AT&T U-verse → 45 MB internet service

If I had a nickel every time you say that, lol, J/K.

In the mean time.... Verizon is upping their speeds. Upload speeds that are faster than AT&T's fastest download..... are available.

I really don't need AT&T investing in stretching out copper so we can get a whopping 36/6 or something like that. Waste of money. Let them invest in the next generation of Internet, and let them bring fiber to homes. Perhaps then they can upgrade the horrid U-Verse TV picture quality to something better looking.

At&t and invest... Does the tooth fairy exist too?

Not gonna happen. I have a pretty good source and there is no plans to ever deploy FTTH to everyone. Their goal is wireless. Now if you are a big business and need large dedicated bandwidth and can pay the giant bill every month AT&T has no issues supplying said bandwidth. AT&T is gonna stick with what they have since the majority as they see it do not pay attention to bandwidth need, amount of streams, HD PQ, etc. I can understand it to a point since I do not see the majority paying $100+/ month for say 100/15 from Comcast but if I was AT&T I would be offering alot cheaper prices for their current internet packages since it is becoming so competitive. When their U-Verse service gets left in the dust from competition in the future they will just sell it off. U-Verse looks ok to good on paper for the average non-technical Joe but as many of us have found out it is not for everyone.

well ... I left the midwest and ATT uverse behind. I recently had DirecTV installed here and they tried to bundle me with att dsl heh. I told them no thanks..they pressed on and finally asked what i was using...

I always push for upload but in reality I almost never take advantage of it. I have 5mbps now with TWC. There is one or two times in 6 months where I need to upload something large that makes me happy I have at least this much / wish I had more, but the majority of the time the upload channel sits barely used.

I personally would love to have it, but I just don't think there are enough people that care about cutting edge speeds to justify the cost of FTTH. As streaming / cloud services get more popular, the need to transfer massive quantities of data in one shot actually lessens. Why download a matroska at 100mbps when you can stream it at 7mbps?

thats a good point, but the file has to get to the cloud first ... and then if youre using 7mbit to stream a matroska and you also have VOIP, home alarm system, your 2 kids wanting to watch netflix, your wife surfing the web, and all your smartphones connected to your wifi ..all of a sudden there isn't enough speed to compensate.

Then you get into data caps ... and well .. we all know how great they are.

the real cloud will only be possible on super low latency high speed networks with equal up and down access... that is unless you are happy with a little higher quality GUI than DOS.

The cost for me is 79.99 for the internet which has 100mbit in-network performance and up to 100mbit for the rest of the world ...soon it will be 1gbit in network and 150mbit for the rest of the net.

There continue to be more and more internet applications. For me, it is just the two of us.... me and my wife, but between us we have several computers, several online games, several streaming service, online backup, and I run a game server for OpenTTD with 5 different maps.

A family with teenagers is going to need bandwidth, and lots of it. Phones streaming video, online gaming, Netflix, satellite boxes with VOD, your run-of-the-mill internet usage, and nowadays you can't buy software anymore without it being updated over the internet every other week, including your XBox/Playstation and what not. Want to actually back it all up to the cloud with something like Carbonite, you'll need more bandwidth still.

And its not going to stop. Future applications will require more bandwidth. There will be higher quality video. There will be bigger updates. There will be more equipment using bandwidth.

Hell, there are CARS nowadays that while in your garage, hooked up to the wireless network of the house, update the on-board computer with the latest firmware, latest maps, latest road-construction info, and transmit your oil levels to the dealer so they can call you to make an appointment. Not that this all will take huge amounts of data, but start adding it all up.... and your 21st century household will require more and more and more and more bandwidth.

Cable is working on DOCSIS 3.1, which focuses heavily on the upload. AT&T might go the wireless route.... and quite frankly, it is fine by me as long as the have enough bandwidth to go around, do not have ridiculous caps attached to it, and don't cost a fortune a month to maintain.

But they better have a plan to get about 100 Mbps to houses within the next 4 to 6 years or so, because..... well, everyone else is. Cable will be there by that time (they can offer it already in some places but it is still very expensive), FIOS is already more or less there or close to it, AT&T in my opinion gambled with U-Verse, and is losing. Copper will just not do it for high-bandwidth applications, at least not the telco copper, DOCSIS cable will be fine for some time to come.

I have cable available to me. Right now it is about the same price, but if TWC starts increasing their speeds for the same price.... I don't see a reason to keep AT&T U-verse any longer.

As long as Randall Stephenson runs the company I see AT&T continuing to allow their residential wireline division to stagnate.

But that's what happens when you have a finance guy rise to be CEO of a telecommunications company.

For a finance guy he sucks. Tell me, how much of their money put into uverse have they made back? Between the vrads, constant truck rolls, and then maintenance and power use should people leave in droves.

All for a decaying product that's been obsolete for a few years now

But you see it cost less then FTTH so quarterly profits have been higher each quarter for now as U-verse is still adequate enough to compete for most people.

So in the short run, he makes out with big bonuses and compensation. When it's too late and customers are bailing he'll probably already have moved on from the company with a huge retirement package. So what does he care.

This is a guy who is kept up at night over lost SMS revenue due to products like iMessage.

Customers will have completely bailed while he's still there.

U-Verse probably made MORE money on the SHORT term, compared to FIOS, because there is less investment to get customers online and going. And that is what investors are interested in, because 3 years from now, they will have sold their AT&T stock and made money, and moved on to new stock.

LONG term however, I expect FIOS to make money, as the infrastructure of the fiber cables they placed, is probably good for 20-30 years before natural aging requires cable replacement. (which is just as much true for copper).

Considering how many people call in with issues juston these forums, considering the number of truck rolls, line replacements, vrads, other types of expensive equipment used, just to get crappy copper to work, are you really sure?

Considering what I've seen on these and other forums, i am guessing that AT&T will in the end have spent more money on their systems then Verizon. In the end of course.

It's a classic case of penny wise pound foolish.

Which is perfect for Stephenson since that's long term and he'll be gone.

You expect him to be gone in the next 2-3 years?

Thx for the info y'all. One more question - are the latest U-Verse installs (the big rush 2008-2012) VDSL or VDSL2? If 2, isn't the "theoretical maximum of 250 Mbit/s at source to 100 Mbit/s at 0.5 km (1,600 ft) and 50 Mbit/s at 1 km (3,300 ft)". (I stole that from Wiki.)
If I remember right (it's been a minute since I've been home), I am on profile 8b. What would it take to have AT&T upgrade to the other higher profiles? I mean heck, look at profile 30a, 200mb down. Yikes.

Just curious as my mind wonders ...

All installs (at least the ones that aren't ADSL2+) are VDSL2. The problem with the theoretical rates is that they are betting on the lines being in decent condition. Most of AT&T's lines are barely good enough for POTS. Bridge taps, age, animals, weather, and even radio stations all play hell on the VDSL2 bandwidth availability. For example, compare the bandwidth in MHz required for the 8x profile versus the 30a, 17a, and 12x profiles. 8x needs around 8.5-9 MHz just to reach 50Mbps. AT&T's lines struggle to even supply that much, thus the reason that the highest profile is 32Mbps. Then compare to the 12x, which needs 12MHz, then 17a which needs almost 18MHz, then finally 30a that needs 30MHz. So to reach 200Mbps, we need over 3 times the amount of bandwidth that AT&T's lines already struggle with.

Now look at some bitloading graphs I found around on the Internet:

Here is one that I would consider a pretty "decent" line:

Absolutely correct.

People tend to ignore or don't understand this information and when they see that VDSL2+ is capable of this or that maximum throughput they get blinded by the unattainable utopian numbers.

Yes profile 30a looks and sounds great but who is capable of using the RF spectrum up to 30MHz? Perhaps someone under 500ft from a VRAD.

All this profiles look encouraging but when it comes to real world deployments and like you said condition of the lines, Mr. Squirrel, RF interference patterns and many other factors the house of cards collapses.

Technologies like vectoring and others are way over optimistic and most likely they will offer no significant gains. I still remember when pair bonding was in the drawing board, some people thought that if I have this bandwidth with two lines I'll double it... we all know that this is not the case.

I think at&t knows this and they have finally come to their senses and realize that under the current fttn model they will not be able to keep up much less exceed what cable (docsis3) offer.

My guess is that this is why they have stopped all further uverse expansion and they are betting now on wireless solutions which by itself is another can of worms.

I think wireless isn't going to be it either. The 3G networks are already overloaded, and I am expecting the LTE networks to be overloaded as well.

Currently my cable company is offering 20/2 for less money then AT&T's 24/3, and 30/5 for about $5 more then AT&T's 24/3.

DOCSIS is currently finalizing its 3.1 version, which is basically DOCSIS 3.0 with extra upload capabilities to get much more upload out of it. And that runs on all the existing 3.0 infrastructure, so it will be an easy upgrade.

I understand but if they use a separate system for TV only they can make it work, similar to the wireless cable of the 1990's and similar to what DBS (direct broadcast satellite) use... DBS without the satellite and instead a tower

I doubt that they'll have something ready within a decade if ever and even if they did cable will be so far ahead in the game that it would be counter productive.

Cable is already so far ahead of AT&T that it's just too funny to watch.

TWC, my Internet provider has already stated that by the end of the year they will have DOCSIS 3.0 deployed to all of their network footprint and all customers will have the option for Wideband Internet. We're talking 50 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream. With no distance limitations!

Though, I do have to brag that I can see my cable node that's just down the street. But it doesn't matter if I was the house right next to it or a house half a mile away.

I have the Wideband service myself. Low pings, high data throughput. Even in the evenings. My cable modem is bonded on four channels, there's talk that TWC might increase that to six in the future. Though, I keep seeing more and more bundles of fiber that seem to appear on the polls around my area so that might mean that they are working on splitting the nodes to provide smaller service nodes.

As far as I'm concerned, cable has won the war. AT&T just hasn't acknowledged it yet.

TY WhyMe420 , very informative. I now understand a bit better. "Barney-style" for me would be Corvette Z06 (VRAD) with worn out 14" radials (copper line). Sure looks good, but it can't perform as intended.

Well, folks talking about cable and DOCSIS 3.x; not an option. I was an alpha then beta tester of Charter HSI (cable down/pots up); then 2-way. They just couldn't get it together. I'm currently satisfied with the uptime of U-Verse and the features of TV, so unless that changes ... eh ...

Again, T'Yall...!

Yes, I would agree on the most part but I didn't want to be so blunt.

LTE won't be overloaded as much, and will have better speeds (You should expect lower speeds and bad signals on SBC as opposed to Verizon). But neither are 'it', at$t only cares about short term profits.

And btw, you really can't lump Verizon and at$t together in the 'stopping buildouts' bit. Verizon built out until their shareholders yelled enough (Once they get enough people subscribing to FIOS again I bet you they will build out).

SBC however, is notorious for penny penching to the point where they neglect eeverything. Once SBC took over at&t their systems deteriorated. Same with bellsouth etc..

SBC doesn't build out. SBC buys up companies and then does something half assed (Like uverse) while they milk the copper until it literally breaks.

Cable won the "war" on ADSL in terms of speed a long time ago. The telcos just lowered the price to compete. The same will happen with U-verse.

I'm glad TWC finally woke up and smelled the DOCSIS 3 coffee. I'm even happier that they're becoming more uniform in the services they offer, and not cherry picking speeds by zip code. That said, Wideband or Ultimate or whatever they want to call it now is not for everyone, especially at the price they're charging.

AT&T/Microsoft's TV software platform is far better than TWC's in my area, it's really such a shame that there isn't quite enough bandwidth per home to deliver better picture quality. On the other hand, the moment U-verse's specs (25mbps per home) were originally announced, with AT&T banking on "compression and pair bonding", that there wasn't going to be a lot of longevity in this platform. I have to assume AT&T knew this too, somewhere in its dark underbelly.

I just don't think AT&T has ever had the intention of targeting tech fanatics with the U-verse product. They could only do one HD out of the gate, and picture quality wasn't great. They allocated just 10mbps for the internet channel. This product wasn't never going to break speed records, they just wanted to get lucrative TV business out of their POTS lines. In lieu of picture quality, instead they focused on the user experience by partnering with Microsoft, and got a pretty large selection of channels. It worked. People around here LOVE it. Most don't even notice PQ problems.

The most disturbing thing I've ever seen was a survey of XM radio sound quality. They have bitrates of less than 64kbps per station. The VAST majority thought it was equivalent to a CD. Some said it was better!

SBC wanted to reach anybody and everybody, including nerds. SBC doesn't build out though, SBC gobbled up companies and half asses things. I fully expect it to start biting them in the ass this year.

If you don't count the tmobile thing..

Funny thing is that Dish Network has SiriusXM and it's a lot better sound quality than the actual SiriusXM subscription radio.

SiriusXM compresses the hell out of their audio streams over their satellites.