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Review by cowboyro See Profile

  • Location: Shelton, Fairfield, CT, USA
  • Cost: $136 per month
  • Install: about 10 days
Quick channel switching, whole house DVR, fast internet
Picture is bad lately since they added the 3rd simultaneous HD stream
I'm looking into switching.
Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

Update Sep-2012:

Over the past few months, after adding the 3rd HD stream the picture is bad (at least for me, my wife doesn't seem to care). Way too compressed, motion artifacts, etc etc. Too bad, I really liked it before, but now it looks like I will switch. My gateway syncs at high enough speed, so it's not a line end issue. Picture is not corrupted so it's not a data issue - just the quality at which it is encoded.

Update Dec-2011:

Two years later it only got better. The DVR interface is actually usable now. Ability to record, pause, FF and rewind from a non-DVR box is awesome!

One thing I noticed sometimes is that all records just disappear sometimes from the list when browsing from a non-DVR box and they start being re-listed (sllloooowwwwlllyyy) few seconds later.

I would have liked the ability to re-map the channels and only show HD if the HD version is available (it is for most), and for recordings to be able to toggle between HD/SD if both versions are available.

========================

Original review:

I had my eyes on U-Verse for some time as my Comcast promotion ended. The visit of a AT&T sales rep brought some answers I was looking for.

I wanted the appointment for a Saturday, apparently they don't do installs on Saturdays. Settled for Wednesday, I took a day off and.... they missed it. An angry call revealed the fact that they will do installs on Saturday if you threaten to cancel.

The good:

The tech who came seemed surprisingly knowledgeable. The installation went smooth, but I had my house pre-wired with CAT-6. The tech suggested replacing the wiring from the VRAD to my house and one day I found new wires... can't complain. The maximum sync he could get was 50M, absolutely enough to accommodate my 18M internet.

Picture quality is awesome and channels switch really fast. The whole-house DVR is great. Internet works as expected.

The bad:

Channels lineup is a mess. Would have been great to have an option to re-map channel numbers (saving favorites is a work-around). You can't start/schedule a recording from a non-DVR box, though you can do it from a browser... absolutely retarded.

The router can't map a port to a particular IP, just to machines that use DHCP or have a visible static IP. While it's good for the average Joe, if you have a more advanced network it just doesn't cut it.

The packages are somewhat expensive, Comcast offers more for the same price although it is overall a crappier service in my area.

Bottom line: I'm sticking with it. I'll run some more reliability tests for internet and make a decision whether I keep the internet or go with Comcast for internet-only (speeds are very comparable and there is talk about metered billing in the future). At least I have a fall-back option...

member for 23.4 years, 8210 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 11.5 years ago

real_goose
join:2001-04-13
Apollo Beach, FL

real_goose

Member

U-verse static address port mapping

Perhaps your device can not map ports to a static address, but it works for me. Several SIP ports are mapped to my Asterisk PBX which is on a static, not DHCP address. The router is a 3800HGV-B Gateway and the computer is 192.168.1.11. I just created the custom mapping and assigned it to the computer - no problems.

cowboyro
Premium Member
join:2000-10-11
CT

cowboyro

Premium Member

Re: U-verse static address port mapping

said by real_goose:

Perhaps your device can not map ports to a static address, but it works for me. Several SIP ports are mapped to my Asterisk PBX which is on a static, not DHCP address. The router is a 3800HGV-B Gateway and the computer is 192.168.1.11. I just created the custom mapping and assigned it to the computer - no problems.
I have the same RG, but the issue is that it cannot map ports to a (static) IP that *it cannot see* - if it's not in the list then you can't map - example a server that has 2 IP's in the same subnet (don't ask why, there is a long story behind it), only one of the IP's is visible in the selection list of the firewall. Sure this is fairly uncommon and the design is good for 99.5% of users... and I could probably get around it with some changes in my network.