We currently subscribe to Comcast, renting 2 HD DVRs and spending quite a bit each month on TV plus the top tier Internet package ($99 by itself). I’m curious how U-Verse compares… anyone happy with it for HD use?
I hope U-Verse is. I’ve ordered it in on Oct 9.
I’ve been trying for years to get away from Comcast for my internet access, but until very recently, the only other option in my area (aside from satellite) was DSL–at least in theory. I have ordered DSL from ATT no less than 3 times in the past 7 years to this address (after they’d send me marketing material telling me it was now available) and every time, they’d swear I could get it now, and when the technicians showed up, they’d take a look at my phone lines and say “no way, sorry.”
So now, U-Verse is making a big pitch to get into this area with cable-based network. Since I know I can get Comcast that way, I’m assuming that means they’ll use the same lines to get to me that Comcast does, and I’ll be golden.
Its a huge jump in value and cost for me: right now, I have Dish Network’s medium level TV package, Comcast for a line that in theory can be up to 3mb download, but hardly ever goes over 1mb, and then phone via the same Comcast line. My cell phone is with ATT. The total cost for all 4 services is $223/month.
So U-Verse’s new (at least new to me) innovation is to offer a package that includes television, internet, and then to let you choose to bundle in either land line phone OR your cell phone contract. I’ve convinced my wife to ditch the land-line phone finally.
So I’m getting a much better TV package (their 450 package, top of the line), a 12MB internet connection, and my two cell phones. All for $150 for a year. And the TV/internet are only a 1-year contract. The cell phones continue to be 2-year, but I don’t care about that anyway. Plus new phones for both of us.
So I’m saving about $75/month, getting rid of the land line that only rings when marketers want to bother us, getting a huge upgrade in both TV and internet capability, and getting upgrades on both cells. Assuming U-Verse is decent, its a pretty big win.
I used U-Verse (Internet only) in an all-fiber building for 2.5 years, and the only problem I ever had was getting an installer appointment. It was rock solid.
Now I’ve got U-Verse through the phone lines, and it’s not rock solid, but that seems to be because of the 2Wire brand wireless gateway they give you. Switching the gateway from g to b made the wired connection much more stable, and message board chatter indicates that buying your own gateway gives good results.
I never got the TV half of the service. Sometimes they’ll tell you you have to get both halves, but you don’t.
We moved our TV+internet to Uverse, along with our phones, a year and a half ago – it kicks the holy crap out of Charter cable. I’ve been very happy with it overall.
I’ve had TV, phone and Internet through Uverse for over a year now I think.
99% of the time it’s great. Every so often though the network connection will drop, cycle, and come back online. It doesn’t happen often but it’s annoying when it does.
Still, having a cornucopia of HD channels is great, and the Uverse DVR isn’t shabby (far better than Time Warner’s).
Is it required that you use their wireless equipment?
Apparently not — the chatter I read mentioned other specific brands.
In my fiber installation it was the same gateway or at least the same brand and I didn’t get dropouts, so if the chatter is correct it’s the combo of phone line plus gateway that causes them. I think the chatter must be correct, since switching from g to b improved it so much.
I absolutely love our u-verse service, and I work for a competitor. The internet has been very quick and 100% reliable since day 1, which DSL has never been at my address due to line quality issues. The TV service has been much more reliable than DirecTV, and way better picture quality than comcast. The DVR is great, and being able to program it from any computer with a web browser is icing on the cake. I feel the pricing is reasonable. Changing channel packages can be done online without calling anyone and takes less than a day to process. We order showtime just for the months that Dexter is on and drop it the rest of the time, and it only takes a day to process and bills get prorated. I really can’t say enough good things about it. I’d be happy to answer any specific questions as needed.
Also, my internet cost is $35 for a 6 meg connection, with the service bundle discount (tv+data). I don’t know what speeds you get through comcast for that price. I know 12 meg is just $10 more but after years of 1.5 meg dsl, the 6 megs seems screaming fast to me so I haven’t felt the need to upgrade it further.
I just got uverse Internet about two weeks ago.
If you plan to daisy chain your own router off of the Att rg I highly recommend you read what I have to say near the bottom of the post. Once I got that issue cleared up it’s been great!!!
There’s a pretty good thread about it already here so you might want to give it a read.
Bottom line for me though, with their $55/mo package, is that I love it. Excellent and consistent speeds and the price is right. But yeah it did take 2 weeks just to get an installer appointment. That was the most annoying part.
One advantage that isn’t immediately obvious for those of you that haven’t dropped cabling all over your house already: the U-Verse DVR/tuner box has an ethernet jack, just waiting for you to plug your consoles and media players into. The DVR acts as a HPNA/ethernet bridge. I can play 1080i HD content fine through it - 1080p content will choke, though.
Lum, would that mean I could use the DVR box to replace a ps3 media server setup? Can I stream content from my PC through the DVR?
The only thing about UVerse that I don’t like is that there is a small, yet noticeable increase in compression artifacts when compared to Time Warner cable, which is what I had before. This is most evident watching sports, or during fiery explosions.
But the quality of the DVR, the increase in HD channels, and the much higher stability and speed of the internet connection make up for it.
My comcast cable service broke last night, and I was annoyed at the fact that meant no TV and no internet. I prefer to split my services across multiple providers so that when one goes down it doesn’t take everything down with it. ATT recently brought U-Verse into my neighborhood but I passed since I’m happy with my cable internet. I guess I should look at again after last night’s internet loss. Also, I love to hate Comcast because of their shitty customer service, so it would be good to cancel something with them. I think I’m wedded to their cable TV service though, since I have a S3 Tivo that requires cablecards.
I had U-Verse for about a year in my last house, before I moved to an area where it’s not available yet. I had no problems with it, and thought it was much better than my previous DSL service.
The only thing I didn’t like was that they only offered the internet portion of the service in a package deal, where I was required to choose either internet + phone or internet + tv service, when I really just wanted internet only. I have no idea if that’s still the case, though.
I got only internet uverse (not tv or phone). You just don’t get any sort of discount unless you bundle so you get stuck with a $150 install fee. I’m like jojo and hate comcast but keep it for TV since I need cablecard.
I’ve had U-verse for a few years and over a couple of houses. Its been great and reliable. I’d recommend it for sure…
But I’ve gone through a dvr receiver about once a year or so. Had one die back in February and the replacement lasted until last week. Then that one died today and I’m waiting for a tech to bring one out. Support times are pretty good and I have an appointment 12-4 today when I only called it in this morning. But losing all your dvr-ed programing bites something fierce.
We lost our Uverse DVR to a lightning strike recently; I was pleasantly surprised to find that, while we obviously lost the stuff that was recorded on it, they store your list of stuff to record on their servers – I expected we’d have to re-enter all our regular shows, but after the tech linked the unit to our account, presto, it was all there.
You can also set/delete recordings thru your yahoo.com homepage. Just found out about that today when I asked why my series record settings were showing up on a new dvr. She said there was a way to stream dvr’d stuff online, but I’m not seeing it anywhere on the site. Haven’t looked too closely at that though.
You can stream DVRed stuff? That’s news to me.