There is a rather large new telecom cabinet at the corner of Park/Hillside (?) that has its own little power meter on the side. There is a much smaller cabinet near my house that also has its own power meter? They have orange stickers on them that say they are the property of AT&T. Does anyone happen to know if this means we're about to see U-Verse? If so, anyone know anything about timing? They have a few kinks to work out, but I'm awfully interested in a telecom offering with close to 50 HD channels (without risking the problems I hear from satellites).

AT&T installed one of these boxes on my block 2-3 months ago. So far, I've received 2 postcards in the mail for U-Verse that send me to a URL to sign up. When I go to that URL, the web site says that U-Verse is not yet available. The U-Verse box has power, though, and there has been a fan operating inside it for a couple months. So, I don't know if they're not quite ready for a rollout or if the web site is messed up. Some colleagues at work have it -- some have been disappointed with the picture quality of HD channels. There is a lot of discussion at DSL Reports.

I got a visit from a couple salesmen at my door the other day to sign up for U-verse. Putting aside their fraudulent sales tactics for the moment, it sounds like the cost will be equal to or lower than my WOW bundle, and has a couple of cool features. Note, we currently pay about $85 after all taxes for WOW basic cable plus Internet and then we pay AT&T an average of about $50 for a land line phone.

But first, has anyone signed up for U-verse yet, and how do they like it?

I should point out that I still have a CRT as my main TV and while I drool a little at 1080 resolution, I'm not at the "gotta have it" stage. So there's a number of things with U-verse that I don't need yet.

We had U-verse installed about a month ago and I'm very happy with it. We bundled the tv/internet/phone package and it's definitely a savings over what we were paying to Comcast and for the land line. My one apprehension over nixing the land line was the sound quality, but I've been pleaseantly surprised. It also comes with a battery backup for power outages.

Besides the savings aspect, there are a few other cool features that I like. The whole system can be managed online, so programming the DVR or forwarding calls, etc can be done easily. I actually shut the phone off during the kids nap time this weekend and logged on afterwards to see any calls that we missed.

I'm with you in the fact that there are a lot of extras that I wouldn't use, but for us this seems like a good fit.

Ruydah,

If I have three TVs, do I have to get three receivers? I know that's the case with DTV and digital cable, I was just wondering if Uverse was the same way? One TV is on a wall in my kitchen and I really have nowhere to put a receiver for that one.

Also, I assume that this will put an end to my TIVO, which is sad because I bought it a few years ago, just before they got rid of the one-time-for-life service fee. And I have since upgraded it with a bigger hard drive so I could have several hundred hours of material stocked up.

I suppose I could hook it up to an antenna for OTA broadcasts.

Each TV needs it's own reciever, but only 1 DVR is needed for the house (up to 8 tvs) and the other sets can access all the recorded programming. One good thing though is that the recievers are really small. Probably 1/3 the size of the Comcast/DTV ones.

They are supposedly developing improvements in their DVR. One complaint is that on Season Pass recordings, you can't limit the number of episodes it keeps...only a "new" or "all" option. I found this out the hard way when I ended up with 27 Dora The Explorer episodes.

Dora can kiss my ***.

Thanks for the info, Ruydah. Some more questions: it says install takes 4-6 hours. Are they running fiber optic all over the house or can they use existing coax runs? Also, if I can play the DVR on any TV, can I also send other A/V feeds to any TV? For example, if I have my DVD player as an input to my DVR, can I then pickup the DVD feed on any TV?

Fiber optic is available through AT&T? I thought that Glen Ellyn was several months away from fiber optic.

It is my understanding that it is fiber to the house, then within the house it is CAT6. So the install takes that long cause they have to run the CAT6 all over.

The only thing that is stopping me is that I have 4 TVs in the house, only 2 of which we use all the time. I don't want to pay $5 per month for another receiver that only gets used a few times a year. But I also don't want to eliminate it.

Another thing, you can only record 2 HD channels at a time. They advertise recording up the 4 shows at once, but not HD.

Also, does anyone know what cable is used to go from the receiver to the TV? Can it be HDMI?

Yes, Fiber to the house, then your existing cable runs to link up the system. MID, outside A/v's can't be linked like the DVR....source TV only.

There are several options for cable links on the reciever/TV. RCA, S-video, HDMI, PbPrY, Optical, USB.

Ruydah is the uverse expert.....Answer me this, do you have HD? If so, do you have more than one HD unit? If so, do you lose quality of HD signal with both HD on at the same time?

Some other cool things about UVerse.

You get to hear radio stations on your telephone.

Internet crashes all the time.

TV picture has LOTS of minor freezes and picture distortions (kind of like when a storm is coming with Direct TV).

Can't pause or rewind live TV on any TV except the one with the DVR unit.

Can't playback anything in slow motion.

Can't playback anything frame by frame.

Can't set up a directed voice mail box with more than 2 options despite what their literature states. (i.e. a family of four can only have two separate voice mailboxes, one for dad and one for mom...sorry kids).

No one in customer service knows how to fix anything.

No one in customer service ever calls you back despite saying that they will. It is only a ruse to get you off the phone.

When you have a service call scheduled from 2pm to 6pm, they arrive at 6:30pm.

Your phones will never ring the way they used to, they will only make soft, short beeps.

All in all...WAY better than Direct TV.

Rudyah -- AT&T ran fiber all the way into your house? I thought their mode of operation here in Glen Ellyn was to run fiber to the VRAD boxes they've installed around town and then copper from the VRAD to the house -- the lower left side of the picture at "how UVerse is delivered", as opposed to the lower right side of that picture.

Paul, that is what I thought, but my buddy who lives up on Hill, said they ran fiber right up to his house.

I can't be 100% sure on the fiber/house thing....my mistake if it is the other way.

The only HD distortion issue I get is that there are small white blips near the black horizontal borders on certain commercials...which aren't in HD. Haven't noticed any loss of quality when 2 HD shows are being watched.

As for the phone, I haven't had any of Fish' problems...rings exactly the same and I haven't heard B96 once.

Thankfully it's not B96, but it is almost as bad, 670 the Score.

As a longtime Tivo user, the ATT DVR sucks.

I loved my Tivo and never forgave DTV when they replaced it with their in-house model. Comcast's was no better. ATT assures me (I know you're rolling your eyes) that they are working on software updates to enhance their DVR.

quote:

Originally posted by middlein87:
Also, I assume that this will put an end to my TIVO, which is sad because I bought it a few years ago, just before they got rid of the one-time-for-life service fee. And I have since upgraded it with a bigger hard drive so I could have several hundred hours of material stocked up.

I am in the same boat as you, however, I have the Directivo. Some interesting developments were announced in Tivo's quarterly earnings report:


"We also recently signed a new agreement with DIRECTV with which we’ve had a very successful history. With the new deal, DIRECTV will begin marketing a version of the TiVo service that is built on DIRECTV’s broadband-enabled HD DVR platform. This exciting new product will allow DIRECTV customers to select a TiVo DVR for use with all of DIRECTV’s high definition programming. The agreement also re-establishes DIRECTV as a key national marketing and distribution partner for TiVo."

also:

"During the quarter, we made significant progress on our long term strategy and across key business lines: on the mass distribution front, we announced a new distribution deal with DIRECTV, Comcast announced its plans to offer the TiVo service in additional markets in the future beginning with Chicago..."

Full release...