New Uverse install

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

Looks like my Uverse install is getting off to a good start. My install date is tomorrow. I just got a call from someone at the house. Turns out AT&T showed up today to check the drop from the outside line in preparation for tomorrow's install. They are currently on the pole that drops the line to my house. I wanted to continue the trend of people actually posting their positive install stories. Hopefully the rest of the install goes well.

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

Got an update. The installer replaced the drop to the house. I wonder if them coming out the day before is because I currently dont' have AT&T services and they have no way of remotely testing the line, or because in my area they want to check alll drops the day before to make sure there are no issues with the line.

From what I've read usually an I&R ticket is issued the day before the uverse install to make sure the drop is good before the prem tech shows up.

RCSMG · ‎12-10-2007

When my install was scheduled a tech showed up a few days earlier to check my NID. He told me my box was older and replaced it with a newer one that would work with Uverse. I didn't have ATT phone service either. However, I don't think that is why they changed the NID. He never made mention of who my service provider was. He was just checking hardware compatability, which is what I think was going on at your home.

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

Well I'm glad they're checking the drop the day before the install and fixing all those issues now so that way the prem tech isn't delayed tomorrow. from what I've read prem techs waiting for I&R to come out and replace drops and nids is the number one reason a uverse install gets delayed.

mibrnsurg · ‎07-15-2008

That's true, but I think they only came out because they didn't have an active line to test against when they conditioned all the lines from your crossbox and had to be sure you had a 'good' line. They usually don't come out the day or so before except in specific cases like yours and RCs NID replacement. When they were conditioning the lines generally, they would've checked those things at that point if necessary.

Chris

Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-983-2811 to avoid Mr. Voice Recognition
YRMV IMHO

RCSMG · ‎12-10-2007

I'm glad they did too.

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

So here is the thick wire they ran to my house today. Anyone have any idea what gauge this wire is?

Wire Resized.jpg

Oh yeah the tech who ran this wire saw the ethernet wiring I did and how I even ran some to the nid and basically said the tech tomorrow should have an easy install.

Message Edited by donatom3 on 04-27-2009 06:40 PM

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

So the tech is at the house now. I had to go back to work. So far he couldn't get sync. He's saying the way it's wired I could be at the limit or it's possible he was given the wrong line info. He was thinking the tech who did the drop yesterday would have checked for sync. The Vrad is less than 1100 ' from my location now I understand because of the way the aerial wiring works I would not be at that distance but does it make sense for it to be over 2k' of extra aerial wiring from the vrad to my location? With DSL I had a good sync and no problems.

The tech is going now to trace back the wire to see if he was given the wrong info.

oobleck · ‎05-10-2008

donatom3 wrote:
The Vrad is less than 1100 ' from my location now I understand because of the way the aerial wiring works I would not be at that distance but does it make sense for it to be over 2k' of extra aerial wiring from the vrad to my location? With DSL I had a good sync and no problems.

According to Google Earth I'm 1000 feet from the VRAD as the crow flies, but U-verse says it's 2700 feet by wire. So it wouldn't be astonishing for the wire distance to be almost three times the straight line distance.

--

oobleck

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

oobleck wrote:
donatom3 wrote:
The Vrad is less than 1100 ' from my location now I understand because of the way the aerial wiring works I would not be at that distance but does it make sense for it to be over 2k' of extra aerial wiring from the vrad to my location? With DSL I had a good sync and no problems.

According to Google Earth I'm 1000 feet from the VRAD as the crow flies, but U-verse says it's 2700 feet by wire. So it wouldn't be astonishing for the wire distance to be almost three times the straight line distance.
--
oobleck

Yeah I got lucky turns out AT&T gave him the wrong line number so I'm only 2k from the vrad, he said with my signal I'm in great shape. He lost close to an hour of time trying to find my line, but is ecstatic that I have cat5e run everywhere and even the NID. The RG is going in as we speak, tv's should be in in a bit.

RCSMG · ‎12-10-2007

Hopefully you will get the higher profile also. We are waiting to find out how things go.

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

Went out to help the tech. I guess I threw him off by having too much setup for him. He didn't realize that I had actually numbered all the plates and that they match the numbering on the patch panel. Once I did that the tv's were up and running. I'm getting 2hd/2sd. I didn't have time to check the sync numbers. I did switch it to use my wrt610n as my computer router. HD quality from the short time I've seen seems to be on par with DirecTV. SD is definitely improved over DirecTV. Love the menus in the system and the PIP showing you a preview of the channel. I'll get the max sync numbers tonight. Internet works well, someone ran a speed test and said upload only showed 128kbit, but I think that may be the site he used or something I may have to change in my Linksys router.

I think it took him a bit more time than it should have, but he was a good guy, and made sure it was all working before he left. He was really appreciative of my help.

I got the Moto 1225 and two 1200's. DVR response speed blows my DirecTV HR21's out of the water (sure the HR21's are almost full but they were never this fast even when empty). He had to run to another job, and I didn't feel like holding him since everything else worked fine so I let him leave without programming the Rem otes for my systems. I have two tv's running on home theater receivers so I usually have to set these up myself anyway.

RCSMG · ‎12-10-2007

Congrats on the install, I am glad you are happy with the service. Welcome to Uverse. Enjoy.

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

I take it this means I'm in good shape?

Current Rate: 25216 kbs   2048 kbs
Max Rate: 41084 kbs   Not Available
Current Connection:
Current Noise Margin: 17.0 dB   Not Available
Current Attenuation: 25.1 dB   Not Available
Current Output Power: 12.7 dBm   -3.4 dBm

milkman · ‎03-17-2009

Congratulation on your install. Welcome to U verse! I am finding the DVR and program guide much easier to use than my Dish version. Everything works 'faster'. Glad to hear another great install!! Major kudos to you for your pre install research and work. I was wondering if, as long as we're looking at numbers, I could get a quick opinion on these? 900' from VRAD. Thank you.

Broadband Link – Statistics

IP Statistics Down Up

Cuurent Rate: 25216 kbs 2048 kbs

Max Rate: 65204 kbs Not ava

Cuurent Connection:

Current Noise Margin: 28.0 db

Current Attenuation: 13.8 db

Current Output Power: 14.2 db

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

milkman wrote:
Congratulation on your install. Welcome to U verse! I am finding the DVR and program guide much easier to use than my Dish version. Everything works 'faster'. Glad to hear another great install!! Major kudos to you for your pre install research and work.

Oh yeah the preinstall pretty much gauranteed a great install. I do have to admit after watching a bit more HD is a bit more compressed than DirecTV, but most normal people wouldn't notice. I will have to record the HDnet test image this weekend to adjust all my tvs.

As far as the program guide, I like this guide the best of any I've used so far, and that includes Tivo. It is missing some key features, most notably a prioritzer. This is way better than anything Dish and DirecTV put out (I've used both). It's on par with Tivo in the usability aspects, it's just missing some key customization featurs.

Your numbers look great.

Looks like all that is left of my install is for the network people to finish porting my number. Luckily I brought my patience cap with me today knowing it wasn't going to go perfect but AT&T has been good so far.

P.S. My upload was at 128kbps even though I'm paying for Max10. I called tech support they had me reset the gateway and me thinking, "yeah right what's this going to do". Well the reset got my upload speed up to 1476 kbps according to speakeasy.net, and my download is between 9300 and 9600

milkman · ‎03-17-2009

donatom3:

2 home theaters? Sweeet! How did you setup your audio links to your receivers? Not nosy just curious. Ok, nosy.

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

One is a HK avr247 the other is a Onkyo (I forgoet non hdmi though)

Anyway I have the uverse run with a HDMI and digital optical cable to the HK unit. So far I'm not hearing this audio dropout people are having. I haven't listened to the Onkyo enough to say that though. The onkyo has a hdmi to dvi cable run straight to the tv and a digital optical out run to the audio video receiver.

P.S. They screwed up my number port, and now it's a nightmare talking to these people on the phone. Apparenlty none of them understand that my phone is hooked up I can make outgoing calls, but I can't receive any calls since they never routed my number correctly.

Everytime I get disconnected the next person wants to test my unit all over again.

Message Edited by donatom3 on 04-28-2009 09:26 PM

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

Well the second person in Tier 2 actually helped and spent his time talking on the phone to the porting department and got everything fixed last night. He told me to make sure to reset the RG after they did this so that way it gets all the programming updates they just put in. I did that when noone had an important show to watch. Everything is working now.

My initial impressions is that HD for the most part is on par with DirecTV, some fast moving scenes aren't as good, but then again that was only shown to me on TNT HD watching the Celtics Bulls game, the Dallas SA game didn't seem as compressed. Other shows especially on the local HD networks looked great. SD is definitely a huge improvement over DirecTV.

The boxes work great the menus are very well laid out and the UI looks quite nice. I'll have to use the DVR more in depth to see what I feel should be added. The one thing I can say right now is it does need a prioritizer.

Does the DVR group multiple recordings of a show into a folder?

mibrnsurg · ‎07-15-2008

If you look at recorded programs by 'title', it will group them together by name (no folders at all), but no prioritizer at this time for any function (except for yourself).

Chris

Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-983-2811 to avoid Mr. Voice Recognition
YRMV IMHO

donatom3 · ‎04-09-2009

Thanks recorded by title will work as a substitue until at&t decides to add show grouping. BTW my update. My original plan was to call up directv the day after uverse being installed and tell them I was going on vacation to try the service out for two weeks. Well I didn't call up directv because the service was working so flawlessy I decided after one more day of flawless service I would call directv and straight up cancel. I already called up time Warner. The cancellation is done with them, just have to drop off the cable modem. I will call DirecTV today.

As for stats. I looked at my RG this morning. Last 24 hour stats 0 corrected blocks 0 uncorrected blocks. 0 resyncs. Everything that would indicate problems is showing ZERO. Looks like my prework and the new drop from AT&T paid off.