AT&T Uverse

PhantomOG

anyone got Uverse with AT&T? AT&T trucks are all over my neighborhood and every 5th or 6th house house their front yard dug up. I'm assuming Uverse is finally going to be availble to me soon.

Assuming they get 2 simultaneous HD feeds and whole house DVR working soon, I think I might consider switching later this year away from Dish for TV and Time Warner for phone/internet. Prices/packages look good. I really like the Dish network interface and DVR though, so its a tough call.

AsSiMiLaTeD

PhantomOG wrote: »

anyone got Uverse with AT&T? AT&T trucks are all over my neighborhood and every 5th or 6th house house their front yard dug up. I'm assuming Uverse is finally going to be availble to me soon.

Assuming they get 2 simultaneous HD feeds and whole house DVR working soon, I think I might consider switching later this year away from Dish for TV and Time Warner for phone/internet. Prices/packages look good. I really like the Dish network interface and DVR though, so its a tough call.

That's a big assumption. I ditched them about this time last year because they couldn't get that working. To me, having only one HD feed per household is simply unacceptable. Whole house DVR would be nice, but having more than 1 HD feed is a must for me.

edbert

A buddy of mine up here in Allen has it and loves it. He isn't HD yet, but he can record up to 4 things at a time. Pretty cool if you ask me. He has tons of channels and says that the service is great for both TV and internet. I am a mile away and don't have it yet, but plan on switching as soon as it is made available to us.

The DVR interface is pretty cool since you can access your DVR from the internet. I don't think you can actually watch shows from anywhere else, but you can at least set it to record from anywhere if you forgot to set it to record and delete shows you have recorded in case you need more room for that all important documentary on the Aztec Empire.

PhantomOG

Yeah, reading the forums it seems like they will get it fixed soon though. I definitely wouldn't switch before that time though. It will probably take them a few more weeks to even get it going in my neighborhood I'm imagining.

How was the picture quality? What did you switch to?

AsSiMiLaTeD

I just switched back to Time Warner. The picture quelity was fine, on the one TV I could get HD on. It did have more HD channels, but I could never watch them because we were always watching something else on another TV.

A few other things I didn't like:

1 - They wouldn't let you have more than one DVR per house, that should be fixed if they implement whole house dvr.
2 - There's one master box that controls everything, including TV and internet. It takes forever to reset completely. If you have to reset your internet connection for any reason, you also lose and have to re-acquire your TV services, takes about 15 minutes.
3 - The initial setup process was very clumsy, and I had to have four different techs out to get it all set up. The whole setup process was just a huge clusterf&ck.

Maybe I just had bad luck and have too high of expectations, but that's my .02

Sami

If they can get anywhere close to FIOS quality service, I will ditch my AT&T DSL and Dish for sure. I loved FIOS. Are there any business plans for internet that gives you static IP and right to host servers?

AsSiMiLaTeD

Oh, and good luck getting more than one HD feed per house. ATT will tell you that this service is fiber like FIOS from Verizon, but trust me, it's not. It may be fiber up to a point, but I saw the bandwidth tests they ran at my house (only a few years old in new neighborhood) and there was no way that's a fiber connection.

I don't think the one HD feed is a software issue that they're just going to be able to turn on, I think it's an actual bandwidth issue, only time will tell.

Sami

They advertise 3 HD ready receivers, one being DVR. Is the problem that the receivers won't be able to get signal all at once?

PhantomOG

I hope its not impossible, as one HD feed just won't cut it. From what I've read, it seems the current 1HD/3SD limit will shift to a 2HD/2SD limit instead.

Sami

I can live with 2 HD's. I currently have two, but I'm feeding the second into two displays, one from the component to my FP, and one from HDMI to our bedroom set. Of course both are broadcasting the same channel but we never watch both at the same time anyways.

PhantomOG

Did the Uverse DVR unit have an antenna input for OTA HD feeds?

Sami

I just ditched Dish (price went up and I was having all kinds of issues with signal), time to revisit UVerse. Is there currently 2HD capability? Anyone host ftp or http on their internet? AT&T Home DSL blocks the traffic, I am wondering if this will too. I was able to host them fine on FIOS which was very nice.

PhantomOG

All the promotional stuff I keep getting in the mail from ATT uverse says only 1HD feed at a time in the fine print. I like the price, but there's no way I'm dropping from being able to record 2HD + 1HD OTA down to just 1HD. Can't do it.

I actually like Dish alot. I'm considering switching to their HD-Only package which has almost everything I want and is really cheap.

Sami

Hmmm, the guy never mentioned the HD package when I was dropping my service. Maybe I should call them back since all I really watch is HD (with the lone exception being F1 on Speed). Wife might not be happy with that but oh well...

A friend confirmed he can get 2HD feeds on his service but on some days it starts complaining about it (don't know exactly what happens when that occurs).

PhantomOG

Yeah, the HD-only package is kinda hidden on the website.
http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/our_products/dish_hd/programming/index3.shtml

$30 a month. +$5 for locals. Not too bad. Only thing right now that I would miss is Comedy Central, and hopefully they'll be going HD soon. So far, Dish has added all new HD channels to the HD-only package.

The other BIG problem for me with the package, is for some dumbf reason Dish won't let you add on the regional sports package to the HD-only package. That means no Fox Sports Southwest for me and I miss alot of Big XII football.

PhantomOG

Another thing about Uverse is I'm pretty sure the user interface will be nowhere near as good as the one Dish has. Dish really has their **** together on their HD-DVR's. It blows Direct away and is light years ahead of Time Warner Cable.

Sami

Do you also get local HD channels with that package?

PhantomOG

If they are available in your area its an additional $5. They just added them here in Austin. You can always use an antenna as well.

cheddar

Polkmaniac wrote: »

Oh, and good luck getting more than one HD feed per house. ATT will tell you that this service is fiber like FIOS from Verizon, but trust me, it's not. It may be fiber up to a point, but I saw the bandwidth tests they ran at my house (only a few years old in new neighborhood) and there was no way that's a fiber connection.

Yep, it's fiber up to the node and copper to the house. This can result in a pretty long run of copper if the house is far from the node (that sits in front of some lucky guy's house).

Polkmaniac wrote: »

I don't think the one HD feed is a software issue that they're just going to be able to turn on, I think it's an actual bandwidth issue, only time will tell.

Again, I think you're right on. Uverse is internet TV. Basically streaming one "channel" at a time using TCP/IP protocols vs. cable which sends every channel to the box which only tunes in the channels it wants. I would imagine that HD chews up a lot of the available bandwidth.

The advantage, of course, is that whatever they do to open up more services should also theoretically open up internet performance as well. But I would imagine that they will still attempt to artificially limit what you can do with the network so they can charge you for it. Still, all those uverse TV drops are actually full ethernet drops run back to a router box. So you don't have to be physically near the main "box" to use the network. I have my 360 and ps3 hardwired to the network through a cheap hub near the TV. Very nice benefit.

Sami

Back to the multiple HD channel issue, has there been any improvement lately? Has AT&T fixed it?

PhantomOG

Sami wrote: »

Back to the multiple HD channel issue, has there been any improvement lately? Has AT&T fixed it?

In the latest junk mail I get on a daily basis from AT&T, I think it mentioned the possibility of 2 simultaneous HD feeds in some areas. I'm too lazy and content with Dish to try and find out about my area.

The pricing sure looks good though.

PhantomOG

from the uverse website

**Four channels can be recorded to the DVR or viewed simultaneously, up to 2 can be HD based on geographic restrictions.

goingganzo

so lets say i have 5 hd tv with 4 hd boxes and 1 hd dvr olny 1 show can be hd and all other boxes can olny watch sd?

Sami

PhantomOG wrote: »

Assuming they get 2 simultaneous HD feeds and whole house DVR working soon

They are saying Dallas area is now sporting 2 HD feeds and whole house DVR. I think the update came in a week ago.

jmwest1970

Our city council approved AT&T to offer Uverse here and I'm thinking about signing up. I'm not concerned about the HD issue for now as we only have 1 HD tv. What I'd like to know is how's the internet service? We'd had no problems with DSL until I upgraded to 6mb and now it drops 10 times a week, and always at the most inconvenient times.

KrazyMofo24

If you get Uverse you can have two HD feeds 90% of the time unless you are too far from the VRAD which is typically 3000ft. Most people will be Fiber to the Node unless you live in a really new neighborhood then chances are you will be Fiber to the Premise. 10mb should be plenty for the majority of internet users. The main advantage of being fiber to the premise is the quality of the line. You will not have any interference or noise on the line that copper can have. The max package is 10mb for their internet regardless if its all fiber.

The internet service is good it will not drop connection several times if it does then its the whole service will go down. If that happens then you have line issues and a tech will need to fix it. The router you get for having the service is very good, you can do a lot with it. The techs will set up and install wireless internet for you which is a plus.

If you guys have any technical issues with the U-verse I'll be happy to help.

cheddar

jmwest1970 wrote: »

What I'd like to know is how's the internet service? We'd had no problems with DSL until I upgraded to 6mb and now it drops 10 times a week, and always at the most inconvenient times.

Like I said before, Uverse IS internet TV. There really isn't any difference between the internet service and the TV service. Both depend on having the internet connection to the house and use the same protocols to move information over a home network linking all the TV boxes just like you would share an internet connection between computers.

With cable, it just transmits all the channels to the house just like you would receive all the channels with an over the air antenna, and then your TV or cable box tunes in each station. With Uverse, each channel isn't really a channel and can't be tuned in by a TV or cable box. The box sends an internet request to stream a 'channel' to it, and a 'channel' is streamed over the internet to the box in an on demand basis. So with cable, since it doesn't depend on the internet, you can have cable and internet services that operate independently of each other. With Uverse, the quality of the TV service is only as good as the quality of the internet service since they both rely on the same technology to work. And they can add more features (number of simultaneous HD channels, etc.) only if they improve the internet service. So if internet's your main concern, Uverse has every incentive to provide quality, reliable service in a way that doesn't exist for cable or phone companies because those companies' main businesses rely on separate technologies.