 XBL2009------
join:2001-01-03
Chicago, IL
 ·EarthLink
·AT&T Midwest
| reply to bagels
Re: so much said by bagels :
for the "U-Verse can't compete" argument.....
To bad it sucks and takes 6 hours and several techs to install. FTTH would have been a better long term investment.
How long do you think U-verse will last? |
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 djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
kudos:1
 ·Verizon Wireless..
 ·RoadRunner Cable
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·VOIPo
·PHONE POWER
1 edit | said by XBL2009:To bad it sucks and takes 6 hours and several techs to install. FTTH would have been a better long term investment. How long do you think U-verse will last? U-verse sucks way less than my cable company, and took only one installer about an hour and a half. A little over a half hour of that time was taken at the VRAD. I'm sure techs run into issues but the in-home portion of the install was not complicated in my case.
DirecTV and Dish are probably a better on the TV side of things, but U-verse offers huge cash rebates, so they've been marvelous on my pocketbook. The 18/1.5 internet speeds are great for my purposes. They do slow down a bit (to around 14mbps or so) when watching two HD streams, but I'm rarely ever doing both at the same time.
I do feel AT&T undershot their bandwidth requirements a bit. U-verse could be so much better with a bit more bandwidth behind it. Compare that to our cable company, Time Warner, who has loads of potential in their coax, but any technological advantage is entirely wasted on god awful cable boxes from 2003 with no upgrades in sight. At least AT&T really pushes the limites of what they can get out of their VDSL, and the product continues to evolve.
As long as U-verse continues to offer good deals and the cable companies continue their commitment to mediocrity, U-verse isn't going anywhere. Remember, U-verse will be judged against other options available to that customer. A very, very small number of people will ever have a choice between U-verse and FiOS.
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AT&T U-Hearse
Your funeral. Delivered.
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| Cable companies can offer better than U-Verse if they get rid of the analog channels and use MPEG-4 transport for their video offerings.
Remember that U-Verse is using LESS bandwidth than what a typical cable company has yet is offering more. |
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etaadmin
join:2002-01-17
Dallas, TX
kudos:1 | reply to djrobx
said by djrobx:said by XBL2009:To bad it sucks and takes 6 hours and several techs to install. FTTH would have been a better long term investment. How long do you think U-verse will last? U-verse sucks way less than my cable company, and took only one installer about an hour and a half. A little over a half hour of that time was taken at the VRAD. I'm sure techs run into issues but the in-home portion of the install was not complicated in my case. Is this comment supposed to be positive? LOL
I think that your uverse sucks way more than whatever cableco you have and you are just being over zealous about that uverse thingie.
The funny thing is that you are comparing uverse with 20th century cable, well unless you compare it with that juggernaut called comcast with 50mbps internet and lots of low comp HD channels at least less compressed than uverse. I agree that most cable companies are not even trying but what will happen when the cablecos wake up? DOCSIS3.0, SDV etc it is going to be a massacre in non FIOS territory.
Other thing you failed to mention is that the vast majority of uverse TV subscribers will be very happy if they were allowed to drop the TV portion of the service. You even have FAQs in the uverse forum on how to do this. |
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Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to XBL2009
Amazing. The first post is "so much for the argument that AT&T can't compete" and the very next post implies it is going to fail soon.
Y'all need to recognize that U-verse is a huge success from a business point of view, even though its technology is not as robust as DOCSIS 3.0 or FTTH from a raw bandwidth standpoint.
AT&T has met and exceeded every business goal they had for U-verse. They are installing it as fast as they can (and probably over-extending their install capability in some areas, leading to some of the poor install experiences you see posted here). They are laying the groundwork for future expansion into VDSL2 (cheap/easy, only firmware upgrades required), pair bonding (more expensive, requires new NIDs), and extending fiber to the last mile (most expensive). It's a real success story.
Those of you here who have consistently bashed U-verse because it's not FTTH and have parroted predictions of doom need to step up for their piece of crow pie.
Who's first? |
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 marigoldsGainfully employed, finallyPremium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
kudos:1 | said by MyDogHsFleas:AT&T has met and exceeded every business goal they had for U-verse. Not quite.
They were supposed to be above 10% penetration before 2008, and mid-teens penetration by the end of 2008. Instead they are just now breaking 6% (as I documented below).
It has not been a failure, but the penetration numbers being posted are certainly not enough to call it successful yet.
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1 edit | ***sorry bad post*** |
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djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Verizon Wireless..
·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T U-Verse
·VOIPo
·PHONE POWER
| reply to etaadmin
quote:
Is this comment supposed to be positive? LOL
The comment is what it is. I didn't say U-verse is the greatest thing ever did I? I think I was pretty clear - AT&T's strategy has caused some very unfortunate limitations. But despite this, it is MUCH better than what my cable company offers.
quote:
I think that your uverse sucks way more than whatever cableco you have and you are just being over zealous about that uverse thingie.
If Time Warner didn't suck worse, I'd never have dumped them. But I promise, TWC sucks really, really bad in my area. I owe AT&T no loyalty, and there's no contract. I also said DirecTV and Dish had superior TV products. I may switch to DirecTV to get better HD quality. But that will come with the expense of buying DVR equipment for my second TV, and right now paying for TV equipment is not something I want to do, when U-verse mostly meets my needs.
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AT&T U-Hearse
Your funeral. Delivered.
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| reply to XBL2009
U-Verse will last indefinitely. Since it is IPTV, it will work over copper or fiber. AT&T is already placing FTTP in many "greenfield" developments. Also, the majority of U-Verse customers are thrilled with the service? Didn't you read the JD Powers report? |
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djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Verizon Wireless..
·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T U-Verse
·VOIPo
·PHONE POWER
| reply to fifty nine
said by fifty nine:Cable companies can offer better than U-Verse if they get rid of the analog channels and use MPEG-4 transport for their video offerings. Remember that U-Verse is using LESS bandwidth than what a typical cable company has yet is offering more. Yes, exactly. It's a shame because cable has so much potential at their fingertips. But all of that potential gets lost because many of the MSOs won't make the investment in better set-top equipment for their customers. The satellite companies were smart and quickly moved to MPEG-4 gear before HD really took off.
I'm sure better equipment will come at some point. When they're ready I'll gladly switch back and give it a try.
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AT&T U-Hearse
Your funeral. Delivered.
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 en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | reply to djrobx
AT&T was in the running for my service... but w/o a VoIP solution, their POTS service would have eaten up all their incentives.
TWC/RR 'does' work decently here on the 'standard' 10/1 package... when TWC isn't having issues at their head end.
I was able to get last month for free ($7 actually) due to a few of their outages in the area.
Since I typically look to the bottom line.... TWC is currently the best deal for me. At $89 ($99 after fees/taxes), its decent for triple play.
The only things that have had me staying out of AT&T's service is the packaging. Their $90 triple play exists.. however, requires an extra $$ / STB (required) and since VoIP isn't available, ends up costing $$$ in POTS fees. Also, that package uses the 3Mbps/1Mbps (vs. 10/1Mbps on TWC).
I'll see what's available after TWC's promo expires. |
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| reply to XBL2009
6hours? Try 11 days and 17 different techs for my install. |
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cwh
join:2006-05-14
San Antonio, TX | reply to marigolds
and in markets that have been open 18 months, they are geting ~15% market share. Remember they are passing several million new residences every quarter with the service and this will depress the overall numbers. |
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marigoldsGainfully employed, finallyPremium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
kudos:1 | said by cwh:and in markets that have been open 18 months, they are getting ~15% market share. Remember they are passing several million new residences every quarter with the service and this will depress the overall numbers. Yet they are counting subscribers in newly passed households in their subscriber numbers. So, basically they are inflating total subscribers at the cost of deflating penetration?
Even if you only count mature markets, that is still an awful bad penetration number for video services.
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cwh
join:2006-05-14
San Antonio, TX | I think the metric you want to see is total subs in mature markets/total passed in mature markets. |
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wierdo
join:2001-02-16
Tulsa, OK Reviews:
·Cox HSI
·T-Mobile US
| reply to fifty nine
said by fifty nine:Cable companies can offer better than U-Verse if they get rid of the analog channels and use MPEG-4 transport for their video offerings. Remember that U-Verse is using LESS bandwidth than what a typical cable company has yet is offering more. They don't even need MPEG-4, they just need to get rid of analog expanded basic on most systems.
They will be losing a U-Verse customer in the next week, though. The PQ on the TV service isn't very good (on larger TVs..it's fine on my 720p 37" set despite looking like ass on my 47" 1080p set), the DVR isn't very good, and the Total Home DVR feature is nearly useless. I'd keep the Internet service if I wouldn't have to pay for the month of crappy TV, but since I can only pay zero dollars if I cancel entirely, that's what I'll be doing next week.
Not only that, it's more expensive than Cox for both the top tier Internet (although it is a little faster and will only be $5 more a month after Cox's rate increase next month) and the TV service. If they'd get rid of the $15 in junk fees to get all the HD channels the pricing would be more comparable.
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It's wierdo, not weirdo. Yes, I know that's not the 'proper' spelling of the similar english language word.  |
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XBL2009------
join:2001-01-03
Chicago, IL Reviews:
·EarthLink
·AT&T Midwest
| reply to MyDogHsFleas
said by MyDogHsFleas:Amazing. The first post is "so much for the argument that AT&T can't compete" and the very next post implies it is going to fail soon. Y'all need to recognize that U-verse is a huge success from a business point of view, even though its technology is not as robust as DOCSIS 3.0 or FTTH from a raw bandwidth standpoint. AT&T has met and exceeded every business goal they had for U-verse. They are installing it as fast as they can (and probably over-extending their install capability in some areas, leading to some of the poor install experiences you see posted here). They are laying the groundwork for future expansion into VDSL2 (cheap/easy, only firmware upgrades required), pair bonding (more expensive, requires new NIDs), and extending fiber to the last mile (most expensive). It's a real success story. Those of you here who have consistently bashed U-verse because it's not FTTH and have parroted predictions of doom need to step up for their piece of crow pie. Who's first? 1. How many more years does copper have left before even cheapskates like att are forced to start running fiber all the way into people's home?
2. U-verse over copper was and is more complicated since you need VRAD's everywhere to get any real bandwidth from copper. With fiber they could have just run it straight from the central office and skipped the HUGE refrigrator sized equipment sitting on every neighborhood's lawn.
Fiber would have been a good long term investment and it has less maintenance cost. |
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Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| said by XBL2009:1. How many more years does copper have left before even cheapskates like att are forced to start running fiber all the way into people's home? I think a lot of years. First, as evidenced by today's news, they have a lot of room left to convert passed homes to customers even in areas they've already built out with VRADs. Second, they have two more technology jumps they can make before they go FTTH as I pointed out in the post you replied to -- those being VDSL2 and Pair Bonding, which will increase bandwidth AND distance by a significant amount.
The real impetus will come when competition from Verizon (FTTH) and the cable companies (DOCSIS 3.0) starts actually hurting AT&T. Right now it's not. Verizon and U-verse do not compete head to head, except in a very small number of areas. And DOCSIS 3.0 is rolling out really, really slowly from my POV. The slowing economy is only going to make these high-speed broadband rollouts slower, as customers will be less willing to pay for higher speed services.
Finally, you have to realize that "cheapskate" is not a bad thing, especially in today's economy. Your "cheapskate" is my "savvy business strategist". If you can conserve capital and still get 90% of the customers you would have, you survive to grow and participate in the next round. AT&T's plan to spend about 1/3 of what Verizon does per passed home, make service available, and also lay the groundwork for eventually running FTTH from the VRADs, is looking smarter and smarter.
Look, personally, I'd love to have fiber to my home, and I'd probably pay $100++ for high speed Internet over that fiber. But I don't extrapolate myself to the entire market.
2. U-verse over copper was and is more complicated since you need VRAD's everywhere to get any real bandwidth from copper. With fiber they could have just run it straight from the central office and skipped the HUGE refrigrator sized equipment sitting on every neighborhood's lawn.
Fiber would have been a good long term investment and it has less maintenance cost.
I don't know how you measure "complicated". All I know is that their cost per passed home is less than 1/3 of the cost to run new fiber to an existing home. The VRADs are essentially a replacement for the old DSLAMs, so they know how to do it. And, running PON from the central office is Verizon's way -- that is not the AT&T direction.
AT&T's architecture is to have powered intelligent nodes in the neighborhood and be active on the traffic on that node. In many ways this is a better architectural solution than PON because it gives them the opportunity to insert intelligence close to the home. Eventually they'll have a way to run fiber from the VRAD to the home just like they run copper now. Thus they don't lose their investment in the VRAD infrastructure, they reuse it in their FTTH-to-existing-homes eventual strategy.
Finally, you are just repeating cable company spin with the "VRADs on every lawn" shibboleth. You know that's not true in most cases, and in every case it's using a right-of-way or easement that already existed. |
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wierdo
join:2001-02-16
Tulsa, OK Reviews:
·Cox HSI
·T-Mobile US
| said by MyDogHsFleas: If you can conserve capital and still get 90% of the customers you would have, you survive to grow and participate in the next round. AT&T's plan to spend about 1/3 of what Verizon does per passed home, make service available, and also lay the groundwork for eventually running FTTH from the VRADs, is looking smarter and smarter. What they're doing is increasing long term opex for a short term reduction in capex. That's just dumb. In the long run, they'll be spending far more money than Verizon, even if only because they have to pay the power bill and maintenance on those VRADs for absolutely no benefit. Additionally, in power outage situations, their service will be dead in the water unlike Verizon, whose customers can make the choice to install a bigger battery backup or even a generator and still have phone/internet service.
My clients are seeing the impact of this first hand. Cox's active infrastructure in the field has their Internet service out thanks to widespread power outages that aren't affecting the customer. Same with DSL on remote terminals.
There's just no way to spin having powered electronics in the field as a good thing from an engineering standpoint when it's possible to avoid. It may not be terrible, but it's better not to have them.
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It's wierdo, not weirdo. Yes, I know that's not the 'proper' spelling of the similar english language word. |
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