Comments on: U-Verse, Line Losses Dog AT&T

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 14 May 2007 15:00:51 +0000

I'm getting ready to switch back to Comcast from U-verse. Clearly, the product is not ready for prime time. Also, to the individual who was impressed by the bandwith when recording 4 programs at once, you should know that the programs weren't being recorded locally. They simply spool the content at their data center and deliver is when you choose to view (as if it were an on-demand channel.)

By: Nate

Nate — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:13:21 +0000

We have had U-Verse for a couple weeks now and I find it comparable to cable, Dish or DirectTV. We have not experienced any outages, or serious dropouts. The audio and picture have been very good. Granted we do not have an HD set at this time, but we are viewing the standard signals on a 37 inch monitor which tends to show artifacts quite nicely. The quality of the picture far exceeds VHS and is on par or a little better than the signal from our Dish Satellite receiver. The audio is very good compared to cable or satellite and is on par with DVD. The picture is actually brighter than the Dish receiver which I am guessing now may be attributed to the video output circuits in the boxes. We have also taxed the system quite a bit pushing the limits as stated by recording 4 programs at once on the DVR even throwing in an HD stream to record to maximize the bandwidth usage with all four programs recording without problems. The technology is still young, especially in the consumer market though I have been working with similar technology in the corporate market for some years so it is not completely untested though on this scale this may indeed be a first. Looking forward to the forthcoming features and hope the service only improves form here.

By: Peter Collins

Peter Collins — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:09:23 +0000

Of course, their continuing battles with communities is not going to help speed rollout either…

See more at http://www.geneva.il.us/att/Lightspeed.htm

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 04:37:31 +0000

By the way, every time I see that new logo, I pour some out for Saul Bass. AT&T committed a brutal murder of a brilliant design.

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 04:30:45 +0000

I have the U-verse service. My impression: it's far from ready for prime time. When I signed up for the service, the agent's computer crashed twice. I had to give all my information--everything from the beginning--three times. When they came to install the service, it took--get this--10 hours! And my apartment complex is supposedly already set for U-verse. At one time, there were four AT&T technicians huddled into my closet trying to work with the phone box. After the all-day install, my bill showed an installation charge of $220 (later reduced).

Now that the service is setup, it's very flakey. HD channels are choppy. Standard channels have horrible audio. Some shows scheduled to record are never recorded. The box + dvr crash--a lot.

There is no way they are ready to expand U-verse into new markets. They need to take this short-term revenue hit and make the service work.