discover a few new apps like Weather Channel and Smithsonian. There were two Disney apps, too, and imagine my surprise when I used the U-verse link to enable the DisneyXD app... especially since my U-verse does not include television.

Oops.

 

[lern4483]

I hope the rest of my U-verse experience is totally boring and uneventful.

I turn on my Apple TV and discover a few new apps like Weather Channel and Smithsonian. There were two Disney apps, too, and imagine my surprise when I used the U-verse link to enable the DisneyXD app... especially since my U-verse does not include television.

Oops.

Just informed my speeds can be increased
To 45 download speed.
They have to change my modem for this.
I have 24 now but I get buffering with my apple
And Roku.

 

[Ronnie-]

I wonder if it's the area. I didn't get beyond the initial buffer with my previous cable internet, and the same Sith my current uverse. And that's with dual streams.

In any case , 24mbps should be plenty for any hd stream.

Posted Using The New SatelliteGuys Reader App!

 

[Foxbat]

... and the same Sith my current uverse. And that's with dual streams.

Is this some Star Wars / Ghostbuster crossover idea that J.J. Abrahms is toying with? ("Don't cross the lightsabers. That would be incredibly bad." "How bad, Obi Wan?" "Imagine the Kessell Run suddenly taking 2,000 parsecs..." "Okay. Thanks, Obi Wan. Everybody, don't cross the lightsabers...")

I figured out how to mount the 2Wire unit I got to my wallboard so I could remove it and not damage it: Magnets. Of course, there are no flat surfaces on the 2Wire residential gateway (looks great on a desk, sucks to mount on a wall) but it does have a steel cooling grill on both sides. Steel + magnets + Velcro = flexible mounting that holds the RG in place, but lets me yank it off the wall if I need to.

This weekend we went to my wife's place and I took the shelf (6" x 37" x 5/8" cherry board) so my Father-in-Law could make quick work of turning it into a deeper shelf by cutting it into three piece then using biscuits to join the pieces together. This makes the shelf that holds the APC UPS for the Netgear switch and LANTRONIX AirPrint box. Here's the end result:

 

[Foxbat]

Today's lesson in AT&T online chat call support was patience. I still do not have a definitive answer on accessing our VoiceMail other than them saying I am not being charged for these calls. I counter that while it is true that I am not being "charged" for these calls, I am losing my minutes to these calls. So far, of the 72 minutes of OffNetwork calls I have made, 20 of them are to my VoiceMail number.

For some reason Billing thinks it's a Technical problem and transferred me to Technical. The second time through Technical, they escalated me to Tier 2 and after fifteen minutes pronounced it a Billing problem and transferred me back to Billing where all they could do is verify I am not being billed for these calls.

One Billing CSR was definitely not an English major as they kept on saying "you want be charged for calls". !?!!??!? I said, no I do not want to be charged for calls, at which point "Rich" said he could not help me and transferred me back to Technical.

I had enough after two hours, and besides, I had my own users with technical support issues I needed to address.

I did get the return label so I am all set to return the broken Pace Resident Gateway in the morning.

 

[Foxbat]

Today's update: the dead Residential Gateway is on its way back to AT&T. There is road construction by the Post Office so the whole process was more time-consuming than it should have been. But it's one less thing to worry about.

The bright spot was getting a phone call from the AT&T Technical Support agent from the Texas branch. He took my question about VoiceMail activity as In-Network versus Off-Network to heart and is following up with higher level Billing Support. Today's good news was two separate confirmations that VoiceMail is supposed to be In-Network and should not count against the U-verse Voice monthly allotment of minutes. Likewise, incoming calls that get redirected to VoiceMail will not count against the monthly minutes, either. Finally, he said that AT&T is now investigating why this is not happening in my case.

So, good news all around.

 

[Foxbat]

Here's a new twist: I tried to access my Dish ViP 722K via the Dish Anywhere app and the app just spun its wheels. I wonder if I need to re-register the 722K due to the change in ISP.

 

[Foxbat]

Here's a new twist: I tried to access my Dish ViP 722K via the Dish Anywhere app and the app just spun its wheels. I wonder if I need to re-register the 722K due to the change in ISP.

I actually had to delete the Dish Anywhere App from my iPhone and add it again before it would work. Nothing to do with the change to U-verse.

I've noticed a slight echo on some phone calls. Is that other people's experience?

 

[Foxbat]

I got a follow-up call from my AT&T advocate from Texas. He reiterated that he had been in contact with the Team that needs to put the fix in, but the good news continues to be that any calls to my VoiceMail should be considered In-Network, whether I make them from home or an incoming call gets redirected to VoiceMail.

He asked if a member from the Tier 2 Billing Team had been in contact with me but so far he has been the only person who has called me.

The first bill is due next week so it will be interesting to see if the final bill has everything adjusted properly.

 

[Claude Greiner]

On a whim, I checked to see if they finally turned it on since installing the VRAD a year ago, and it said available, but for internet and voice only, no tv yet.

I do have my install set for this friday. My internet bill will darn near be cut in half, and my speed goes from our cable max of 7mbps to 18mbps.

Curious as to why tv isnt available yet? Not that I necessarily wanted it, but I might have gotten a low package bundle to have as a backup to Directv in bad weather.

Why would you want their TV anyways, is the way I look at it

 

[Ronnie-]

Why would you want their TV anyways, is the way I look at it

I am quite happy with my directv, but I would have at least given the basic package a look in a bundle. I had my cable like that, and on a couple of occasions it came in handy during a storm (like a hurricane) when sat service might be out for a little while.

 

[Foxbat]

I went to check on my U-verse Internet Data Usage and wasn't able to pull up the page, it kept on routing me back to my my Plan overview. Has anybody been able to get this to work with U-verse?

Regarding the TV, I didn't like being limited to two HD streams at once. I can't count how many times we've been recording two HD programs while the two TVs are watching two other HD programs at the same time. With the ViP722k and ViP211 on my account, I could have six concurrent HD recordings (3 satellite, 3 OTA) going at once. I wouldn't give that up.

 

[Ronnie-]

Where do you go to check that?

 

[Foxbat]

Where do you go to check that?

The CSR told me to go to the MyATT site, but it never produced a usable page, just took me to the account login page. Here is the direct link from AT&T's "Check my usage" button: https://www.att.com/olam/loginAction.olamexecute?ltarget=BBU

The target=BBU is supposed to be BroadBand Usage, but since U-verse supposedly has no Cap, there is nothing to track. The next time my advocate from Texas calls, I'll ask him.

 

[Ronnie-]

I thought they did have a cap, or is that for dsl

Posted Using The New SatelliteGuys Reader App!