 Review by scots 
UPDATED: 278 days ago
member for 9.9 years, 1934 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Raleigh,Wake,NC
 $146 per month
 about 14 days
 "Fastest internet in this area, great picture quality for TV portion of service."
 "None so far!"
 "Can't beat it!"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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AT&T U-verse was launched in my area a little over a month ago. I checked when they first announced it was available, but it said it wasn't available at my house. About a month or so later I decided to check again just for the heck of it, and that time it said it was available. After checking out what was available and the pricing, I decided to go ahead and sign up for it. I signed up at the U-verse web site, and the sign-up process was very easy. I was with Time Warner Cable's Road Runner for internet & Dish Network for TV. The Road Runner is paid for by my employer, so I don't get any choice in which speed package I want. I decided to keep the Road Runner (since it's free for me) and use it exclusively for work or as a backup if necessary. The TV part of U-verse was $10 less per month for about the same channels I had with Dish Network, so it was a no-brainer to dump Dish. Dish is getting ready to bump up their prices, so that makes the savings even better. AT&T had an install date about 2 weeks out, and I signed up for the 12pm to 2pm arrival window on a Saturday. I read a lot of horror stories about installations being cancelled, no-shows, etc (however none had happened in my area), so I was a little nervous as the installation date approached.
Installation day arrived, and it couldn't have gone any better/smoother. They actually started EARLY! I got a call around 9:15am from the outside technician. He stated that he was on his way to my house, and that he would be here in 15 to 20 minutes. He arrived around 9:30am, and a few minutes before he arrived I got a call from the inside technician (Eric). Eric stated that he knew my install was scheduled for the 12pm to 2pm window, but that he had an earlier opening and said he would come over "right now" if I didn't mind. I told him that was fine with me, and he said he'd be here in about 15 to 20 minutes. The outside technician explained to me that he was going to check the signal to make sure it was good, install a new Network Interface Device (NID) on the outside of my house, and then the inside technician would take over from there. Eric arrived shortly after the outside technician started his work and explained what all he would be doing. He said that the outside technician said that the signal was good, so we should be good to go.
The install took about 4 hours, and they didn't have any problems at all that I'm aware of. Eric told me that I was the first person in my neighborhood to sign up for U-verse, and said that I was plugged into "port 1." I signed up for the U200 TV package and 18/1.5 internet. I did a speed test right after Eric finished the install, and I'm getting about as close as one can get to the advertised speeds. While the 18Mbps down is awesome, I'm really excited about the 1.5Mbps up since Time Warner has been stuck on 384K up for quite a while. From what I've seen so far, the picture quality of the TV service is equal to or better than I had with Dish Network. When he finished the install, Eric took several minutes to explain the TV service to me. He also gave me his business card, and told me to call him if I had any problems at all with the service in the next 2 or 3 days. Both technicians were very friendly, and extremely professional. I don't think they could have sent anyone better.
The router supplied is a 2wire, and the TV boxes are Cisco (Scientific Atlanta). The router is the "gateway" for both the internet and TV service. It has 4 wired ports and built-in 802.11g wireless for computers. I plugged in my own Apple AirPort extreme router so I could have 802.11n, and had no problems with adding it into the mix. I gave tech support a 4 rather than a 5 because I haven't had any need to call so far, so don't really know what it's like.
Followup comments:  
Socal customer
@sbcglobal.net
| Disgusted with AT&T U-verse Lets start this off with saying that I have grown up with cable high speed internet. I always have been more than happy with the speeds that I have gotten from Comcast and Time Warner. That all ended with Time Warner claiming that I used illegal activity on the internet and constantly shut my service down. I called numerous times and asked why and according to them, thier so called "Internet Police" suspected foul play. All I do is check my e-mail and play games like Day of Defeat, Diablo 2, and etc. They could not tell me what illegal activity was been done because they werent at liberty to say(I still dont understand this and either does every computer salvy person I know, including people who work in the computer business). So after months of this internet blocking by Time Warner we cancelled and went with AT&T DSL. We had the modem hooked up to a wireless Linksys router and all way decent. The speeds were no where as fast but it did the job and we had connection. Soon after an AT&T repesenative contacted us with news up a fiber optic upgrade called U-Verse. Its now been 2 months with this connection and I have not had one day without a problem. I constantly lose connection, not on one computer but all 4 that are connected to the wireless. As we speak my computer is the only one connected and I am receiving 11mbps. Nothing like the 54mbps constant that I should be getting. I have had the tech guys over at the house 3 times to see what has been going on, one time they replaced the router/modem(since its all in one), other times they have sat there puzzled to what is going on. Unfortuntly when you call thier support line they make you go through the same steps, which might I add does absolutly nothing at all, they do a bandwidth test, they make you restart the router, they make sure that your cables are properly plugged in, they do and say all the things like you are a monkey using a computer for the first time. This has caused alot of stress because we have one kid in college and another in highschool and these days homework assignments are submitted online at college and most of thier research is done online. Back to the technical problem. I was wondering if anyone is having the same issues as me with connection problems. According to AT&T I am a first so they treat me as a science experiment and claim that this is as they say "Most likly" my problem. This is my main question to a computer geek : How can they claim that this connection is fiber-optic if they still use a phone line for the connection to come to the house? My thoughts are if they have fiber-optic coming from thier hub to the house and then from the house to the modem they have phone line wouldnt this cause a bottle necking type action? If someone could please help me out so I can better explain this to AT&T other than telling them that my connection is super slow and constantly gets dropped(even though that explains it perfectly) maybe im not telling them the computic way. All comments will help me out and I really hope that there is a reason why this is happening. | |
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scots
Can we have Twinkies?
Premium
join:1999-12-06
Raleigh, NC
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·ooma
 ·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T CallVantage
4 edits | Re: Disgusted with AT&T U-verse AT&T U-verse is fiber to the node in your neighborhood, and then from there it comes over the copper phone lines to your house. It is not fiber all the way to the house, and I have never seen it advertised as such. The service is actually VDSL. VDSL allows for faster speeds than ADSL. Which tier of service are you signed up for with U-verse? The fastest U-verse speed available at the moment is 18Mbps (called Max 18). The other tiers available are 10Mbps (Max), 6Mpbs (Elite), 3Mbps (Pro), and 1.5Mbps (Express). AT&T does not offer a 54Mbps tier of service with U-verse.
The 2wire "gateway" router that AT&T provides for the U-verse service has 802.11g wireless built-in to it. 54Mbps is what 802.11g wireless is *capable* of, but most people never get a full 54Mpbs connection over wireless regardless of who the manufacturer of the router is. Many things can effect how fast of a connection you get to the wireless including what wireless card is in your computer, the drivers being used for the wireless card in your computer, various settings in the router and/or your computer, how far away the computer is from the router, how many walls are between the router and your computer, what type of material the walls are made of, interference from other devices, etc. Interference from other devices can come from neighbors who also have a wireless network (especially if their router is broadcasting on the same channel), cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc. Even if you did manage to get a 54Mbps wireless connection, your actual internet speeds will never be any faster than whatever tier of service you're signed up for (which would be 18Mbps if you're signed up for the fastest Max 18 tier).
If you're signed up for Max service (which is 10Mbps), then the 11Mbps you're getting is faster than you should be getting. If you're signed up for Max 18 service (which is 18Mbps), then there could be a variety of things causing you to only get 11Mbps. Have you actually gone to a speed test web site (such as the speet test tools here on this web site or speedtest.net) to see what speed one (or more) of those sites say you're getting? The only thing you mention is wireless. Have you tried connecting a computer to the router with an ethernet cable to see what kind of speeds you get that way, and if the wired computer gets disconnected?
One other thing I should mention is that if the wireless cards in your computers are 802.11b cards, then right there is the reason you're only getting 11Mbps. 802.11b wireless is only capable of 11Mbps. Since it sounds like you're consistently getting 11Mbps, it seems to me like the most likely cause of your issue is that you're using 802.11b wireless cards in your computers, or the settings (either on your computers or in the router) are set for 802.11b even though the hardware is 802.11g. 802.11g is backwards compatible with 802.11b, and it's possible to set 802.11g equipment to work in 802.11b mode. | |
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