Review by Oxygen69 
member for 4.4 years, 1732 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 2.3 years ago
 Madison,Dane,WI
 $50 per month about 60 days "Fast, xDSL, no cable co." "Odd slowdown's, constant micro outages (2wire router apparently), buggy DVR & recording features." "Cut TV Cord - Decent xDSL for price, but expect price increases."
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When I moved to a new residence, I looked at all the options that were available at the time for internet access mainly. There was "Charter Communications" (Cable), TDS MetroCom (DSL land & 802.16e WiMax), & ATT U-verse.
I had very good experience with TDS in college (accept that it took forever to get it setup, but once it was setup I never had any problems), but their prices had risen dramatically since they first opened shop in 1996. Plus they were not allowed to use the WiMax network they had built in Madison, WI for apartments (company policy cause of landlords complaining too much). This left U-verse or Charter Cable. Well Charter Communications is the absolute WORST company in the world to deal with and they filed for bankruptcy in 2009 because if their poor coax network. Plus they are extremely expensive for just an internet connection. This really left me with only one option for internet, as I refuse to share bandwidth with everyone else on the block-like cable. I ordered The U200 TV, and 6Mbps internet access.
Installation took forever as they had just started up the fiber DSLAM's in Madison and everyone wanted on. They gave me $150 after being signed up for 90 days -while I could not use it towards my bill oddly enough. They gave me a DVR IPN430MC (which had to be replaced once so far), a 2-wire residential gateway (which has a serious BIOS flaw according to knowledgeable people here), and some extra cables. I am only ~400ft from the DSLAM.
Things generally work OK accept for the fact that AT&T seems to always send down updates right in the middle of prime time TV (hence the restarting/resetting of the IPTV unit and stopping any records), but I do have these odd little problems that I am unsure if it is the equipment or the lines..
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UPDATE: Turns out the problem is actually the 2-wire RG that U-verse is using and while a BIOS update was suppose to fix the issue, it has failed too for a LOT of people!
I seem to have "micro-outages of internet fairly commonly, that can last from 10 sec to 1 min. And it is not my computer not connecting to a web site, but more serious timeouts. But I am in an apartment and wonder if the telephone line is receiving interference somewhere? However, after looking at the RG it appears that the connection has good dB's and little to no CRC or block errors? I have started line monitoring the connection here to try and isolate any issues:
»ny-monitor.dslreports.com/r3/cri···ange=d:w
»64.81.79.40/r3/cricket/grapher?t···ange=d:w
»/testhistory/1602003/241fc
Overall, I have been fairly happy with the TV & internet access. While, advertised at 6Mbps I usually can only speedtest at 5.5 - 5.7Mbps. However, after all of AT&T's price increases in the summer of 2010, I am seriously considering getting rid of U-verse as it is now way to expensive compared to how it started and with what you get. (and AT&T wonders why their subscribership went down so much lately.? lol)
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Update: 10/14/2010
Apparently, I am not the only person having the micro outages 20-50 times a day. It seems that there may be bad firmware in the 2Wire router that you have to use in order to use U-verse. This is happening to A LOT of people!
I would be VERY cautious about subscribing to U-verse in an apartment complex if you need a reliable internet connection, as they also are installing all the wireless Residential Gateway's with full power on "10" and there is so much interference around me with other RG's, it can be hard to even get the internet WiFi card to connect. Let alone actually transfer data or watch video. I recommend using an Ethernet cable if you want video and/or bandwidth over 3Mbps because of the disregard for 2.4GHz (802.11b/g) power levels & interference.
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Update: 01/23/2011
Decided I couldn't take AT&T's price increases anymore. What started as around $90 w/tax has ballooned to about $120 w/tax in less than 2 years. So I decided to cut the cord on TV entirely. I only kept the internet, and I am debating moving over to TDS as they are cheaper than AT&T and are faster (15M) vs. my 12M for less money. Probably less outages as well. However, the outages seemed to get better after I had the RG replaced and a (4 dB) line attenuator put on the incoming DSL connection.
Bottom line, AT&T is loosing its market share because the price increases are forcing people to cut the cord and there is not any "Value" for your money anymore. The regular Cable Co. is now equal in price to U-verse since AT&T raised all the rates..
My advice, stay away unless you have money to drop on the TV, as I am sure they will be raising rates since the "Net Neutrality" rules came out. If you live in an apartment complex, be very cautious since, I can currently see 65 AP's with about 35 of then being 2wire RG's all at full power! This creates an unreliable connection unless a Ethernet cable is used. Overall, internet access is pretty decent if used with wire-and it is xDSL.
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