US Telco Support > AT&T > AT&T U-verse > It's time to leave - but it's been fun

It's time to leave - but it's been fun

I'm sorry to see ya leave U-verse lonebandit, but I can't blame you one single bit after going through all of that. I'm surprised you didn't expect this behavior from AT&T, as I went into the whole thing knowing good well I was going to get the ol' screwgy a couple of times. They missed MY appointment too back when I got it in February, so they waived the install fee and gave me a couple of months free. That did NOT change my view of them, though, as I know if I ever need something done again with them, it's going to be H-E-double-hockey-sticks as always.
My experience with U-verse hasn't been terrible, but it hasn't been great. It has lots of bugs and hiccups like ya said and I think the ol' excuse of "it's a new service" is starting to get old. It's not that new anymore and half the issues are things that shouldn't be happening new or not.

Anyway, I'll probably still be with them when/if you decide to return and I hope things are better by then for ya.

If you ever want a Joe Schmoe's opinion on the service in the future, feel free to PM me. I'm unbiased when it comes to these companies cause I hate them all equally.

Thanks for the reply.
My neighbor left u-verse after less than 2months.
If he didnt watch tv each and every day, he would have NO STB working (like me) and had to go thru all of the stupid tricks I do. He is out of a different VRAD than me, so since we both had common issues, I think we rule out cabling and VRAD and/or connections.

Crappy hardware/software is what we're dealing with here.
So? - I will revisit this maybe in a year or so when they finally replace the junk STB/RG hardware with something more robust. TW had same issues with a line of crap hardware and when I got a NEW-IN-BOX Scientific Atlanta HD unit, it rocked.

Oh I shouldnt have left. Now I get to crawl back to TW and beg again. Yuck.

-JD

You could always go to DirecTv or Dish as well.

I would agree that I'd be p.o.'d as well if I took time out for an install, then heard a day later that they'd be late (had that kind of issue with Cogeco in Canada when they first installed HSI).

Who know's.. call up TW and they might give you a deal (don't tell them that you cancelled Uverse).
--
Canada = Hollywood North

reply to lonebandit

said by lonebandit:

Crappy hardware/software is what we're dealing with here.
Oh I shouldnt have left. Now I get to crawl back to TW and beg again. Yuck.

-JD

Yup... it was almost the time that AT&T Uverse went live in Santa Clarita that DirecTv offered me $10/month discount and 3 months of free movies if I stayed for another year... I accepted
--
Canada = Hollywood North

reply to lonebandit
Wow, sounds like my story... However, I had almost 30 days of perfect service (one reset of the Modem) and instead of crawling back to TW, I had to crawl back to WOW (comcast was also an option but I opted to NOT try them again).

U-verse was nice while it lasted but it's gone out several times over the last few weeks and as of sunday it went out for three hours during PRIME family TV time. They were suppose to come out Monday between 2 and 4 but never showed or called... WOW will be here Monday between 5 and 7:00.

I will look into U-verse again next year but as of right now... I am happily going back to WOW seeing I never had any bad issues w/ them and they even came by the next day to fix the coax line that I cut w/ the hedge trimmer (Well, it did pull from the wall so it wasn't all my fault).

Good luck guys I'm going to miss the DVR the most due to the capability of recording 4 shows at ones because I believe WOW's DVR can only record one at a time and a second one "IF" your watching it... We'll deal with it for now.

Bill

reply to lonebandit
Well just as I was going to cancel...an area Manager called me to discuss. They were really sorry for missing the appointment (and not calling until 9pm that day).
The asked me if there was any chance of having a tech visit to investigate my issues.

I figure it this way:

If I give them a chance to find something (and they do and correct it) - then we did find the cause. If they replace/redo everything and we still have issues - then we all give up and say we gave it our best shot.

I was loosing DSL Sync each night between 12-1am.
Here is what they did/found:

1. Port changed on VRAD
2. B pair (ped to home) changed as the orig one appeared flakey

So as of 7pm last night (when they finished) - no loss of sync for once. So thats a good thing.

But, I am still getting wacko errors from the RG about port 2 and 3 and there isnt anything even plugged into them.
My DVR wont play what was recorded...so both the RG/DVR are due for swap out this afternoon.

AT&T is really trying hard. I just dont want to go back to TW...I am limited to 2 streams of video...and like you said, its nice to have 4...many times we couldnt watch tv as I was taping 2 shows at once. Thats not an issue with U-Verse.

I do expect at least 1-2 free months for all this crap though and will seek that. I think thats only fair.

-JD

Yeah, but with each HD-DVR being $7/month for the STB fee then $5/month for it to be a DVR, it can be costly to have several of them (those are the rates when we canceled, so they may have moved around since then).

I guess what I am saying is, yes you are right guppy. With a traditional RF cable system you are not limited to a number of streams that you can take up, but it can make the bill go up in doing so.

reply to lonebandit
well this is the first time I ever heard anyone wanting to go to time warner...i have talked to 8 people who have U-verse and I have heard nothing but great things about the technology and on top of everything the price for what you get...these are my neighbors and i am now elegible myself...you sure you don't work for TW?

reply to lonebandit
Well (thanks)

I have signed back up with TW. Their stuff 'just works' and the price per month was within $.25 (twenty five cents)...no kidding.

Same channels/dvr/stb
but 15MB internet instead of 6.0

The picture quality cant compare to u-verse (best I have ever seen) but the reliability and speed of internet really makes TW a better choice for me. Never an outage in over 4yrs for me. U-verse, I cant go 4 days without something messing up.

I used to work for AT&T and deciding to leave them actually feels like crap. They have tried VERY hard to make things right for me and offered credits and replaced hardware etc...but it still boils down to what works and whats reliable. Wondering if I am going to have TV when I get home isn't something I look forward to.

AT&T is totally baffled about why I have issues, but they realize that I am not alone in issues. So what out there is causing grief needs to be narrowed down, but I have just lost patience trying to solve their service issues. As a customer, I shouldn't have to troubleshoot their network and hardware..

My TW install is not until 10/24 - so if I discover something before then, I can always cancel the install.

-JD

reply to pablo4now

With 2 days to go until I can unplug U-Verse...

My internet totally dropped most of Thursday. It was unknown if I had TV at that time.

Most of the weekend, I feel like I am on a 512K DSL line.
And today, 1/2 of all my channels tell me I am not subscribed to them

A reset fixed 1/2 of that but then when changing channels fast (isnt that what u-verse is known for) - the STB totally locks up requiring a reset.

Either this is a huge coincidence or ....

-JD

reply to lonebandit
This sounds exactly like my experience. Technicians not showing up, hours on customer service, DVR dropping out unexpectedly.... all I can do at this point is warn people from joining UVerse. I can't believe how bad it's been.

reply to lonebandit
today, my DVR decided to stop recording a 'series' it has been taping each night.

Tomorrow TW comes back at least....

No savings with U-Verse. Never saw any. Maybe $.50/mo ?

Same channel amount, DVR and almost 3x the speed of the net..for almost the same exact price.

I didnt expect to leave TW for a better price in the 1st place...but while I think U-Verse has excellent potential, all I can do is WARN people not to hop on board (at this time) unless they dont watch much tv and slow (6MB max) internet is acceptable.

Sure 6MB is fine, but when you have used 15MB...6MB seems like dialup. With today's online content and more than 1 PC doing something bandwidth intensive, it can quickly consume 6MB....so while 6MB itself is fine, not when you have a household of computers...

I really didnt want to leave. Honest. I see a lot of potential here. But between unskilled techs and a lot of "we dont know" and what not answers, its not the service for me. Oh and please stop telling me "its a new service...its not THAT new anymore!!"

I will keep in touch with techs and monitor this forum and maybe...maybe revisit this later in 2008.

Ironically, I am dealing with a ton of pixilation tonight.

-JD

reply to lonebandit
Found this chat area and read with interest on various boards about issues with the entire U-verse thing!

I had a sales person come through my neighborhood a couple of weeks ago and said all the right stuff, offered the $100 instant cash (but it apparently takes 3 months or more to get) and an instant $50 gift card (that also takes months) and told me my bill would be ultimately $40/month LESS then Cox.

He FORGOT to tell me that installation is an all day occurance, that you have to keep your landline hooked up to COX to allow them to change it over and the biggest thing is that AT&T appears to be selling a service that DOESN'T WORK.

Installer was VERY nice and KNOWLEDGEABLE...6 hours into the install bottom line was I wasn't going to get any service that day due to something to do with the wiring from the main box (1/2 mile away) to my area. They didn't know where the issue was and said they'd need time to find it.

(Sorry I'm not technical okay). So I called AT&T and asked them how LEGALLY they can offer and SELL a service that has not been fully tested and is in fact NOT available to me...and that their sales people claiming that fiber optic is in throughout the area and up to the houses is a lie.

Told them the ONLY way I would change now is if they gave me 2 months of COMPLETELY FREE SERVICE...they offered me $50 off the bill.

Then a day later the dispatch called and asked when I wanted to reschedule my installation!!! I asked him if the issue was resolved...he said he didn't know there WAS ONE!

SCARY. I told him that I wanted verification that the issue with the wiring and signals was taken care as well as a call from a manager in CS telling me my service would be FREE for 2 months before I did anything.

Nothing has happened since.

The GOOD news, is that I had told COX to disconnect the service 2 days AFTER I thought I'd have AT&T, so I did not have to pay anything extra...just called COX and told them to hold off.

So I HATE COX, but they've never been a problem...just expensive and shitty CS, but that is corporate America for you in general.

I have AT&T wireless (they bought Cingular) and they are HORRIFIC...I have only 8 months left on that contract and will RUN after that.

Ah well.

Then SBC bought at&t, then renamed SBC to at&t, which bought bell south which ended up with at&t owning cingular. Good times..