US Telco Support > AT&T > AT&T U-verse > Review AT&T U-Verse

reply to justin

Re: Review AT&T U-Verse

reply to justin
U-Verse was installed on Tuesday. The tech called SO about 11:45 to let him know he was running behind due to a difficult install with another customer, would it be okay if he made it a little after 1 or so.

The tech was still there when I got home at 6pm, but he was mostly cleaning up and explaining to SO how the system works.

We spent time checking out all the features and discovered the free VOD (Classic Doctor Who, yeah!).

The speed for the internet is much faster than what we were getting on DSL and the wireless works much better. We actually have the modem out of the basement too, which has made us very happy.

All in all, we are very very pleased with the service.

reply to jtmarshiii
ATT your world delivered.

reply to justin
I have been reading a lot of the reviews posted on here, and it seems like there is some arguments taking place. Lets take some things into account. The negatives are ALWAYS noticed. We all hate our cell phone carriers, our banks, our car insurance, our boss, etc. You get the picture. One thing I love about my U-Verse is that, unlike cable, I didn't sign up at a really low bundle price just to have it jacked up on me every month. It is new technology, and it is always going to be getting better. On top of that, they know the problems they have, which is one of the reasons they give it out for free for the first month. Plus more channels at a equal price to cable. Just one guys opinion...

There's a lot of chatter about Dish HD quality better than U-Verse. Its not clear to me how that is possible unless it is simply broadcast in lesser format (e.g. 1080i vs p vs 780i or p). Does anyone have the facts?

We get approx 170 HD channels on Dish which far surpasses the approx 50 on U-Verse, but I suppose they'll keep adding.

Both U-Verse and Dish use MPEG-4 compression.

There's a lot more to it than just broadcast format.

U-verse has a 25mbps pipe to the home, that also has to carry up to 10mbps internet. AT&T is not currently doing any "mixed-use" of their streams, I've personally tested that I get my full 10mbps when I'm using all 4 streams.

So, that leaves 15mbps for TV. Within that 15mbps, they fit 2 HD and 2 SD TV streams. I have yet to see hard facts about their HD data rates, but you can do a little calculating. They advertise that their DVR holds 133 hours of SD and 37 hours of HD. That means HD streams are 3.6x the size of the SD streams.

So:

x + x + 3.6x + 3.6x = 15
x(1+1+3.6+3.6) = 15
x = 15 / 9.2
x = 1.63

Using these calculations, SD is 1.63mbps and HD streams are 5.86mbps.

For comaprison, someone posted the file sizes for shows captured from their DISHnetwork box at MPEG-4. Their recorded "Battlestar Galactica" in HD was at 7.7mbps. Their local MPEG-4 NBC was a whopping 11.2mbps!

So, given that Dish is delivering higher MPEG-4 data rates, it's easy to see why they might have better picture quality. Interestingly, the most common complaint about U-verse is not breakup during high action scenes, but rather a "stepping" motion in the background of practically still video. Seems like that's something that could be improved in the compression algorithms.

reply to justin
Have been using U-Verse for a few months now and over all it's good. We opted for the fastest internet at 10mbps and love the speed. Uploads are 1.5 and work reasonably well. This system is significantly better than the Comcast, 6 down 1 up, system we did have. U-Verse is consistently around 9mbps on most of my speed tests.

I hate the 2Wire VDSL2 gateway you get. The wireless system seems to have problems loading images on some websites. I don't use it but MySpace is a good example of a site that doesn't work right and images just won't load or are very slow. Other sites seem to have the same problem if the images are not hosted on the that site but are linked in from another site. You can turn off their wifi and run your own to get around this issue. It's a little complex to explain the issue and fix here. I also don't like the management interface you get it's just too limited for a geek like me. You can open one device on your network to the full internet and not have any firewall on it. This is part of the wifi fix and you can add your own wifi router that way. Or you can run a game system or limited use server.

With AT&T also get WiFi options in a large number of business around the country and the combined billing for cell, TV, home phone and internet are very nice. But then you realize just how much you spend on all of this stuff.

The TV/DVR aspects are just OK in comparison to Direct TV DVR that I did have for 3 years. AT&T should drop the Windows based DVR in favor of the TiVo system that Direct uses. The TiVo/Direct system is just more intuitive and has more recording preference options. You can record up to 4 standard def programs on U-Verse which is better than you can get with Direct without getting a second DVR. U-Verse doesn't record anything you haven't told it to record so if you like the feature on the TiVo that records things you might like based on your "Thumbs Up" settings then you won't like the U-Verse DVR. There isn't anything like that feature on the U-Verse DVR. With 4 SD recordings though you can record almost everything you might want. Other than the lack of recording features the U-Verse DVR does have some better channel surfing options with PIP and I like their guide a little better than Direct. The ability to get online anywhere in the world and tell your DVR to record certain programs is very nice.

I haven't tried the HD option yet (I don't have an HD TV) but I like the idea that I can just go to a web page and subscribe then have HD right now. With Direct you would have to get a new DVR in most cases.

I would absolutely keep the internet connection but I would seriously consider dropping the TV option in favor of Direct TV. I'll gibe them until Spring 2009 to make things better. If you love HD then Direct or even Dish are probably better options for you unless you can get HD via a normal TV antenna. You will probably always get a better image from the air than from satellite or wired TV services.

As I understand it U-Verse does have a better HD image than most cable systems but it isn't as good as satellite and a normal TV antenna.

We had many problems with the AT&T U-verse Gateway and the wireless home network provided by AT&T. The internet speeds were so inconsistent that even reading e-mail became a burden. Playing games on the internet was impossible. AT&T told us they couldn't deliver reliable, consistent internet speeds via their wireless network. I thought they could have fixed the problem, but I guess not. Has anyone else had this problem???

We had really wanted to switch to U-verse for the television but the internet just didn't work.

»att-consumer-report.com

I am wondering why you never came here to ask for help. Sounds like your site is just ranting on several things without any real request for help and assuming that because your service was like that, that is how it always and is supposed to work for everyone.

I am just a few clicks away, and was here. I can work on Uverse problems guys/gals. Hell I can even work on anything AT&T you can throw at me. I have met a lot of interesting people that way!

I have quite a little army of volunteers.

reply to justin
We got Uverse last month. We have had cable and dish with the DVR and every time the wind would blow, we lost our signal. Living in Tornado Alley, I sort of wanted something a little steadier. The TV signal and internet is fine. I have one complaint. Our Living area and kitchen adjoin. We have a TV in both rooms. The DVR is on the living room TV. It broadcasts a second or two faster than the one in the kitchen which creates an intolerable echo. AT&T says this is caused by the recorder and that is why it is slower. I relied, but it is faster. They said, well it is because there are two separate boxes. I commented that when I had the dish, and the two TV's were on separate boxes, there was no lag time. AT&T said this should resolve when they do the upgrade and have the DVR on all TV's at an additional cost. I am convinced AT&T does not know what they are doing, but feel fairly certain that once more people complain, they will fix this. In the mean time we are just turning the volume down on one TV and blasting out the people in the other room.

Uverse doesn't transmit the TV signal like dish or cable it's coming in on packets via the network. Does it mean it can't be fixed no and I am sure it will be. First and foremost I consider Uverse still in it's infancy stage.

I have the same problem as you do as well. Maybe when the WHDVR comes out it will fix that sync between them all.

In my case I have the DVR on coax and the STB on cat5e. I wouldn't think that would matter but you never know.

reply to Mesquito

reply to koolkid1563
just to verify

xbox live works flawlessly, i can host 16 player matches on halo 3 & cod4, gears, and guitar hero 3 also work great for me.

WoW also works - my friend was playing at my house the other day on his laptop.

reply to justin
»Review of AT&T U-Verse by imakeholsinu

Here's my review of U-Verse. Aside from the abysmal ordering system AT&T has in place and their lack of love for dry loop customers I have to say I am pleased with the service. I'm less than 400 ft from the loop for U-verse (I can actually see it from my window in my apartment) and the installation took no more than 30 minutes. It took another 20 minutes though to get my account setup because of the ordering system being all messed up.

This review is strictly for the internet which I have 6/2.

reply to justin
Hi All, I just got U-verse installed last Tuesday the 26th.My internet service is 10dwn/1.5up of which I`m actually getting 9604 kbps dwn smd 1470 kbps up,so that is fine with me.The TV picture is great both in SDTV & HDTV.My u-verse set to box was defaulted to 720p output which looks great but I went in setup and changed it to 1080i,which also looks great.And hence I`m totally happy with the service.I`ve had no problems with any customer service rep and all my questions were addressed promptly.

My main reason for switching from Comcast (for HDTV) and BellSouth/ATT DSL (6.0 Extream) was the pricing,as I have never personally watched a u-verse program or used it`s internet. My Comcast service was $96.00 and ATT 6.0 DSL $45.00 per month. Now I pay $127 total for both TV and 10.0 DSL , sounds good to me.

reply to justin
U-verse available in my area, in IL. First I tried to place the order online but it doesn't work, it says I have to call them.

I call them, the guy that picks up sounds like I woke him up. He gets my info but he cannot place the order because "the system tells me conflicting services". I explain to him that I have DSL with AT&T and he says that I have to cancel that service before I can place the order. I say Ok, how long does it take to have u-verse installed so I know how long I'll be without internet. He doesn't know and for some reason the question really annoys him and he doesn't know how to end the call quicker. I manage to extract the order number from him and end the call. I call again immediately and a lady picks up but she's in the middle of a discussion with a colleague, I presume, saying something about a trip to airport. Then she gets back to me "Yeah, this is Anna". I don't even bother, I hung up and call again. Kira picks up, she sounds like she would like to be anywhere but there, but she manages to tell me that it takes 7 to 10 days.

So, after reading all the horror stories about u-verse installation, I really don't feel like dealing with these folks if something goes awry. Never mind, that I have to be bound by the limitations of their system that is not able to schedule an install because I have another service with exactly the same company.

Maybe I'll order if somehow AT&T gets their act together, which is very unlikely. Hopefully FIOS will be available by then.

To top it off, today, where I work, we were supposed to have 7 T1's delivered by AT&T and not only that it didn't happen, they are lying about not having access to the premise. Not to mention that the number of outages at our clients caused by AT&T (direct service or services provided by other companies over AT&T loops) is far greater than in any other case.

Good luck.

reply to justin
Can I help? send me an e-mail or an IM. Would love to know about the problems, and see what I can do about them. T1, uverse or anything for that matter.

Thanks
David