AT&T U-verse → NEWS: AT&T Plans Slew of U-Verse Updates in 2013

From front page: »AT&T Plans Slew of U-Verse Updates in 2013 [22] comments

Blah blah blah useless apps.. I rather see speed improvements (but I know the mighty blue won't do that).

"Speed Upgrades: The Project VIP plan includes an upgrade for U-verse to speeds of up to 75Mbps and for U-verse IPDSLAM to speeds of up to 45Mbps, with a path to deliver even higher speeds in the future.

In the 25 percent of AT&T's wireline customer locations where it's currently not economically feasible to build a competitive IP wireline network, the company said it will utilize its expanding 4G LTE wireless network -- as it becomes available -- to offer voice and high-speed IP Internet services. The company's 4G LTE network will cover 99 percent of all in-region customer locations. AT&T's 4G LTE network offers speeds competitive with, if not higher than, what is available on wired broadband networks today. And in many places, AT&T's 4G LTE service will be the first high speed IP broadband service available to many customers."

»www.att.com/gen/press-ro ··· id=35661

How is all of this going to work when a majority of the techs cannot do an efficient job on current pair bond customers. They avoid them like the plague. Unless things have changed, which they have not, getting the second pair to customers will be a catastrophe.

This tech doesn't mind (most) Pair Bond jobs

And they will get simpler, when the iNID is (mostly) dumped in favor of the indoor Pace Pair Bonded modem

And with POTS becoming a thing of the past, there are lots of unused pairs in the Plant

Hmm. I wonder if I'll have to have ATT come out and bury a new wire for pair bonding...

The last time they came out and replaced the wire, the tech that hooked it up attached one pair, and cut the rest quite a bit shorter. I don't think there is enough left to make a second connection at either the pedestal nor the provider side of the NID.

I didn't really think anything of it at the time, although I thought they were supposed to leave a certain length of wire and not cut it so short. Now, it seems like it might be a problem.

Ha, most techs would just jumper that wire and extend it.

They do it to main lines even.

You think when a fiber cable or some copper cable get cut a whole new wire is ran? nope, it's patched right up or spliced.

Is it always the best thing to do? Nope
Is it cheapest and gets the job done? Yup
lol

It's all about time to the techs not cost savings. ATT knows nothing of cost savings, they are driven by pure efficiency metrics.

You should witness how much they waste on sending techs out of town, most of that is made up emergency telco subsidies paid for by us. You know how life depends on wired communications, especially Uverse.

Just for clarity, UverseTech, are you still an AT&T employee? You sound like a very disgruntled ex-employee.

Hell, if they'll jumper it, I'd rather run a new wire myself. Jumpering it will be a mess. We already have strange interference around here they were never able to parse out. Only thing that helped was running shielded cabling everywhere.

As for UverseTech sounding disgruntled, I disagree. I have sounded exactly like that when working for companies that do inefficient, stupid crap. One doesn't have to be an ex-employee to think something that is stupid and inefficient is the wrong way to handle a situation.

I have wondered the same thing.

Actually I liked working for ATT, I got to travel thru TX. I just call it like it is, most don't like to hear that.

I left to get my CCNA and I'm going back to them in mid 2013.

I know I sound negative but sometimes the truth hurts. All of my posts come from my personal experiences, and following up on those untrained or under trained techs.

Pair bonding to be specific is the hardest thing for most Uverse techs to accomplish. Not sure why, but everywhere I have been they avoid them like the plague. This is the key to all of these so called speed upgrades.

When I did these installs I never used the computer assigned pairs. I would go to the premise, put 2 tone generators on 2 pairs I could see making it back to the CO, and then at the crossbox I would call MLAC and change VRAD out pairs to the last 2 consecutive pairs available on the very last card. This method worked in every instance, it's just not by the book. It was the only way to get my jobs completed in the time constraints given.

You see most techs will just kick the job to IR and run, how can they possibly ever figure out how to do them.

then they should speed up access to the centers. I've dealt with them for 20 years now, and having a tech sitting at my shop or tower for an hour or more just waiting on a tester or someone in the CO to pick up. Same way when we as a customer call in, except now that damn auto tester goes round and round before you can get a live person.

Speeding up access would have been wonderful, except in late June this year, not sure if it is still in place, the Uverse techs had to call in to a help line for all IR (no sync or various things) tickets. This IR help desk was comprised of non-technical contractors at the beginning, and they had to bless all trouble tickets.

When I would call in for a FTTP ticket for things like no GPON or BPON installed at premise they would have me attempt to run a selt termination test. I would respond with what side of the fiber should I put my VDSL tester on, they would take a few minutes and belive it or not most would give me an answer. After I finished laughing, I would just hang up. This test is for determining approx where the copper cable was shorted. After my first brush with the kindergarten helpdesk I decided to never put in a ticket and just call my IR friends direct, or kick the FTTP jobs with nothing at the premise.

There sure are.. I have about 10-12 pair not in use in the NID at my house. They are connected [afaik] at the IP-DSL remote that provides my IPDSL and U-Verse VoIP services.

In my area, AT&T highest speed is 20 megabits down/one megabit upload. Meanwhile, Charter's lowest speed is 30 megabits download/four megabits upload. How are you competitive? You are not!

AT&T must go FTTH nationwide at a minimum speed of one to ten gigabits per second in both directions to survive. Pair Bonding, vectoring, LTE w/ puny caps, etc...will leave AT&T even farther behind than they are now.

Users will enjoy access to streaming and cloud services with a 2GB cap, and $10/GB overages.
Wireline will serve one customer with all of the pairs bonded in a tattered decaying cable, continuing the descent to a banana republic status.

The Caps put in place to "help the network" while never showing a bit of evidence that using such amount or less actually "helps" the network.

Caps should be illegal, imo.

Uversetech, most techs just run an AMT with no meter attached. It seems to be the only way to get the help line nazi's to approve a helper ticket, then you just add a note telling the IR tech what is really going on. ( this method doesn't work on inids )

So, in other words ATT spent 25 cents trying to save a nickel. Can you imagine the absolute waste and cost of having another department with its own national call center, just to have all techs circumvent it?

You know whats so funny that for the last couple years I just toned my own pairs, I got tired of the nonsense and waiting on IR. The iNids down south, I always went to the terminal and found 2 clean pairs that read 4174+ and rocked on. There were always at least 2, and at the VRAD I would have MLAC assign the last 2 available on the last card, it worked like a champ.

I cannot remember the last copper ticket I put in, none in Texas I think just a couple in Kansas fall 2011.

I loved Texas because the IR techs were so busy they could care less if we did their work, unlike the midwest where some buddies did the same on a regular basis and IR would sneak up and put in a grievance.

Fixed that for you.I wouldn't be too sure about that.