uverse instead of cable??

[slick one]

Hi...still kinda new here and have a almost hatred for cable....
so... my cable/ internet is going to 155.00 a month...NOT! For what 13 hd stations?????????

so att has uverse which i get internet(faster) and 40 HD stations for 119.00 a month and one month free....

does anyone have this service and if so feed back please so I know what the grey hair count will be soon!!!
THANKS as usual people.
greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!
-Me

[jcmountain34]

hey man i do have the at&t uverse and it is a pretty good system, the internet is faster and the picture is a lot better than cable. we saved some money going with this over dish network and our internet bill. it takes a while getting to know where all the channels are because they are relocated then the dish network was but it was not a big deal. i say its a good deal and you will not be disappointed.

[MrBogey]

It's still fairly new so a lot of experiences vary wildly because it depends upon a lot of factors.

If you've a new house with good coax or an ethernet wired house you'll have the easiest time. I can't comment about much else because I have no hands on experience with it.

[JadedRaverLA]

Well, I can tell you that in my area at least Uverse is terrible. Everyone I know who "switched" ended up coming back.

Among the problems:

• Only 1 HD stream at a time
• Only 4 total streams available at a time
• They use better AVC compression but the data rate has to be kept so low that the picture (especially on HD) looks far worse than that offered by the local cable co's
• Slower internet speeds (may just be in my area)
• No HD On-demand

Everyone I knew switched because AT&T made all kinds of claims about more HD programming, etc, but the HD picture looked like DVD, and the 1 HD stream limitation ended up aggrivating everyone WAY too much. Let's say you want to record a movie off HBO, but it's on at the same time as Lost... which you planned on watching. Guess what... you can only do one of those as an HD stream, the other you'll be stuck with SD. And if you have multiple HDTVs, then the service is almost useless.

But, if you can live with the limitations... then the price is great (at least at first). I called my cable company a few months ago to say I was considering switching to Uverse just to see what they'd offer. Let's just say they gave me a pretty awesome deal not to switch. If I were you, I'd try that -- unless your cable co has terrible service or bad picture quality... then the switch may make sense.

[Blus Brother]

I work for ATT, I would stay away from it until becomes more mainstream - if that ever happens. I will stick with my sattelite which has way more than 40

[radagast]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

Well, I can tell you that in my area at least Uverse is terrible. Everyone I know who "switched" ended up coming back.

Among the problems:

• Only 1 HD stream at a time
• Only 4 total streams available at a time
• They use better AVC compression but the data rate has to be kept so low that the picture (especially on HD) looks far worse than that offered by the local cable co's
• Slower internet speeds (may just be in my area)
• No HD On-demand

Everyone I knew switched because AT&T made all kinds of claims about more HD programming, etc, but the HD picture looked like DVD, and the 1 HD stream limitation ended up aggrivating everyone WAY too much. Let's say you want to record a movie off HBO, but it's on at the same time as Lost... which you planned on watching. Guess what... you can only do one of those as an HD stream, the other you'll be stuck with SD. And if you have multiple HDTVs, then the service is almost useless.

But, if you can live with the limitations... then the price is great (at least at first). I called my cable company a few months ago to say I was considering switching to Uverse just to see what they'd offer. Let's just say they gave me a pretty awesome deal not to switch. If I were you, I'd try that -- unless your cable co has terrible service or bad picture quality... then the switch may make sense.

I am making the switch from Comcast to Uverse in a few weeks. I am aware of the I HD stream at a time. I know a guy who trains installers. He told me about that limitation and said that AT&T is going to address the situation later this year. I have only 1 HD set at the moment, so I don't care. I hate Comcast enough that I am willing to save money and wait. AT&T knows they have to compete, so they will get better over time. Meanwhile, Comcast has been getting worse and worse.

[mr.hidef]

Originally Posted by slick one

Hi...still kinda new here and have a almost hatred for cable....
so... my cable/ internet is going to 155.00 a month...NOT! For what 13 hd stations?????????

so att has uverse which i get internet(faster) and 40 HD stations for 119.00 a month and one month free....

does anyone have this service and if so feed back please so I know what the grey hair count will be soon!!!
THANKS as usual people.
greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!
-Me

Any set up costs involved?....Also make sure to research the channel listing. Is it 40 good HD channels,or 13 HD channels, and 27 channels of HD crap that you will never watch?... Also realize in 1 or 2 years you'll be paying 150.00 a month for that, when it becomes really popular....(just food for thought)

[bootman]

Originally Posted by slick one

Hi...still kinda new here and have a almost hatred for cable....
so... my cable/ internet is going to 155.00 a month...NOT! For what 13 hd stations?????????

so att has uverse which i get internet(faster) and 40 HD stations for 119.00 a month and one month free....

does anyone have this service and if so feed back please so I know what the grey hair count will be soon!!!
THANKS as usual people.
greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!
-Me

Tell your cable company that you are thinking about switching.
I'll be shocked if they don't cut you a better deal.
Who is it BTW?
I think Comcast can lock you in for around the uverse price for two years or something like that.

[Cyorg]

I'm currently a uverse tech. a lot of good info can be found at www.uverseusers.com. It's not an official website or anything, but still there is a lot of info there.

Just so you know, there is currently a limit of 4 SD streams and 1 HD stream per household. So If you have more than 4 TV's in the house only 4 people can watch TV. If you have more than one HDTV, only one at a time can view an HD channel unless both TV's are watching the same channel. They are currently working on increasing the amount of streams available to consumers, but there is not a release date yet for that.

[slick one]

well here in north county san diego i have time warner... have had it for 3 years and blah!
nothing is perfect but :
no contract
free install
1st month free
price is FIXED as long as you have service!!
and...
if this doesnt work out i am off to the land of satellite.

it cant be any worse than what i have presently except the food channel in HD...ahhhhhh unless it is filmed in burger king! LOL

[DisneyKrayzie]

I have had Uverse for about 8 months now, and I love it. It is so much better than Time Warner. I was a bit hesitant at first, I had AT&T DSL Elite package and when I moved I was told it wasn't available at my new home and I had loved the speed of the connection I had. They told me I could get the same speed with Uverse package so I went ahead and got it and couldn't be happier. (Although I think that was a bit of a scam to get me to get Uverse, how could they not have Elite DSL service by itself but it was available through Uverse??)

I haven't had to many issues with Uverse at all, I did have a period last month where my service was going out all night for about a week and had techs out at my house everyday, it was a bit frustrating, turned out it was a street light malfunctioning caused interferance with my line, so I couldn't really be mad at AT&T for that one.

[Cyorg]

(Although I think that was a bit of a scam to get me to get Uverse, how could they not have Elite DSL service by itself but it was available through Uverse??)

They may have had a Uverse V-rad server closer to your house than a the DSL server.

[Sonar5]

Originally Posted by bootman

Tell your cable company that you are thinking about switching.
I'll be shocked if they don't cut you a better deal.
Who is it BTW?
I think Comcast can lock you in for around the uverse price for two years or something like that.

You can be shocked, but when I went to FIOS last year, I did call Time Warner and asked if they were interested in making me a better deal and keeping me as a customer.

They said no. And I said, well my appointment is on such and such date with FIOS, and I'll be calling to close account that afternoon.

They said thank you is there anything else we can help you with today.

I said no... And that Friday after FIOS did the install. (6 hours), I called and fired Time Warner Cable. Then drove my boxes to the cable store, paid my final $19.00, and have been happy ever since.

Time Warner Cable is losing long time customers like me because they are not willing to offer anything to compete.

Oh well..... Love My FIOS....

Oh and the HD Quality is much better on FIOS than it was on TWC, and I get NFL network....

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by Sonar5

You can be shocked, but when I went to FIOS last year, I did call Time Warner and asked if they were interested in making me a better deal and keeping me as a customer.

You're nicer than me. If FIOS was available in my area, I'd tell everyone else where to shove it -- no offers accepted. And they can come get their own equipment.

Originally Posted by radagast

I am making the switch from Comcast to Uverse in a few weeks. I am aware of the I HD stream at a time. I know a guy who trains installers. He told me about that limitation and said that AT&T is going to address the situation later this year. I have only 1 HD set at the moment, so I don't care. I hate Comcast enough that I am willing to save money and wait. AT&T knows they have to compete, so they will get better over time. Meanwhile, Comcast has been getting worse and worse.

Really? Maybe it's just the area I live in, but Comcast (who I have now) is the best cable provider I've ever had. Had it for a year, and not a single problem with cable service. I think my internet went down once for about 30 minutes. Add to that, a better HD image than I've had over cable or Dish, and I'm pretty happy. Their price is too high (my bill was like $250/mo. before threatening to switch to Uverse, when they cut it substantially), but I have every single channel (except the international pack), 3 dual-tuner HD PVR boxes, and the 8Mb/sec internet package.

[MrBogey]

I lot of the shortcomings of Uverse and IPTV will be fixed in the future. A lot of it stems from the nature of rolling out a new technology. The restrictions on internet speed and channel viewing can be overcome with bonding. The channel line-up will improve as well once AT&T matures as a television company.

IPTV has a benefit that traditional RF doesn't. You can expand the offerings without scaling back on overall bandwidth or reducing existing bandwidth for channels.

[reiella]

Originally Posted by MrBogey

I lot of the shortcomings of Uverse and IPTV will be fixed in the future. A lot of it stems from the nature of rolling out a new technology. The restrictions on internet speed and channel viewing can be overcome with bonding. The channel line-up will improve as well once AT&T matures as a television company.

IPTV has a benefit that traditional RF doesn't. You can expand the offerings without scaling back on overall bandwidth or reducing existing bandwidth for channels.

It's good potential, but well, just have to realize the restrictions of it's deployment method.

The other big new IPTV provider just jumped to #10 of cable television providers it looks like. The technology is solid, if you got the fat pipe, get the franchise, and the channel availability.

[MrBogey]

FiOS isn't an IPTV service. It's traditional RF.