Review of AT&T U-VerseAll reviews of |  about |
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It has been two weeks since I got started with u-verse and I am overall very pleased. As with any technology there are some minor problems but the good picture quality and the fast internet outweigh the problems. Issues: 1. I ordered my set up 1 day before they made voip available and nothing on the web said it would be available nor did the service rep when I called in for setup. Very poor on AT&T's part, I would have waited 1 day to get it all installed at once. The inside installer did set up the order for voip and installed the battery back up when I talked to him about it. 2. 2wire RG is not the best configured gateway, dns tracking is very slow, the unit is constantly polling the network for who knows what. 3. STB remotes have very little range, in fact anything but direct line of site renders the remote useless. 4. STB sound output - they offer 5.1 Dolby and it works with digital to amp but when you set it to 5.1 it kills any output to hdmi or regular stereo feed. Even Comcast unit feed regular and 5.1 simultaneously. 5. Pixalation and studdering on sports shows. I am not sure that this is as much a problem with the signal to the RG as much as it is a problem with how many times the transmission gets swithced before I see it. As the problem shows up more on local channel HD sports show (CBS here is very bad on sports thru u-verse), I am of the opinion that it makes too many stops before I see it and is open to too many variables along the way. I had instances like this with cable service also but not as frequent. 6. Back to the sluggish responsivenss from the RG on internet surfing. It takes too long from the time you enter an address until the page starts loading. It is really bad with IE but it shows up in Firefox and Safari also. This needs to be addressed by 2wire and fixed. As I said earlier, so far my wife and I are pleased with the service and once everything is in place we will go to dinner on the $60.00 a month we are saving. I will update after I get voip next month. 10/09/09 Finally got my VOIP installed. Install went smooth and system is working fine. Good stuff: After 1 month I am still pleased with the TV end. I did have a problem with one of my stb's locking an hd stream but after a reset I think I have that problem corrected. DVR works as claimed and except for some pixelation on HD sports from and only from live network feeds (probably due to having to many switches between the live feed and the final delivery) all the channels have good pictures. Internet speeds are close to advertised. Bad stuff: Latency is very badddd always above 150 ms and as high as 250 ms. ATT really needs to address this as it makes page loads slow. It doesn't effect large downloads but it slows general surfing. 11/05/09 Well I guess someone at U-verse read one of my post on latency. I now get pings between 40 ms and 70 ms. This is not as good as I would like but it sure beats pings above 200 ms. I guess it helps when your IP address is hosted in the same city as your location. Other than a slight billing problem, everything is as advertised. Followup comments:
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I got installed on 10/29 so I've had it about a week as of this review. My appt. was scheduled to begin between 9AM and 11AM. 2 AT&T employees rang my doorbell at 9:05 which surprised me to no end. Installation took about 3 hrs including the time they took to go to the fiber box and test out my capacity which they said was well over the minimum requirements. Techs were very good - nice guys, friendly, knew the product well and installed everything cleanly and neatly. They took the time to update the STBs, test my phone line, and sit with me and show me how to operate the DVR and all it's functions. TV: I don't have a 1080P TV and didn't feel like paying extra for 1080i so I only get standard def channels. The picture quality is excellent. DVR record-4-shows-at-a-time functionality works well. I like the free on-demand shows. Dish did not have the on-demand feature. I haven't tried the remote recording yet but seems like a cool feature. Internet: Love the twice as fast Internet connection. Haven't had any connectivity problems yet. The techs didn't show me the configuration on the RG so I had to figure that out myself, but if you've configured a home router before you will not have any problems. Downloads are fast; streaming video is fast; uploads are fast! It would have been nice if the RG supported wireless-N but my old router was only a g router and with the faster pipe to the outside world everything feels zippy. Phone: Lots of nifty features with the VOIP. I like the easy configuration you can do online. Also retrieving voice messages from the online interface when away from home is excellent. So far everything is good (knock on wood). I can hardly believe AT&T has a solid digital offering! Followup comments:
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On Fri. AM, October 23, I called AT&T to get the modem tested. The tech tried to test the line but she could not due to the modem being out. She told me that I would have to buy a new modem since the warranty was only good for one year. The tech them transferred me to the AT&T Store so I could order a new DSL modem. I spoke with the salesman and he told me about AT&T U-verse. We had been thinking about getting it for sometime. I was not too sure so when I was told that I would get a new DSL modem for free, I ordered AT&T U-verse. I ordered the VOIP, 12 MB down, and 450 + HD TV package. All for practically the same price we pay now. It is a better bang for our money. The installation was set for Wed., Oct. 28, 2009. We are getting $200 cashback and $30 off for the first six months. The tech called at 8:30 AM to say he was on his way. The tech did not show up until 9:35. The tech was here for seven hours. I* don't believe he ever told me his name. He had a freaking review by his supervisor and someone else while he was here. A new telephone pole was installed as one of the neighbors was having issues. It made fora long day. Fortunately I am savvy enough to figure out how to operate a TV system so I was learning the TV setup before the tech left. I have been very happy with the service so far. The only issue I have is with the low TV volume. Once I get that resolved I will be even happier. Followup comments:
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The first issues was when I first checked my options for U-verse I checked online to see what was available in my area and I also called and spoke with a rep to get pricing to compare with other providers. I then called back 2 days later and the rep said U-verse wasn't available at my house, which I assured him it was. He was adamant about it not being available at my address. I resolved the issue by hanging up and calling back to speak to another sales rep, lol problem solved. The second issue was the improper running of the cable from the street to my house. The tech just ran the coax across my lawn, unburied. I called U-verse, about a week later, and they promptly sent a tech out and buried it. U-verse has been amazing so far (about 10 months). I've never had an internet/TV service as reliable and fast as this one. Also the ability to stream MP3s and JPGs directly to the TV is icing on the cake. Followup comments:
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The install went very well. An outside line tech showed up at 9AM to check the connection at the NID, which was excellent because my home is ~500' from the VRAD. The inside tech showed up at 10:45 to begin the home install. Placed the RG where I wanted it, and was able to use the existing coax to connect my 2 SD TV sets. Excellent TV picture quality - at least as good as cable was. I'm getting the 6Mbps speeds that I signed up for, and my line is good enough to move to the 18Mbps speed should I ever wish to upgrade. The VOIP phone connection is excellent with no line noise or echo. Both techs were polite and easy to talk to, and obviously knew their job. The inside tech went to great lengths to make sure I knew how to operate the set-top box. With the help of the good folks in the Uverse forum here, I was able to hook-up my Dlink router to the RG, and keep my previous LAN set-up. The only suprise for me was that the inside tech elected to use the existing coax to connect the RG to the NID instead of using CAT5. But I'm getting the service that I'm paying for, and that's all I really care about. Followup comments:
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Ordered Uverse on 10/12/09 with an install date of 10/26/09. Tech called me about 11:30 am on his way here from his previous job (my window was 11a-1pm). Tech showed up. We chatted a few.. I have DT (POTS) so he checked my phone heard the DT then said he needed to go jumper (at the VRAD) He was gone a few mins and then came back... brought the equipment including his test set.. Could get DT but could not see a responce back from the VRAD.. so he headed out again after checking the wiring in the MDU ( We chatted about how aweful MDU wiring can be) ... etc... He went out and sure enough the place he jumpered on the VRAD was bad ( he said he sees this often on a lot of VRADs) I chuckled and said "it's amazing that this technology works on such old phone system.." He then replaced my wall plate (installing a baun in the wall to seperate the POTS from the jack for the UVerse RG) Then he setup the RG and the DVR box... while he did that (I was talking tech with him as I do support for a cable company in another state) while he finished setting up the DVR I configured my laptop with the provided SSID and WPA key... and we where online Great install.. Overall I am very pleased with the service. the 6 MB / 1MB is on target with the speed tests and so far the DVR is working wonderful and the picture (even on my SD TV) is better than what I had with Digital cable with Time Warner. Currently subscribing to UVerse U200 for Video and 6MB/1MB for the Data. Followup comments:
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Internet and TV have been great so far. TV I still have a phantom issue during heavy rain tons of errors and pixelation. Also get pixelation when it's not raining but not all the time. Matt has been helping me track it down for months now but still nothing. Otherwise since last post they upgraded the TV part for News & Sports Multiview and Mediashare. I keep getting e-panel invites. Sounds like AT&T is testing allowing us to watch recorded shows from our PC's or Mobile phones down the road. Otherwise still very happy. Just wish they would increase the upload a bit. Hopefully with the new profile coming sometime it will. I still think they need to lower pricing on the internet and get rid of a tier. Just have 3, 6, 12 & 18. Honestly no need for 1.5 anymore. ****Update 4/19/09 Well Internet and TV has been pretty good, recently I get pauses on live and recorded TV every so often. Basically it's as if I hit the pause button and hit it again. Voice I haven't had the fast busy/loss of line in awhile. I do have an issue that can't seem to be explained. When I max out my 10 meg internet connection, downloading large .iso files for work. My voice becomes choppy/static sounding to me. The other end says it just sounds like a really bad connection. Some say it's static others say it's a loss of voice basically. It's as if they hear every other word. AT&T seems to care less about having all three services with them. As far as giving bigger bundled discounts to it's customers and even quadruple services. Not sure I will be keeping the voice service or not. I just know with Comcast Digital Voice it seemed much more stable compared to U-Voice at least for me. Hopefully we can get this figured out or I will be going to another voip provider. Also I forgot to add the reason my taxes were so high was because of a pro rated month plus a full month. I am only paying $5.28 worth of taxes on $30 VoIP which is about what I was paying with Comcast Digital Voice. ****Update 10/31/08 Went to go use the phone this morning and can't dial out get a fast busy once the number is dialed. Same thing happened a couple weeks ago. So far in two months this is not very good service. I have a call into support and am awaiting one back. Using my cell for a conference call right now. I am waiting for my next bill to double check the taxes. Someone suggested since I was billed twice, pro rated it might be higher. They got it working a little over an hour ago. Seems to be the same issue the past few times which results in them resetting the voice profile. They are coming out to replace the RG tomorrow. ****Update 10/24/08 I still hadn't heard from anyone. Other then someone calling the house yesterday and talking to my wife. Of course no name/number left. I called back into billing today and talked to a supervisor and pretty much the same story. He said once you have all 3 services the double pack discount goes away for those of us that had it. As far as taxes go again he couldn't say much but that MI, WI & IN are all charged the USF fee. I think it is complete BS that AT&T charges the USF for a digital phone service when Call Vantage never did. Then when you talk to lower end people they say it's just part of the charges. For those with Call Vantage I would keep the service as long as you can. I am going to start looking at VoIP providers and a good QoS router. Depending on what I find U-Voice will just disappear or I will completely dump AT&T and go back to Comcast, shuttering the thought. ****Update 10/21/08 I got my first bill with U-Voice and am not a happy camper. They took off my double pack $10 discount. Reason given when I called in is since I ordered a 3rd service it gets removed. Then they turn around and charge me the discount ontop of the bill. My taxes have 4 lines now vs 1 and the 4 total $9.52 just because of a $30 VoIP. I have never had that much in taxes with Vonage, Call Vantage or Comcast Digital. I have put numerous calls into AT&T with promies of getting calls back and nothing so far. Two tickets have been opened up concerning the discount and taxes. Nothing so far and those were submitted last thursday 10/16. I am going to give it till the end of the week and if I hear nothing back I will be cancelling U-Voice and possibly U-Verse altogther. AT&T IMO has no idea how to treat customers when dealing with the U-Voice product. When it was TV & Internet no problem but when you talk about triple play package they have no bundling discount at all. The entire poing of bundling is to get more of a discount overall. I hate to event think but I may be going back to Comcast. I will update my review once it has to come to some kind of conclusion. ****Update 9/24/08 Things have still been working great. I left Call Vantage for U-Voice since it went live in the chicagoland area and it's $30 for unlimited voice. I had it installed on 9/11 and so far no problems. I do like not needing a secondary QoS router like I needed towards the end with Call Vantage. My two issues right now are the login process to check voicemails via the web is to long. The portal for Vonage, Call Vantage and even Comcast was faster then U-Verse. Secondly, they don't offer the ability to have your voicemails emailed to you like Vonage or Call Vantage. Overall very happy and I seem to have more features then Call Vantage. Also I updated my price so my package includes U300, Max Internet (10/1.5) and U-Voice all for $154 before taxes. ****Update 3/14/08 I have had service for a month now and no major complaints. I had to call support back out do to my basement STB being on the 59 coax and causing issues. Came out and put cat5 in for me and been working great. I have dropped POTS and went to Call Vantage that's been working great as well. I got my first bill today and it wasn't completely correct with what I was told with discounts. When I was having install issues a rep decided to upgrade me for free from the u200 to u400 free for 6 months. Well they only applied a $20 credit instead of $40 which would make it free. I called up and explained what happened 5 minutes later all was taken care of. Latency isn't a big issue for me but I do look forward to them removing it one day and opening the internet pipe a bit more. Overall very glad I dumped comcast!!! Oh and 1 think my monthly price is based on the u200 and MAX - 10/1.5 internet. *********Original Post 2/15/08 I switched over from comcast. I had all 3 services with them. I saw that NE Illinois went live. So on Monday 1/28 I went to the U-verse site and put in my address. To my surprise it said I could get it. Then I called in to make sure and they said yes we can service you. Now up until this point DSL has never been an option to far from the CO and no RT's for my area. We go over everything and I have to order POTS again since VoIP isn't an option yet for U-verse service. We do that and according to the POTS person I should only be paying $8-12 in taxes we shall see. So I order 6/1 internet and u200 and they upgrade me to u300 free for 6 months. I get a $100 visa card for u-verse and $50 for POTS. For the u200 and 6/1 I pay $79 a month. Install was set for 2/1 from 8-10. Well I call about 9:45 and they call dispatch and it appears a tech was never assigned the case. They get someone to come out from 12-2pm. He shows up about 1pm and I show him the house and NID. He leaves to go to the vrad and crossbox. Comes back after an hour and says he is having problems. So he calls for another I & R tech and he shows up about an hour later. They are both working on the lines and about 6pm they say they are coming out on Saturday to get go over it again. Saturday 2/2 we were out and I get a call about 12pm from the U-verse tech asking about the install. I told him we would be there in 15 minutes and he said fine as he was going to go find the I & R tech. I get home and drive over to the vrad. Explain to both what happened since they never got any notes from the day before. After an entire day still no luck and they didn't leave till 6pm again. This went on from Monday to Thursday. Basically the issue was not being able to get or hold sync at my NID. Then Friday 2/9 we left for out of town but they kept working on it. Saturday 2/9 I get a voicemail from U-verse saying all is set and call back to schedule an appt. I call back later that day and the U-verse person said they hadn't heard back from I & R. So on Monday 2/11 I called the I & R manager (which I got his card after they left on 2/2 and was in contact through out the week even though I was out of town) and he said all was fixed on 2/8. He said he would call a u-verse manager and have them contact me. About 11am on 2/11 I get a call from the u-verse manager and setup the appt. for 2/15 from 12-2pm. I get a call about 8:15 saying they had a cancellation and could they come at 9am. I couldn't since I had some conf. calls and needed the internet during that. I call about 11am just to verify all is going well and to see if I can get the 10/1.5 internet. They check and I can so they upgraded me to that over the phone and upgraded me to the u400 for the trouble for 6 months free. So tech calls about 12:15 says he will be here by 1pm. Shows up we go over everything and by 2:30pm all is working. We got the internet up first and then did the TV's. I have the 2wire/RG in my furnace room since that's where the phone and cable come to and I have a board with everything mounted down there. I have coax going to the DVR and other setop box. Then a cat5 coming up to my office to the Linksys router which I just made a switch. Wireless is running through the RG/2wire and working fine. Just not used to a 2wire interface so that's taking a bit. Sync rate at the RG/2wire is 62 which is very good. Speeds are as advertised. I don't have HD but the SD picture seems clearer to my wife and I compared to Comcast Digital cable. Depending on what my POTS bill is I may switch to Call Vantage. Over all very happy I stuck with it and the techs were very nice the entire time. One thing folks should realize is this is new technology just like when DSL came out. Some people have very smooth installs and others don't. Followup comments:
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Order and Install was consistant with AT&T processes. Approximately 30 days+/- from Order to Install Cisco equipment installed for the DVR and TV Tuner. I am still in the process for formulating a final opinion, but i'm very happy with the decision thus far! Followup comments:
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We went to U-verse because of the TV. The alternative is comcast, and we don't much like that company. We were using over-the-air TV, but that became more iffy after the switch to HDTV. TV is reliable and high quality. Telephone (U-verse voice) is reliable and the voice quality seems as high as the POTS line we previously had. We switched both phone lines over to U-verse, and the cost savings helps pay for the U-verse. Internet service is great. There were a few temporary glitches for the install. See »Uverse available - what can I expect? for details. I am using my own router with this service. Unfortunately the supplied RG does not have any DNS settings. Followup comments:
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AT&T U-Verse
(64)
(41)
(16)
Mobile,Mobile,AL
$160 per month
about 21 days
"TV is very good"
"weak STB remote, still waiting for voip install"
"currently pleased"
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ATT Uverse roll-out in Miami
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