Uverse

[gr8fl4porsche]

Just installed. Ditched the home phone, 3Mb DSL and saved about $20 a month.



Very nice!

Let the downloading begin.

[BRPORSCHE]

At that speed how long would it take you to dl say 700 mb's? Give me real world.

Thinking about making the switch myself.

[m21sniper]

I've never heard of uverse. What is it?

[Scuba Steve]

It's basically FOIS, but by AT&T instead of Verizon. Fiber optic internet/tv/phone service. I've only got the internet / tv part because a mobile takes care of the phone piece.

[m21sniper]

They still don't have FIOS in my area yet.

[gr8fl4porsche]

Originally Posted by BRPORSCHE

At that speed how long would it take you to dl say 700 mb's? Give me real world.

Thinking about making the switch myself.

Just did a little test for you.

Download speeds are controlled by a variety of factors. The other party's upload speeds, internet traffic, etc.

I just downloaded a 90mb file from Apple.

Speeds averaged about 700KBps.

90mb took about 2 minutes.

At this rate, 700mb would take about 15 minutes.

Late at night, dowloading from someone's T1 - that time could be reduced to about 5 minutes or so.

[BRPORSCHE]

Oh man, I need to make the switch.

It's currently taking me 5 hrs to dl a 700 mb top gear episode.

[m21sniper]

The best speed i've ever seen on my DSL is about 330mbps. Usually it's in the high 100's range.

[dtw]

Timely post. I've had Earthfink DSL since...'00? '01? Cut off yesterday, good riddance. 100kps max real world. Latency, dropped connections, meh.

Signed up for the 'verse. Getting installed a week from today. I can't wait. HDTV, 12mbps internet, DVR, yada yada. Will be pretty cool to try the iPhone app for programming my recorded shows. Perfect for when I get stuck at work.

[m21sniper]

How much is Uverse?

[BRPORSCHE]

Sniper, it's not cheap I know that. I think it's 49.99 with the basic bundle with no home phone. Just internet and tv.

I just looked and uverse isn't available where I live...tear.

[m21sniper]

$49 is pretty cheap actually. Comcast's "triple cast" costs $100, and it's just cable.

I'd jump on Uverse like a pimp on a lazy ho if i could get it here.

[Mrmerlin]

not in Colorado yet

[dtw]

Pricing varies - you configure what you want in a pretty vast/endless menu of options.

Our costs are going up about $30/month, over our existing three-vendor situation. However, that $30/month is buying us unlimited LD, HDTV, MUCH faster internet, more channels, DVR, etc. So it seems worth it.

What we'll probably do is drop the landline service after a month or two, and switch to Magicjack. That's $360/year versus $20/year - seems like a no-brainer. In the meantime, though, signing up for all three services (TV, phone, internet) with U-verse is getting us a $300 Visa gift card.

[red-beard]

I am in a 500 x 500 foot section of my area that can't get U-verse

I may have to switch back to COMCAST..uggghh

[Embraer]

I pay $100 a month for tv and internet. the tv has HD, and I've got the U200 package (with BBC America for Top Gear....albeit a year behind). This includes the DVR, too. No contracts with Uverse...you can quit at any time. That was the selling point for me.

[Neilk]

Problem with uverse is that you can only get a maximum of 2 compressed HDTV signals to your house at any one time and that depends on your distance to the nearest dslam (sp?). Also picture quality isn't as great as Directv for HD and although ATT brags of recording 4 shows at once, they all have to be standard def.

I really want to get uverse, but I can only get 1 HD signal to my house due to distance. Even if I could get 2, I wouldn't want their overly compressed HD signal. Dumping Directv would save me a bit of money, but I am not willing to loose the ability to get mutiple HD feeds.

[Don Plumley]

I made the switch, not for cost reasons, nor for speed reasons. Comcast is blazing fast. However, there's a background problem where the cable modem and router "get out of sync" (technical term) causing a huge latency problem. And I got tired of Comcast's failure to address this other than continually knocking a few bucks off my bill.

What I'm most impressed about so far is the integration and UI. From a web browser I can see who called, retrieve voice mail, set my DVR to record programs, edit the DVR playlist (100x faster than using a remote), etc. The on-screen UI is far better than comcast. As you scroll through channels a small window previews the live feed so you don't switch right into a commercial - I like that a lot. Being able to watch anything we recorded from another TV is a huge hit. And I get SPEED TV in my package - can you say "Porsche Super Cup"

Negatives: The install is a big deal - took 7 hours though it was the most professional installation I've seen. We have a very complicated home network with subnets, a wiring closet, etc. and the installer took it in stride, understood how the alarm should feed into the telco, etc.

We are very close to a brand new fiber line at the corner. The tech mentioned this over an over. Said that the curb is getting 54mbit (that's OC-3, right?), our house gets 26mbit which includes the TV, telco and internet, and we have the 12mbit internet package. So far I'm not seeing the degradation of performance I've felt with Comcast - might not be as fast at the peak, but on average I rate the download performance as good or better. Upload is definitely slower though.

Not as many free movies as with Comcast. For my wife, a big deal. For me, meh.

That being said, we don't have HD yet, so it will be interesting to see how that goes if I ever upgrade.

[gr8fl4porsche]

I just have the 12Mbps/1.5mbps Internet service. No phone or TV.

First 6 months $35 per month. Then goes up to $55 at which time I will drop to the 6Mb/1Mb package for $35 - no contract no install or equip costs.

This replaces basic no frills phone and 3Mb/384kb Dsl package for $55 month

[MBAtarga]

I've recently gotten U-verse.

The limitation to me is you can receive 4 channels max at the same time. I've you've got 4 tv viewers watching at the same time, and someone has programmed a show to be recorded at that time, someone gets bumped off, or the recording has to be cancelled. At the time, I didn't think that would be an issue, but it has been frustrating at times.

Otherwise, the service is great. DSL is great, VOIP phone service is great, and the merger of all products through the web site and GUI works well too.