US Telco Support > AT&T > AT&T U-verse > Review AT&T U-Verse

reply to justin

Re: Review AT&T U-Verse

No - only 1 HD stream is allowed into the house at 1 time. So if you are recording HD, you can not even watch another HD channel. Or if you have 2 HD TVs, you either both have to watch the same channel, or one has to watch the SD version.
--
"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

That's the real deal-breaker for me.

reply to justin
Intro:

i initially had att dsl installed when i purchased this home 4 years ago and had a solid internet pro connection for 19.99 / 12 months. 1/2 way during this time i noticed a lot of activity a few blocks away from my home and a few weeks later lost internet connectivity for a good 24-48 hours. my connection came back up and it was downloading @ 4 times the speed of what att customer service claimed i was able to get due to the distance to the CO/RT. i knew it was BS since i had been experiencing speeds and testing it for the week prior to my call to have them reprovision my modem and actually pay for the service they were not providing me. big mistake. they dropped me back to pro speeds and continued denying my requests to the point of frustration on my part.

Finances:

it was at this point that charter released their 10/1 setup in my neighborhood and i bit @ the chance of having it along with everything charter had to offer at that point. this home is an older home, so charter techs came out and installed new rg6 throughout the whole house and away i went @ $204 + $17 taxes/surcharges / month for their premium channel package, 10/1 internet, Rental Modem, 1 Moxi DVR, 2 HD receivers and Howard TV. Charter has always treated me as a premium customer and provided me with solid service, but i'm always willing to have others earn my business and loyalty.

Having a wedding in the next few months and uncertain market conditions in socal led me to find a few ways to save a little more money since $221 / month is insanity by normal standards. I went on ATT's website and tried once again to see if i could get qualified for elite service, and was politely declined by their availability link. I then noticed the uverse link and said what the hell, and clicked it and the response was it was available in my area and started reading up on the technology and decided to give it a shot.

Goodies:

i called att on 01/08/2008 and had an appointment set up for 01/12/2008 @ 8am for U400/Elite that came with 1 @ VIP1216 DVR, 3 @ VIP1200's, 1 @ 2wire 3800HGV-B, 6/1 Mbps (V)DSL, Cat5e into 4 rooms, 1 @ New NID, 1 @ Homerun for Data, 1 @ Homerun for Phone, 1 @ Cat5e for Switch, 1 @ Netgear GS108.

Free!

I was trying to justify my cat5e and supplies purchases to the missus and had someone come out here before uverse was installed to give us a quote on what it would cost us to do what we did yesterday, and they gave us a quote of $625 just for supplies... another $50/hour for labor and said would take a good 8-12 hours. psh, rookie...

Promotions:

$10 / month bundle credit for TV/DSL - 12 months free HD - $100 Cash Back - First Month of TV Free - $50 Visa Gift Card and I'm going to call ATT Billing to see if they will honor the 3 months of free internet if you're switching from cable internet to ATT DSL Service. In total I figured that ($10+$120+$100+$94+$50)/12=$31/month so my total would be $123/month for uverse if i kept it for the next year.

paying charter $204/month vs. att $123/month was a no brainer even though i have 3 HD TV's in my home as it's almost $975 in savings for the first year.

Install:

I explained to the tech that came to my home that i was planning on keeping my charter internet service and reusing the rg6 would be out of the question. the tech initially wanted to have a quick and painless install by backfeeding the rg6 through the rg and into each set top box and being outta here into another home. i offered him something to eat and some refreshments to keep his involvement and attention span towards providing good customer service. i asked him if we could drop cat5e throughout the whole house and he initially refused as it would create extra hours of work, but im persuasive to the point of everything working out in the end. i explained to him that i was already going to drop new cat5e throughout the whole attic while he was here to have all the rooms have biscuits so i could plug in either an rj11/rj14/rj25/rj45 and he was sold. we started @ 9am and finished late evening as its a large older home. we dropped a gs108 into my closet and i made a larger hole in my ceiling going into the attic so i could have enough room for future upgrades. he dropped a new homerun from the newly installed nid into my office and then backfed cat5e into a closet with the gs108 and then fed the room on the other side of the house with another drop of cat5e. while he was doing that i dropped another cat5e into my other office and bam... in business.

i had real crappy wiring that a previous tech had done on the outside vs. wiring it through the attic and would have a constant crackle throughout the phones in the house. well, i was able to pull all the wiring on the outside of the house down and i installed new cat5e telephone wiring into each room with a phone, so now i have crystal clear telephone service to boot. i suggested we just use the unused portion of the cat5e cabling he was using as a homerun into the RG, but he felt more comfortable allowing me drop a new line into the garage so i could continue on my business and he the same. no issues there

All of the above with ZERO commitment or upfront costs on any of the equipment or installation.

SOLD!

Tech Review:

It seems ATT had several customer service agents train on how to install the uverse system, with a majority of them having zero networking skills and coming from a customer service background. a few key techs were sent out to TX to have hands on training while the pilot program was going out there and came back and trained a majority of the new people which have been doing the installs for the past 6-12 months. my guy was a newer tech and was not jaded by the jerks they call customers... yet. he stated ATT wanted to train CS people to do the uverse installs as they felt that customer service was going to be @ the forefront of their installs vs. having seasoned techs that dont want to hear anything from the customer and say the wrong thing to a customer.

i know a majority of you guys out there are like myself... have every channel and pay over $200 / month for TV/Internet services on a monthly basis - and thats not including any PPV or extra premium on demand services we like to spend our money on. thats $2400 a year before any of the fees come into play. you figure a lifelong customer @ the above rate can bring over $100K in revenue during a 30 year timespan. you get the picture. customer service @ the end of the day is what makes or breaks a company sometimes. only issue i ever had with charter was their customer service agents where minor billing issues and charging me for service calls they stated would be complimentary. id usually pay the fees as it would cost me more to stay on the phone than go about doing my daily routine.

this techs customer service was above and beyond the call of duty. he was more than willing to do what i wanted when he realized i knew exactly what i was doing and was willing to go the extra mile for him if he did the same for me. we did a killer job on this place with a minimal amount of time invested on each of our parts. i would like to state that i *did* not help him do any portion of his job, as i know them managers like to roam these forums, heh.

i would like to take this time to state the obvious. a lot of the techs that come to your home has some leeway in the decision of how hard they are going to work for you. if you treat them like a service person then you're going to get minimal service, but if you treat them like a person and cater to them they are more willing to do what they need to do to make you a satisfied customer. his professional attitude and 100% attention to customer service has made me an att customer willing to overlook some of the limitations (1HDfeed/slight overcompression on certain channels) of their existing IPTV service, but having the above installed for free has made me an ATT customer for life as long as im in an area that is serviced by them.

Review After Tech Left:

I currently have charter / uverse installed side by side into each of my tv's through HDMI and the SD signal from uverse is outstanding and above and beyond charters signal. also, the HD through uverse is a better quality picture when there is moderate motion, but slight blurr when there is fast moving items on screen, but switching the 1200's between 720p/1080i seems to fix this issue nicely. Also, switching from an RG6 to Cat5e connection into the STB creates a noticable difference with volume and picture quality through component cables.

I have each TV hooked up through HDMI connections and suggest anyone out there with an RG6/Component Cable setup to hit up a local Fry's during their insane weekend sales and hook up a box of cat5e, a few rj45 heads and pick up HDMI cables (if your tv supports it) on the cheap (got 3 HDMI's 10' for $5.99/each). The picture quality has a noticable degrade while using rg6, so if you're one of the people who are complaining about picture quality or stutter then i suggest you drop some cat5e into that bad boy.

My main concern was trying to sell the missus on only 1 HD feed @ a time, but didnt have to go very far once she saw the SD signal zoomed in to fit the screen ). she thought she was already watching HD, so I suggest you men out there not mention anything and set their TV in a way that you get to keep the HD feed, haha!

Distance:

1642FT 2 VRAD
45.32% Line Capacity - 0 Errors

Elite:



^^^ with HD Feed going... nuff said.

Haters:

stop your bitchin' and whinin' about what works / what doesnt work. there are several reviews online about uverse and what you're going to expect. go drive around and see if you can find the closest vrad cabinet and when you see someone working on it stop by say hello and ask them if its the one that services the block you're on. see if you're 0.55/mi (+-2700/ft) while driving in your car. buy hdmi cables and ensure that nothing other than cat5e connects your ipv1200's and have a homerun done from the nid to the 2wire gateway/router. if you gotta pay the line drop fees and jack fees... pay. if you're gonna do it yourself... do it yourself. its easy.

do some prep work before the tech gets there. move stuff away from walls and drill holes where you want things to go. have the attic opened up and ready to go, or have the entrance underneath the house open and cleaned up of black widows or nasty crap in their way. you want cat5e dropped into the rooms? let em know you already took care of the drilling and bought cat5e just in case he ran out... believe me sometimes its the thought that counts. a majority of the uverse (if not all) installers are not independent contractors and have their supplies provided by ATT. the equipment is not on their dime, its on ATT's so make it work to your advantage!

is it their job to get dirty? yes. is it their job to install your service? yes. is it their job to ensure you're happy? yes. is it their job to ensure your service works and your computers work? yes.

why not make their job easier? install the batteries into the remotes. take out the 1200's and start putting the 1200's where you want them to go. dust your TV's. use some frickin' common sense. the time / frustration the installer would use towards your lack of common sense can be used by him/her enjoying their time in your home making you a satisfied customer. in the end its their job to provide you with service you're happy with, but you dont have to make it your job to remind them of it every chance you have.

the newer techs are only expected to do between 1-2 installs per day and believe me they would rather be @ a nice customers home than a prick that treats them like garbage. if a newer tech isnt doing what you want then check yourself... not the tech.

was i well informed? yes. did i know what i was talking about when the tech was here? yes. did the tech recognize my interest and grasp on what he was doing and what i was going to do while he was doing his job? yes. did i ever belittle him or contradict what he said? no. did i ever challenge him or get in his way or cut him off when he suggested things i would have done differently? no. did we end up doing things the way i wanted them to be done without him/her feeling as if i was telling him/her what to do? yes.

get my drift?

a majority of the negative reviews out there have zero details on their distance to the VRAD or how their service is connected from the NID or how their 1200's are being backfed from the RG's... etc.

Linux:

to all the people who claim Linux does not work on uverse... WRONG. all my boxes / laptops work through the uverse service and have had ZERO issues within the past 24 hours. everything in terms of networking works perfect @ this end.

VIP1200's:

these motorolla VIP1200's are pretty sweet and run off a sweet windows CE interface thats looked pretty good so far. the missus was a little worried and hard to convince as shes been a hardcore moxibox lover since we got one, but shes pretty happy with the VIP1216 DVR and the thought of recording bridezillas, desperate housewives, big love and american idol @ the same time was a dream, haha!

one thing i already miss about the moxi box is its capability of switching between 480p/720p/1080i resolutions on the fly depending on what chanel you're watching at that point and no user intervention other than switching channels. it does create some lag on the moxi box, but the lag is much less than going through the menu and manually switching. hopefully this can be addressed as a software update in the near future.

Conclusion:

SOLD. remember, we're sometimes willling to sacrifice certain luxuries or willing to pay more depending on the service we get on the other end. can i watch more than 1 hdtv @ a time? no. can i use that $975 and put it to better usage during the year? yes.

treat your tech like gold and as a valued person in your home and accomodate them in what they need and you might find a kickass person on the other end of that att shirt.

once again, att made a wise choice in having their newer techs be more customer service oriented and going above and beyond their call of duty. i am 100% satisfied with the professional service and install provided by the uverse installer and recommend anyone in the riverside area to sign up before a majority of them are sent to the fontana location.

this has been the best installations and experiences ive had with any of my internet and television service providers. if you're reading this... thanks dude you did a great job. i wish more people enjoyed their job and gave it their 100% like you did yesterday. seriously, ive had a smile all day today.

woot woot - uverse/att rocks!

If Time Warner goes through with their usage cap pricing plan, I may be a U-Verse user rather quickly.

reply to justin
I am having it installed this Friday....I will come back and write a review then. I have friends who have had it installed, and have no complaints at all...I just hope that its a painless install here.

reply to justin
I live in 10 year old sub-division with fiber at the curb and cat-5 wiring in my house. Will that mean if i subscribe to U-verse it will be of the same quality as Vz's FIOS system?

Not really. AT&T's U-verse product currently has the same feature set no matter how you are connected in.

By quality, are you referring to image quality, overall service quality including uptime, speed?

reply to justin
Cancelled ATT Uverse before they even set foot on my property. Salesman told me they would wire my house with cat5 cable if there was no existing cable to use. Well I have Directv and Cox cable and am not cancelling either one so there is no existing cable to use. Cox ran cable with no charge when they installed just like they told me they would. ATT said "we'll have to charge you $225". Doesn't seem like free installation to me. I also found out you can't record and watch a HD channel at the same time. Sounds like someone besides Cox may have bandwidth issues (ATT said Cox had bandwidth problems, but Cox keeps adding more HD channels) . They said their Internet was faster than Cox also but today I used speedtest.net and received a 24.06 Mb from Plano and 23.00 from Atlanta, even on the slowest days I still get around 12 Mb. After being told that ATT guaranteed their stated connection speed at 6 Mb, their elite package, they started backing off saying, "well it may not reach 6, that is just what the maximum might be". So basically they wanted to charge me $225 for "free" installation, not run cat5e as I was told they would do to make sure they have a good signal, give me less channels (they have several West coast channels so they count those as extra channels to up their "number" and I realize they are channels but they don't have different content), take away being able to watch and record HD at the same time, put in a modem the size of a small computer and for doing all that great stuff for me they wanted to charge me more per month. Oh yeah, they told me I would have a dedicated IP address, very important to me, unless my modem lost power, then it would get a different IP address, so it appears that their knowledgable staff doesn't really know what a dedicated IP address is. I'm probably not real smart having both Directv and Cox at the same time but there are some channels that one gets that the other doesn't and vica versa. We don't have kids so cost isn't important and I am a gadget guy that is always trying the newest and latest stuff. As I stated above, I may not be real smart but I'm not an idiot. See ya later ATT.

You have some things right, but you also have some things wrong. First off, yes, you get a dynamic IP but currently the IP stays with you for a long time. My IP has only changed once in the year I have had U-verse and that was when they had to change out my RG. I have had to power down my RG for various reasons, mainly wire changes that I have made over time, and I have kept the same IP when it comes back up. I am currently on their Max internet tier which is rated at 10/1.5 and I get very close to that for the majority the time. The RG is not exactly the size of a computer, maybe about the size of laptop with the lid closed width wise and maybe about the height of 3 DVD cases. It takes up about the same amount of space a cable modem and third party router takes up IMO.

$225 for installation is the first I have heard about of an installation charge. Some techs will run new wire for free, some don't. If they don't, it can be as high as $75/drop, but I believe that is only if they have to fish it in between walls. Outside runs are cheaper. I am almost surprised they gave you a flat rate...

I don't quite understand your reasoning for having a TV service, internet service, and a TV + internet service all running at the same time, unless for comparison or backup?

You are correct on the 1 HD stream limitation, and it is a big turn away. However, they are supposed to be adding in another stream here sometime soon (they haven't really confirmed how many, just 'multiple'), hopefully before summer.

It is your choice though, and that is one big thing about U-verse. If you don't like it, that is fine. It is all about how much value you feel like it is worth to you. If you can get a better deal that works for you with more bang for your buck, I say go for it. In many cases, people will do anything to get away from their cable company or satellite company or what have you, and this is that 'other choice'. Will it be the best choice for everyone? No, and I realize that. Is this post meant to bash you or your choice? No.

reply to justin
Glad your happy with ATT. My post was because I was told things that weren't true. $225 is $75 per box for 3 boxes. Cox didn't charge me extra to run cable down a wall. All my tv's are on internal walls. I was told by the salesman that came to my door and again by a rep at one of the stores here in Edmond that they would run cables at no charge if needed, that even if I had exising available cables they would test them and run new ones at no charge if they didn't test out good enough. Well since there were no cables available for use "they were needed". Cox guarantees me an 8Mb dload and I'm always at the very least able to get 12Mb and have on most occasion gotten 18 Mb and above even reaching 29Mb a few times. They never say "if you're too far from the source then you won't get our stated rates of 8 Mb". Last year Cox and ABC channel 5 in OKC were having contract disputes and 5 was not broadcast in HD for several months. ATT told me that 5 wasn't being shown in HD because the cable didn't have enough bandwidth. I find that patently dishonest. They were broadcasting 5 in HD before their contract disputes and I don't think they lost bandwith and said "let's not broadcast ABC so we will have enough bandwidth"! I know ATT the company didn't lie directly to me but the people that did are acting as "agents of the company" and I am deeply disappointed in them.

reply to Misled in Edmond

Re: Review AT&T U-Verse

Yeah 59 is the issue. I have one TV on 59 the rest of the house was done in RG6 except this one. I called u-verse up saturday have an appt. tomorrow for them to run a rg6 or cat5 to the STB.

Once you get switched it is much faster for channel changing and you shouldn't freeze. I am coming from comcast cable and it beats that hands down for channel changing. It's almost like OTA broadcast as far as how quick it can change the channels.

I disconnected the run that was using rg59 (removed the cable from the rg entirely) and continue to have issues with the dvr and stb freezing and being very slow to change channels.

reply to Misled in Edmond

Re: Review AT&T U-Verse

3 HD tvs at the same time? how many families live in your house?

reply to yankee driver
I'd say I feel sorry for you, but 1) anyone with 3 HD TVs that need to be watched simultaneously doesn't need people feeling sorry for them, and 2) its clearly stated all over their website that only 1 HD stream is available at any one time, plus its all over any forum or review site - do your research and you are never surprised by stuff like that.
--
"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

reply to johnnymicro