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Review by gdm See Profile

  • Location: Mchenry, Mchenry, IL, USA
  • Cost: $85 per month
  • Install: about 15 days
Deals aren't as good as they used to be.
I switched to U-Verse because of speeds/pricing but it seems AT&T just wants to charge more.
Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

****Update 2/18/13

Well with AT&T really not being cheaper anymore and speeds being the same they were when i first got it. I put the call in to move to Comcast for internet and phone. Getting a better deal for 2 years and then we will see. For what I'm paying now for 12/1.5 and voice I'm getting 20/4 and voice cheaper with Comcast. My area I never had a problem with Comcast but left for U-Verse because it was cheaper. We shall see, install next week.

****Update 1/30/12

Well after 4 years of being with U-Verse I dropped the TV service and went to DirecTV. I got a new Black Cisco DVR that seems to have a software issue in it. It kept causing reboots whenever it wanted tried 3 different ones. I could've gone back to the old silver DVR but to me why didn't I just get that in the first place instead of the black. Why did they release a product that has a major issue with it. Overall the TV service was ok but not worth the money anymore. It was cheaper at the time but not anymore. I will miss some features to the U-Verse TV and it was my first HD service so it look good to me but being on DirecTV now it's much clearer than U-Verse was.

I'm still keeping phone and internet for the time but maybe looking at Comcast since they are offering more speed for the same money. For now I'll stick with the voice/internet.

****Update 10/3/11

Almost 4 years with AT&T Uverse. It's still solid can't remember the last outage honestly. Prices have gotten higher but luckily I'm grandfathered in. I don't pay for the STB boxes or have a modem rental fee like new installs do. The main reason I switched from Comcast is it was cheaper. To some extend AT&T is a bit cheaper than Comcast but not by much. To me Comcast still has faster internet and the VOD selection is greater. When we move next it'll probably be to Comcast for everything or combo of DISH/Direct and Comcast. If AT&T increased it's upload speeds to 3 megs on the 12 & 18 that would help a bit for me. Also get a larger VOD selection. I'm also getting tired of features only being an option if your an AT&T Wireless subscriber, I used to be but they failed to many times. Don't punish those of us that can't have your Wireless service since it's still terrible in certain areas. Sorry rant off on that part.

Also just like Comcast the service is dependent on the area and lines. With U-Verse it's dependent on distance as well from the VRAD so that's one thing to remember. You won't be able to know your distance till install though.

****Update 10/27/10
Almost 3 years with AT&T U-Verse. Solid service no outages at all. I've seen prices rise but nothing terrible. I still don't think AT&T discounts for having all three services. I have changed my services when promo's come out. Currently I have U200 TV, 12/1.5 internet and Unlimited VoIP. For all that I'm paying $145 before taxes. I was on the U300 and 24/3 until my promos ran out. I do think AT&T needs to lower it's pricing on Internet again and eliminate the 3/1 service. That way they just have 4 - 6/1, 12/1.5, 18/1.5 and 24/3. I think 6 meg should have a 1.5 upload and 18 should have 3 if your profile can handle that.

****Update 10/23/09
Internet and TV have been great so far. TV I still have a phantom issue during heavy rain tons of errors and pixelation. Also get pixelation when it's not raining but not all the time. Matt has been helping me track it down for months now but still nothing. Otherwise since last post they upgraded the TV part for News & Sports Multiview and Mediashare. I keep getting e-panel invites. Sounds like AT&T is testing allowing us to watch recorded shows from our PC's or Mobile phones down the road.

Otherwise still very happy. Just wish they would increase the upload a bit. Hopefully with the new profile coming sometime it will. I still think they need to lower pricing on the internet and get rid of a tier. Just have 3, 6, 12 & 18. Honestly no need for 1.5 anymore.

****Update 4/19/09

Well Internet and TV has been pretty good, recently I get pauses on live and recorded TV every so often. Basically it's as if I hit the pause button and hit it again. Voice I haven't had the fast busy/loss of line in awhile. I do have an issue that can't seem to be explained. When I max out my 10 meg internet connection, downloading large .iso files for work. My voice becomes choppy/static sounding to me. The other end says it just sounds like a really bad connection. Some say it's static others say it's a loss of voice basically. It's as if they hear every other word.

AT&T seems to care less about having all three services with them. As far as giving bigger bundled discounts to it's customers and even quadruple services.

Not sure I will be keeping the voice service or not. I just know with Comcast Digital Voice it seemed much more stable compared to U-Voice at least for me. Hopefully we can get this figured out or I will be going to another voip provider.

Also I forgot to add the reason my taxes were so high was because of a pro rated month plus a full month. I am only paying $5.28 worth of taxes on $30 VoIP which is about what I was paying with Comcast Digital Voice.

****Update 10/31/08

Went to go use the phone this morning and can't dial out get a fast busy once the number is dialed. Same thing happened a couple weeks ago. So far in two months this is not very good service. I have a call into support and am awaiting one back. Using my cell for a conference call right now.

I am waiting for my next bill to double check the taxes. Someone suggested since I was billed twice, pro rated it might be higher.

They got it working a little over an hour ago. Seems to be the same issue the past few times which results in them resetting the voice profile. They are coming out to replace the RG tomorrow.

****Update 10/24/08

I still hadn't heard from anyone. Other then someone calling the house yesterday and talking to my wife. Of course no name/number left.

I called back into billing today and talked to a supervisor and pretty much the same story.

He said once you have all 3 services the double pack discount goes away for those of us that had it. As far as taxes go again he couldn't say much but that MI, WI & IN are all charged the USF fee. I think it is complete BS that AT&T charges the USF for a digital phone service when Call Vantage never did. Then when you talk to lower end people they say it's just part of the charges.

For those with Call Vantage I would keep the service as long as you can.

I am going to start looking at VoIP providers and a good QoS router. Depending on what I find U-Voice will just disappear or I will completely dump AT&T and go back to Comcast, shuttering the thought.

****Update 10/21/08

I got my first bill with U-Voice and am not a happy camper. They took off my double pack $10 discount. Reason given when I called in is since I ordered a 3rd service it gets removed. Then they turn around and charge me the discount ontop of the bill. My taxes have 4 lines now vs 1 and the 4 total $9.52 just because of a $30 VoIP. I have never had that much in taxes with Vonage, Call Vantage or Comcast Digital. I have put numerous calls into AT&T with promies of getting calls back and nothing so far. Two tickets have been opened up concerning the discount and taxes. Nothing so far and those were submitted last thursday 10/16. I am going to give it till the end of the week and if I hear nothing back I will be cancelling U-Voice and possibly U-Verse altogther.

AT&T IMO has no idea how to treat customers when dealing with the U-Voice product. When it was TV & Internet no problem but when you talk about triple play package they have no bundling discount at all. The entire poing of bundling is to get more of a discount overall.

I hate to event think but I may be going back to Comcast. I will update my review once it has to come to some kind of conclusion.

****Update 9/24/08

Things have still been working great. I left Call Vantage for U-Voice since it went live in the chicagoland area and it's $30 for unlimited voice. I had it installed on 9/11 and so far no problems. I do like not needing a secondary QoS router like I needed towards the end with Call Vantage. My two issues right now are the login process to check voicemails via the web is to long. The portal for Vonage, Call Vantage and even Comcast was faster then U-Verse. Secondly, they don't offer the ability to have your voicemails emailed to you like Vonage or Call Vantage. Overall very happy and I seem to have more features then Call Vantage.

Also I updated my price so my package includes U300, Max Internet (10/1.5) and U-Voice all for $154 before taxes.

****Update 3/14/08

I have had service for a month now and no major complaints. I had to call support back out do to my basement STB being on the 59 coax and causing issues. Came out and put cat5 in for me and been working great.

I have dropped POTS and went to Call Vantage that's been working great as well.

I got my first bill today and it wasn't completely correct with what I was told with discounts. When I was having install issues a rep decided to upgrade me for free from the u200 to u400 free for 6 months. Well they only applied a $20 credit instead of $40 which would make it free. I called up and explained what happened 5 minutes later all was taken care of.

Latency isn't a big issue for me but I do look forward to them removing it one day and opening the internet pipe a bit more. Overall very glad I dumped comcast!!!

Oh and 1 think my monthly price is based on the u200 and MAX - 10/1.5 internet.

*********Original Post 2/15/08

I switched over from comcast. I had all 3 services with them. I saw that NE Illinois went live. So on Monday 1/28 I went to the U-verse site and put in my address. To my surprise it said I could get it. Then I called in to make sure and they said yes we can service you.

Now up until this point DSL has never been an option to far from the CO and no RT's for my area.

We go over everything and I have to order POTS again since VoIP isn't an option yet for U-verse service. We do that and according to the POTS person I should only be paying $8-12 in taxes we shall see. So I order 6/1 internet and u200 and they upgrade me to u300 free for 6 months. I get a $100 visa card for u-verse and $50 for POTS. For the u200 and 6/1 I pay $79 a month.

Install was set for 2/1 from 8-10. Well I call about 9:45 and they call dispatch and it appears a tech was never assigned the case. They get someone to come out from 12-2pm. He shows up about 1pm and I show him the house and NID. He leaves to go to the vrad and crossbox. Comes back after an hour and says he is having problems. So he calls for another I & R tech and he shows up about an hour later. They are both working on the lines and about 6pm they say they are coming out on Saturday to get go over it again.

Saturday 2/2 we were out and I get a call about 12pm from the U-verse tech asking about the install. I told him we would be there in 15 minutes and he said fine as he was going to go find the I & R tech.

I get home and drive over to the vrad. Explain to both what happened since they never got any notes from the day before. After an entire day still no luck and they didn't leave till 6pm again.

This went on from Monday to Thursday. Basically the issue was not being able to get or hold sync at my NID. Then Friday 2/9 we left for out of town but they kept working on it. Saturday 2/9 I get a voicemail from U-verse saying all is set and call back to schedule an appt. I call back later that day and the U-verse person said they hadn't heard back from I & R.

So on Monday 2/11 I called the I & R manager (which I got his card after they left on 2/2 and was in contact through out the week even though I was out of town) and he said all was fixed on 2/8. He said he would call a u-verse manager and have them contact me. About 11am on 2/11 I get a call from the u-verse manager and setup the appt. for 2/15 from 12-2pm.

I get a call about 8:15 saying they had a cancellation and could they come at 9am. I couldn't since I had some conf. calls and needed the internet during that. I call about 11am just to verify all is going well and to see if I can get the 10/1.5 internet. They check and I can so they upgraded me to that over the phone and upgraded me to the u400 for the trouble for 6 months free.

So tech calls about 12:15 says he will be here by 1pm. Shows up we go over everything and by 2:30pm all is working. We got the internet up first and then did the TV's.

I have the 2wire/RG in my furnace room since that's where the phone and cable come to and I have a board with everything mounted down there. I have coax going to the DVR and other setop box. Then a cat5 coming up to my office to the Linksys router which I just made a switch. Wireless is running through the RG/2wire and working fine. Just not used to a 2wire interface so that's taking a bit. Sync rate at the RG/2wire is 62 which is very good.

Speeds are as advertised. I don't have HD but the SD picture seems clearer to my wife and I compared to Comcast Digital cable.

Depending on what my POTS bill is I may switch to Call Vantage.

Over all very happy I stuck with it and the techs were very nice the entire time. One thing folks should realize is this is new technology just like when DSL came out. Some people have very smooth installs and others don't.

member for 22.7 years, 6979 visits, last login: 4 years ago
updated 11 years ago


WiFiguru
To infinity... and beyond
Premium Member
join:2005-06-21
Seattle, WA

WiFiguru

Premium Member

Nice!

Very nice review!

Good to hear that everything went okay in the end.

wings10
I Am Legend
Premium Member
join:2004-06-09
South Elgin, IL

wings10

Premium Member

U-Verse

Do the set top boxes have HDMI?

gdm
MVM
join:2001-06-15
Mchenry, IL

gdm

MVM

Re: U-Verse

They do but they have a bug in them right now so you have to use RCA cables.

cvg
@sbcglobal.net

cvg

Anon

uverse

I had uverse u300 and elite internet installed on 9/4/08. The install took about six hours, but it was due to my house wiring thanks to comcast, att replaced it all for free, wires connectors, ect. There was such an improvement over comcast; its cheaper, its faster, more channels, better picture, a 4tuner dvr, all the boxes are hd capable (even though we dont have hd at this point in time), service was friendly, internet speeds were consistant and what they said it would be. We were getting comcast with no digital tv boxes with about 65channels and 6mbps internet for $100 a month. For $109 a month we have 1 4tuner hd/dvr and 3 additional set top boxes and the same 6mbps internet with the U200 package after the free month of the U300. Recently they upgraded to the whole home dvr which lets you access recorded tv from anywhere. Soon it will be able to pause/rewind from any box as well.

koolkid1563
MVM
join:2005-11-06
Powell, WY

koolkid1563

MVM

Interesting

I wondered how they would handle that. Since they are no longer doing bundle discounts for new customers, I wondered how they would treat account changes with the double pack discount wishing to add VoIP...

Big Papap
@sbcglobal.net

Big Papap

Anon

Re: Interesting

Yes they are offering bundle packages till 1-31-09 or 12-31-08

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

keep posting!

thanks for keeping us up to date on these crazy taxes and fees. the bell companies have always been really bad about inflating the prices with fees and taxes(some that are not even federally, state, or locally mandated). i really enjoy my uverse internet service but if my bill is jacked up and they dont make it right i will be going back to dsl direct or possibly(god forbid!) comcast. i really hope it doesn't come to that. *shudders*