Post by dyuman on Jan 1, 2009 23:38:57 GMT -5
Cut and pasting review I put up on another forum.
General statement - if you have issues right now with your internet, it's worth getting. Good service and more for money than comcast.
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Got ATT UVerse installed yesterday, and I am very happy with it.
I'll try and split things up by features and services for ease of reading.
1. Internet service
A. History
As I mentioned, Comcast was giving me huge problems with inconsistent speeds from unusable to appalling.
B. Speed
Now, if I ignore pure numbers... all websites come up as quickly as expected and streaming content starts faster than ever. All I can say is that it is good (or good enough) for my gaming and surfing needs. Strangely Speedtest.net says the recommended server is in Dallas... don't get why, but oh well. Overall all, all major locations tested get 10mb+.
C.Equipment
The modem they supply with is also a wireless router all in one. Saves space for sure. The router is a bit big compared to other modems, but I prefer this. The lights are much bigger and labeled well. Somewhat wish they would do a box like the new Vonage ones with a display that shows error codes and junk, but no one seems to have that. The box itself had all the important information written on the box itself from IP address of the box, Mac address, admin password, and WEP pass.
2. TV Cable
A. History
Comcast was ok for this. Not too annoying, but it would cut out from time to time. We had the HDTV option with a DVR. The DVR bugged out a couple times, and the service would drop once every 3 months. No huge complaints in terms of this, but no major praises.
B. Features
A few features that we have now with UVerse are picture in picture guides, interactive stocks and weather, help feature, multi tv dvr.
Going in order -
Picture in picture guide is basically that if I scan the channels while watching, it will show me what is playing on that channel in a small window just like picture in picture and the progression into the show that it is in. So if I'm watching The Simpsons, and I scan over to see Pirates of the Carribean is playing and is halfway through, both text wise, and visually. The text loads instantly the video feed comes in about 1-1.5 seconds afterwards... so there is no delay if i'm just browsing, but if i see something i wanna see I can tell if there is a commercial.
We did not take HD option on this service, but all boxes are HD ready (more on that in equipment).
A small interactive button allows to search weather and stocks, but takes a good 10 seconds to load for some reason, but the interface is nice. Prolly use the weather one if anything... would have been nice if they set up a stock ticker for you that over laid on the tv signal.
The help feature is more useful for my family. Basically it has on demand videos for different aspects of service. Useful for when something minor is messed up so they don't have to call me.
Multi-TV DVR is pro. You record off one box (up to 4 channels at once) and can be watched on any of the TV's in the home (max 4). I could always record multiple streams but could not watch them on other tv's. Definitely an A+ for this.
C.
Equipment
DVR box is significantly smaller than Comcast. The non DVR box is even smaller than that (roughly the size of Dish Network boxes). Each box had HDMI, Component, and Composite. They'll supply a free HDMI cable if you have HDMI on you're TV. Oddly enough when I went to comcast to cancel our service they had signs posted up stating they were out of HDMI cable boxes.
3. Installation Service/Staff
The guy that came to install things was extremely quiet spoken but made sure everything was working properly. Took about 4 hours total. I had some registration problems with my internet and he called tech support for me and directly went to the top tier IT and kept him on the phone until it was verified that all my PC's were online and running. The IT guy seemed knowledgeable but also had that annoyed IT voice when he did everything he could on his end.
The tech showed what all the lights and features were very well. Made sure all the remotes worked for both the box as well as the TV (don't think Comcast did that) so I can turn on the TV with the single remote instead of 2 separate ones.
He didn't rush out the door and made sure he had all the boxes and trash before he left, and made sure all the cables were hidden as reasonably possible. He also wore a plastic cover over his work boot while working in the house.
As I said I'm happy with the results so far, the improvements of the TV features alone were enough to me to recommend the service to others. The net stability and long term positives have yet to be seen.
General statement - if you have issues right now with your internet, it's worth getting. Good service and more for money than comcast.
----
Got ATT UVerse installed yesterday, and I am very happy with it.
I'll try and split things up by features and services for ease of reading.
1. Internet service
A. History
As I mentioned, Comcast was giving me huge problems with inconsistent speeds from unusable to appalling.
B. Speed
Now, if I ignore pure numbers... all websites come up as quickly as expected and streaming content starts faster than ever. All I can say is that it is good (or good enough) for my gaming and surfing needs. Strangely Speedtest.net says the recommended server is in Dallas... don't get why, but oh well. Overall all, all major locations tested get 10mb+.
C.Equipment
The modem they supply with is also a wireless router all in one. Saves space for sure. The router is a bit big compared to other modems, but I prefer this. The lights are much bigger and labeled well. Somewhat wish they would do a box like the new Vonage ones with a display that shows error codes and junk, but no one seems to have that. The box itself had all the important information written on the box itself from IP address of the box, Mac address, admin password, and WEP pass.
2. TV Cable
A. History
Comcast was ok for this. Not too annoying, but it would cut out from time to time. We had the HDTV option with a DVR. The DVR bugged out a couple times, and the service would drop once every 3 months. No huge complaints in terms of this, but no major praises.
B. Features
A few features that we have now with UVerse are picture in picture guides, interactive stocks and weather, help feature, multi tv dvr.
Going in order -
Picture in picture guide is basically that if I scan the channels while watching, it will show me what is playing on that channel in a small window just like picture in picture and the progression into the show that it is in. So if I'm watching The Simpsons, and I scan over to see Pirates of the Carribean is playing and is halfway through, both text wise, and visually. The text loads instantly the video feed comes in about 1-1.5 seconds afterwards... so there is no delay if i'm just browsing, but if i see something i wanna see I can tell if there is a commercial.
We did not take HD option on this service, but all boxes are HD ready (more on that in equipment).
A small interactive button allows to search weather and stocks, but takes a good 10 seconds to load for some reason, but the interface is nice. Prolly use the weather one if anything... would have been nice if they set up a stock ticker for you that over laid on the tv signal.
The help feature is more useful for my family. Basically it has on demand videos for different aspects of service. Useful for when something minor is messed up so they don't have to call me.
Multi-TV DVR is pro. You record off one box (up to 4 channels at once) and can be watched on any of the TV's in the home (max 4). I could always record multiple streams but could not watch them on other tv's. Definitely an A+ for this.
C.
Equipment
DVR box is significantly smaller than Comcast. The non DVR box is even smaller than that (roughly the size of Dish Network boxes). Each box had HDMI, Component, and Composite. They'll supply a free HDMI cable if you have HDMI on you're TV. Oddly enough when I went to comcast to cancel our service they had signs posted up stating they were out of HDMI cable boxes.
3. Installation Service/Staff
The guy that came to install things was extremely quiet spoken but made sure everything was working properly. Took about 4 hours total. I had some registration problems with my internet and he called tech support for me and directly went to the top tier IT and kept him on the phone until it was verified that all my PC's were online and running. The IT guy seemed knowledgeable but also had that annoyed IT voice when he did everything he could on his end.
The tech showed what all the lights and features were very well. Made sure all the remotes worked for both the box as well as the TV (don't think Comcast did that) so I can turn on the TV with the single remote instead of 2 separate ones.
He didn't rush out the door and made sure he had all the boxes and trash before he left, and made sure all the cables were hidden as reasonably possible. He also wore a plastic cover over his work boot while working in the house.
As I said I'm happy with the results so far, the improvements of the TV features alone were enough to me to recommend the service to others. The net stability and long term positives have yet to be seen.