poolek
join:2003-11-04
Austin, TX Reviews:
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·ViaTalk
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| technology vs. infrastructure I've had Uverse for about a year. I'm 2700' from the vrad. In the last year, I've seen my max sync increase from 25/2 to 32/5. My max internet connection speed increased from 10/1 to 24/3. I went from 2 HD streams to 3 HD streams, and HD quality improved. All using exactly the same copper and exactly the same gateway equipment. All the improvements were delivered through software tweaks.
While I'd prefer FTTP, ATT's bet on technology improvements over infrastructure improvements is working for -most- of their customers. Yes, they're not going to offer 100/100 service anytime soon - but then -most- customers aren't searching for (or willing to pay for) those kinds of speeds. And competition hasn't shown a willingness to compete, either. If ATT was at such a disadvantage, all cable would have to do is offer a substantially faster product at the same or lower price and they'd take all UVerse customers - but they don't. |
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gia
join:2008-01-30
Mcallen, TX Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| DOCSIS3.0 users can be 10x, 20x more farther than you so the coverage area is substantially higher than uverse, they are getting 50 and now 100Mbps down soon they'll be getting 50Mbps up, they have unlimited HD streams, their HD channels are a lot less compressed than uverse and all that using the same coaxial cable.
Is uverse progress? |
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poolek
join:2003-11-04
Austin, TX Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·ViaTalk
·RoadRunner Cable
| I'm not questioning the technical superiority of DOCIS 3.0 to VDSL. I'm saying that for -most- users, what ATT is able to squeeze out of copper is good enough - at least for now - and the rate of technological innovation on that old copper is growing fast enough to keep up with -most- user's demands. For most users, 3 HD streams and a 24/3 internet connection suffices.
If extra speed and capacity were a killer advantage, all it would take would be for TWC to offer a higher speed than ATT could possibly offer with Uverse at a price equal to or cheaper than the top plan on UVerse, and you'd see customers flock to cable. That doesn't happen. -Most- users couldn't tell you the difference between 3mb and 30mb service, so ATT's offer, despite its technical disadvantage, is good enough for them to retain and add new customers daily. If I remember correctly, there was an article posted here recently where Uverse had the lowest churn rate in the industry. |
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Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
| reply to gia
the HD streams are unlimited until they move them from broadcast to switched digital video but that should not be a problem if they are monitering SDV usage at the tech operations center.
TWC can add more SDV QAMs to the pool or move a channel back to broadcast at&t cant do that they dont have a fixed broadcast architechure in place like cable does.
TWC started out 8 SDV QAMs and now are getting their divisions to add 8 more SDV QAMs to keep up with the HD channel explosion.
If the DOCSIS 3.0 gets congested and SDV has timeout errors they just splice in a new node which takes about a day to do.
TWC austin kept doing node split after node split when they were doing only 8 QAMs for SDV so they should not have as much problems until they get to 125-150HD channels switched at which point they can move more analogs to digital and rearrange and make those freed up spaces SDV QAMs they just did this with 5 analogs in janauary or do node splits again. but the statistics say 250 homes subscribed/passed per node is a good number for SDV as they have found that at all times about 40-50 channels are tuned to in a single node of course locals have to stay broadcast SD and Digital and so does the entire basic tier SD or they are violating FCC rules. |
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