Uverse

[Xpirate]

I just upgraded to Uverse a couple of weeks ago. Having a 12 megabit connection is much better than the old 600 kilobit DSL. I can look at stuff like TCBS worklogs without feeling the frustration of waiting for the pictures to download for what felt like forever.

I do like the faster internet, but Uverse TV is not as nice as Dish Network was. AT&T doesn't have their act together yet when it comes to TV. Dish was easier to use and had features that I miss. With Dish, we had 4 favorites lists that you could get to with a single button. With Uverse, you have one favorites list that require navigating a menu system to get to. Another thing that sucks is that you can not pause live TV on the secondary TV in the bedroom. The installer said that they are working on it. You can pause live TV on the primary TV, but Dish would pause both.

Oh well. I do like the higher speed internet, but if any of you want to upgrade to Uverse TV from Dish, give it some serious thought. I really wish I could drop pay TV, but the wife and kid require their cable channels.

[Ichbin]

What's also cooler is that ATT has now implemented data usage caps much like comcast!

[lynn's engraving]

we just went from att to uverse wireless just for the internet, and kept the dish network. we would have considered bundling, but they were real vague as to what the price would be after their special offer ended, so, no, i don't trust them on that front. based on what we have and pay for everything anyway, i know by doing some quick math that we'd not be saving a plum nickel in the long run, probably be paying more, and we're happy with what we've got now.

we were stuck with roadrunner, and i hated it. thank *gawd* that cycle is broken, but at the time we had no choice. they just screwed us by saying that since our business is attached to the house, that we'd use any house connection to run into the store. and they were right, but my thing is so what? it's not like there are two different internets (that we know of <--conspiracy theory! conspiracy theory!). so they got us for $80/mo. because that was the business rate. granted, when there was a problem they were out that day, but i certainly paid enough for that, so i was hardly impressed. time warner does have some cool bells and whistles, but they overcharge on the sizzle and the steak is hardly filet mignon. honestly, i believe the only reason these cable companies are still around is because they have the infrastructure... and clients who are afraid to try something new (e.g., my grandma).

[TheGreatSatan]

You think you can post your speedtest score?

[OvRiDe]

I have had Uverse for over a year now, and I LOVE it. The HD quality is much nicer then Cox Cable in my opinion. One thing that drives me nuts now when I go somewhere with digital cable is the time it takes to change channels. Uverse is fast, where others have a second or so of black screen before the channel displays. When it comes to TV they have done some extremely simple things that I wish other providers would take note of. The big one is channel numbering. For instance on Cox cable SYFY is on channel 45, the SYFYHD is channel 752. On Uverse SYFY is channel 151 if you want to watch the HD version of the SYFY channel its 1151. So to watch the HD equivalent (if available) of an SD channel all you have to do is add a 1 to the front. All HD channels begin at 1000. I know its simple but it makes it so much easier. Also Uverse actually updates the software on the set top boxes regularly. They are actually running WinCE. I can't tell you how many features have been added over the time I have had it. As for favorites lists, hasn't been a problem for me.. I guess I have all my favorites in my head. :)

I am on the 12Mb connection as well and its always been super stable for me. It doesn't seem to jump around when it comes to transfer speeds.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1277379300.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

Whole house DVR is very nice, as are the on demand channels. The DVR can also record 4 channels at once as well. Not really necessary but I guess its nice if you need it.

My biggest gripe is the 4 streams limit, meaning you can only watch 4 channels in the house at a time. This also means if you are recording something, it counts as a stream. So if you are recording 2 shows, you can only watch 2 other shows during the recording times. You can however watch something already recorded.

As for price, when we signed up the U400 package (now called U450) which is their top tier (400 channels including all the premium channels) with 6Mb internet and phone was almost $70 a month less then I was paying for phone, Cox Cable basic expanded, and 6Mb DSL.

[lynn's engraving]

i admit, it's time for dish network to start getting their upgrades together. that black screen between channels i could live without, and other companies are offering little tricks here and there that just makes things nicer. at one time their DVR situation was generally better than others, but not anymore. dish network just seems to be getting left by the wayside in a lot of areas. maybe their technical side is good or better than most, i don't know.

i've never done a speedtest score, i'll have to check that out.

we had roadrunner, and while it was better than smoke signals, i knew we could get better service if we had the freedom to choose. at the time, though, wireless was just too shady to trust as far as using it for business purposes went. we needed something that wouldn't go out in moderate rainfall. fortunately, wireless got much better and more reliable so we could break the cable cycle! even our store's lottery machine runs on satellite now, attesting to how the cable companies' infrastructure is becoming even more obsolete. things such as redbox might not exist were it not for satellite.

uverse, while a quality product, doesn't cover my needs at a cost i'm good with. of course, for some folk it's different. for us, we did the math and it would have been at least $50 more a month, if not more (like i said, they weren't forthcoming with cold hard numbers, but we knew the minimum it would go up after their 'special' offer), and for that i decided we could live with a second of black screen, lol. i'm sure you're one of a lot of people that gets a good deal out of it. my mum-in-law loves hers, although they jerked her around on the installation of it a bit (but faaar less than time warner jerks my grandma around with roadrunner and her cable).

to each their own and good deals are where ya find 'em, eh?

i grew up with an 8' or 10' satellite dish (i forget the exact size), so one second of black screen is something i can live with, lol. i actually miss those old beasts, it just had the craziest crap on there. back in the day, *no* company blocked their content, so we had every single premium channel that existed at the time... including the xxx channels. life was good. now, dish gives people starz free for a year. other than that, we don't have any premium channels, we just rent movies and their shows. att hooked up a cable (running a good 30 feet) into our PS3 so we could do the netflix thing, but so far we haven't gotten around to setting it up (the end of school is one of our busy seasons).

[Xpirate]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1278707681.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

I've even seen it a few tenths of megabits/second higher than this.

[jdbnsn]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1278723341.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

Suck it biotches!

[Luke122]

Ah Jon, always the eloquent one. :)

[AmEv]

TAKE THAT!!!1!

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1279837982.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

BAM!
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1279840043.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

That's my high school, when everyone's on at once.

[OvRiDe]

Another thing that sucks is that you can not pause live TV on the secondary TV in the bedroom. The installer said that they are working on it. You can pause live TV on the primary TV, but Dish would pause both.

Uverse sent out an update last week that allows you to pause live tv on all of the settop boxes up to an hour. Not sure how they release updates to areas, but if you don't have it now, you will soon. It works GREAT!

[Xpirate]

Thanks for the news OvRiDe.

Also, Ichbin is correct they have download limits. It's like 250 GB per month. I probably won't get anywhere close to it, but it still kind of sucks that they have that limit.

[OvRiDe]

Its true about the cap. At the moment you can go to http://www.att.com/esupport/internet/usage.jsp and login. It will tell you how much you have used. If no information shows up, then the cap hasn't been implemented on your account and you are still unlimited.

The cap does suck, but I have to say that I think at least they are handling it much better then other companies do. Instead of treating it as a penalty and make the overage costs astronomical, they are a bit more reasonable. If you bust out of your 250GB cap.. they will charge 10 dollars per 50GB. Which is way more manageable then some per Mb charge. I still don't like it since when I signed up it was for unlimited, not 250GB, its just the principle of the matter. But I also understood that ATT reserved the rights to change that and I have the right to discontinue service. I too don't believe I will break the 250GB cap, but I am also not that worried about it because it will not bankrupt me if I happen to.

[crenn]

I'd love a $10 per 50GB over, most Australian plans, either your speeds are capped to 64kbps (or if you're lucky. 256kbps.... or if you're with a certain ISP 4mbps) or you're charged $150 per GB over. Or if you're really unlucky, both (charged for 2GB after your cap and then have your speeds capped). Although there is a movement to just capping your speeds (I actually prefer this) including on wireless broadband plans.

I'm on a 200GB plan with the most expensive ISP in the country (Telstra) although they recently released a new 500GB plan for the same price we're paying. The only bad thing is, you have to sign another 24 month contract to get onto the new plan. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is caps aren't too bad, this 200GB plan is shared with multiple people, and we only hit 200GB on a 'bad' month, but most time we don't use it all. And if you're wondering, we're going to be moving upto the 500GB plan most likely to make sure we never get capped speeds, but it also means I can store the images for my website on the server instead of photobucket. (Although people will probably complain because of the 1Mbps upload limit)