So, I am now a U-verse customer. The door to door guys were combing the neighborhood last week, so I sat down and talked with them for a bit as I had been thinking about U-verse for some time. I ended up going with their offer for U300 HD TV and Max (18Mbs) internet (I do not have a landline phone - use my AT&T cell phone and Google voice for everything). The 12 month offer comes in about $50 less than my Time Warner TV/Internet package was, and if in a year retentions does not offer me something again, my rates will go up to about what they have been with TW or I can just shop around again for another service. Seemed worth trying anyway (and while no billing info available online yet, I see my services and their discounts are properly showing up).
Initially I was told it would be a few weeks to get an installation date, but when we called the order in to AT&T, there was an opening for the next (that is, this past) Saturday. Then on Saturday, a tech was available about 3hrs early, so it was all set up before the initial install appointment was even supposed to begin.
Since I use a 3G microcell, I had to have the RG in the master bedroom. The microcell is out of the way there and gets a good GPS signal through the bay window (I really don't want to buy a GPS antennae to move it since it is fine where it is). There is a phone jack in there that the tech could run cable from, and after we talked about options, I went with his suggestion of adding a WAP and wifi TV receiver rather than pull cable to get to the TV (this made for a clean installation that can be picked up and moved around as needed/wanted as nothing is really fixed in place at all). The RG, DVR and WAP went in the bedroom and the WIFI receiver in the living room with HDMI to TV (I only have one TV - 1080p LED/LCD).
I then killed the RG's wireless, plugged in my own Netgear WRT4500 and everything fired up just fine. Everything I have is wifi (laptops, tablets, desktop, printers, even the TV itself has 802.11g built in) and the Netgear is simultaneous dual band 802.11g/n so I did not want to use the RG's 802.11g-only. I seem to be getting about 13-17Mbs download and 1.35-1.9Mbs upload speeds (tried speedtest.net with a few different servers and at several different times over the rest of the weekend). Microcell calls are fine, better than with my TW service which had slower upload limits and more line jitter. VNC remote desktop sessions to my office machines also seem better - desktop does not lag as much as before.
TV has been fine, although the WAP and wifi reciever would stutter (screen goes black but flashes an image for a bit, then the connection resets) occasionally, but the RG was not resetting, just the WAP/receiver wifi connection. Since I have the TV in a cutout above the fireplace, I had placed the wireless receiver tucked back in that, sort of just behind the edge of the TV. I since moved it out into the open on the fireplace mantle and it has been fine since then, so, knock wood, those initial resets were just bad placement causing interference (the wireless receiver has full signal bars, so it is not a signal strength issue). I was also messing about with hiding channels and setting up favorites a couple of times it reset, so it may have also been issues with my account still being in the process of being provisioned (?? or not, just seemed like their may be a correlation there on Saturday afternoon at least). DVR record and playback have all checked out fine too, and with only a couple of exceptions, I'm only watching and recording HD channels (I've actually hidden all those lower ones with HD equivalents).
So, thus far at least I would say a very good experience
- install was superb (great technician who really discussed all options for cabling, placement and so forth, and his suggestiong of adding the WAP and wifi receiver for an extra $7/month made for a nice straightforward and clean solution to my placement issues).
- internet service seems to living up to expectations and my speeds are within reason for my package. The signal is cleaner than I saw with TW and I see the 3G microcell call quality has improved. Also, the TV has no or negligable effect on my promised internet speeds (I think the install tech's computer was showing us a peak of about 25-27Mbs with non-significant line noise when he ran his diagnostics after setup).
- other then the few WAP connection reset issues, TV is very good. The HD picture is very nice. My only complaint (had this with TW too) is how slow the channel scrolling is (makes things like hiding channels and setting up favorites a bit annoying - scrolling through 670 channels initially at a crawl is not fun). But at the same time, AT&T gets kudos for at least allowing you to hide all those you don't want to have to scroll through all the time!
- account seems to have been properly provisioned for the promised 12 month discounts and the installation technician confirmed that all installation fees were waived (the only change should be the extra $7/month for the WAP and receiver).
Just thought I would post a positive experience for those wondering about trying U-Verse. I have the next 29 days to wring it out or take advantage of the 30-day trial and my account has no obligations or commitments anyway, so I figured the only way to know what it was like was to try it out. I know the door to door folks have been a source of problems for some, but so far, their promises have been delivered on. I have no idea whether I can get a deal from retentions at the end of the 12 months or not, but when talking with the rep. he never promised my initial promotion would be re-newed. He just said to be sure to call them before the end of the term to ask what deals they could make me when that time comes. And the package he offered was better than what the local corp. store quoted me last year, although AT&T seems to have a push on nowadays in my area (I've seen a lot of line trucks out in the neighborhood the past few months, apparently laying new fibre), so it may also just be the timing is good right now (btw, I am in the Triangle area of NC).
