Uverse

[Hoosier Red]

So U-Verse finally is available in my neighborhood. It's not an exaggeration to say that this is a day I've been waiting for for over 2 years. I can not express how much I truly hate hate hate Comcast.

But before I join Balki in the dance of joy, have any of you experienced problems with U-Verse? I'm specifically wondering about the internet connection. How does the wireless work? Is it worse than a typical wireless router in your house?

According to the literature, the internet is supposed to be much faster than the standard AT&T DSL we have now, but has anyone experienced problems with this?

[15fan]

I, too, am interested to hear what people have experienced. Have AT&T for our landline, my cell, and DSL with a wireless router. Any downside to ditching Comunistcast in favor of UVerse?

[Razor Shines]

I've had it for several months. It's pretty good, price wise it's about the same as Time Warner. And that's with adding on HBO and their sports package to get the Big Ten Network and NFL Redzone. Those two channels are completely worth it to me.

I like the function of their "guide" a lot better than Time Warner's. I don't have set all my scheduled recording to end a min late because it does it automatically. Their is much less "lag" time between when I push the button on the remote and when the action is produced on the guide.

Their internet service has worked out really well for me so far. They give you a modem that is also a wireless router, but I switched off the wireless and use my own linksys router. I pay $35/month for 12Mbs. Haven't had any connectivity issues so far.

[SeeinRed]

I've had experience with troubleshooting U-Verse. I only worked there for a few months this summer, but got a very good look at what goes on. The biggest factor in your service will be distance from the fiber node. That will affect how many Cable boxes you can have, what your fastest internet speed will be, and mostly just the overall service quality. Obviously the closer you are the better service you will get. They will install you up to around 5000 feet away, but you will have serious service issues from what I saw. About 2500-3000 feet is where you start losing quality, but results vary from that range. Below that you see very few issues. Hope that is helpful. If you have any more service questions, feel free to PM me.

Download speeds are not usually that much more that TWC Road Runner Turbo, but the upload speed is significantly higher. If I recall correctly, 10mbps up is the top tier which is great for things like Slingbox. Compared to 5mbps for Road Runner Turbo.

Its a great service I wish they had here in Cincinnati, but due to exclusivity agreements with Cincinnati Bell it will not be available any time soon. We're talking 10 years or more before the agreement runs out. Luckily I was able to get Road Runner turbo so I'm not as upset as I was.

I should probably add that I was a tech for TWC as well for a while. I've had a good look at both and there really is not much difference in service quality in either. IPTV, which is what AT&T uses is a cool concept though most users do not know the difference. One issue with it as of now is that you can only use 4 streams at once. HD takes up 2 of them. If you have say 4 tvs, and you are watching Discovery HD on one recording a SD show, and watching another tv (which can only be SD by this point), the other tv can only watch one of the other streams, or a recorded program. Most people do not have a problem with this, however if you are watching Discovery HD and recording ESPN HD, you cannot watch a seperate program on another TV. The amount of streams you have is dependant on distance from the Node, but is capped at 4, at least at the time I was there. I would never run into that being a problem but some may. The other difference is that you MUST have a box on every TV you want to use. That means a rental fee for each every month. Currently you can use cable on TVs through a cable tv provider but that was suppose to change in 2012 I believe. That may be an issue for some.

The positives, well there are many. You can control your DVR from the internet or your phone. They were rolling out a feature where you could watch recorded programs over the internet, though I don't know if that has made it to the subscribers. The guide, which was mentioned by Razor is much more user friendly and filled with features. It is also very easy to set parental locks. The lineup is also much more diverse. You do have to pay for a lot of the "extra" channels, but there seem to be many more options that TWC.

[George Anderson]

How does Uverse compare price wise to Directv or Dish?

[Hoosier Red]

Well the HD version of the U-100 package is $65, it's about an extra $10-$15 for every 100 channels above that up to U-450 which is apparantly for people who are never leaving their house..

[SunDeck]

I use Uverse for my internet connection and it works very well.

[SandyD]

Anyone currently on Uverse?

How do you like the service? Can you get more than 4 feeds at a time? That would in fact be a big problem in my house. We only have 3 TVs, but 2 are HD. And there are times when all 3 are on different channels, AND we're recording something ... in HD.

Also, Uverse isn't offering Extra Iinnings. But the Fox Sports package they have includes FoxSports Ohio, both Cleveland and Cincinnati feeds. Anyone have experience with both? What would I miss if I didn't have Extra Innings?

[Razor Shines]

Anyone currently on Uverse?

How do you like the service? Can you get more than 4 feeds at a time? That would in fact be a big problem in my house. We only have 3 TVs, but 2 are HD. And there are times when all 3 are on different channels, AND we're recording something ... in HD.

Also, Uverse isn't offering Extra Iinnings. But the Fox Sports package they have includes FoxSports Ohio, both Cleveland and Cincinnati feeds. Anyone have experience with both? What would I miss if I didn't have Extra Innings?

I have it. I like it. I'm not sure about the feeds. I only have 4, 2 hd and 2 standard. You may be able to get more but I don't need it so I don't know.

As far as EI, I use mlb.tv through the ps3 and it works great for me. I had the fox sports package for a while and the only thing I would have missed were games when the reds weren't on fox sports. But most are. I went with mlb.tv because I wanted to be able to watch games at work as well as home.

[SandyD]

If I tried to use mlbtv at work, I'd be out of a job.

We have 2 hd and one standard tv. I asked about the feeds because of "SeeinRed's" post above. He said HD channels that up 2 feeds. So if you're limited to 4, you would be able to watch 2 HD channels plus another standard channel at the same time. That would definitely present a problem here in the evenings. Have you tried that?

[SunDeck]

Still using Uverse for my Internet connection.
I just dropped cable in favor of watching shows via Netflix and PlayonTV via the wireless connection on my Wii.

[Razor Shines]

If I tried to use mlbtv at work, I'd be out of a job.

We have 2 hd and one standard tv. I asked about the feeds because of "SeeinRed's" post above. He said HD channels that up 2 feeds. So if you're limited to 4, you would be able to watch 2 HD channels plus another standard channel at the same time. That would definitely present a problem here in the evenings. Have you tried that?

Well we only have two TVs but if we're watching an HD channel on 1 and recording an HD show we can still watch two other standard shows.

[oneupper]

I have a question. I called ATT and they said that the TVs have to be hard-wired to the gateway. I need to have the gateway in my home office because my work computers don't have wi-fi.

When they come to install, would they try to rewire my house or something?