On Sun, 17 Jan 2010, john niolon wrote:
> thinking about ATT's new combined package for phone/internet/hdtv which
> will affect my shop computer/tv (shop content)
>
> anyone have any experience, comments, complaints, blatant advertising....
> can save quite a few bucks over individual vendors... if the advertisements
> are really true afa quality and speed...
I have no experience yet, but we're supposed to have it installed this
Friday. A pair of door-to-door salesmen came by last weekend when I was
out, and talked my wife into buying it. It sounds like a decent deal, but
I'm still not sold and may yet cancel. One nice thing is that there is
basically no contract, you can cancel at any time without penalty.
We currently have a goofy setup; a DirecTV dish on the roof for TV, and
Comcast cable for Internet access ( although we get a package from Comcast
which includes basic cable, because that's cheaper than standalone
Broadband, go figure. ) I love the Comcast Broadband, to be honest. It
is stupid-fast ( 20+ mb/s ) and has been mostly reliable. One of my
biggest concerns with Uverse is that the salesguy assured my wife the 6 mb
package would be way faster than whatever we have now. That's obviously
unlikely. According to AT&T's chart, in order to approach the speed I
have now, it's going to cost about $10-15 more a month versus Comcast.
Another issue with U-verse is that I just upgraded to a wireless N
router, and am very happy with the additional speed and range. From what
I've read, it is a complete nightmare to use your own router in addition
to the AT&T 'Residential Gateway' ( combination wireless G router, and TV
hub ), so that means I'd have to downgrade there, too.
The other question marks are wiring. U-verse is delivered via fiber to
your local neighborhood box, and then standard twisted-pair copper into
your house. I can't figure out how that can work, first of all, and the
copper into my house is known to be in bad shape ( ditched the landline
phone a while back ). Also, the U-verse installation takes "5-8 hours"
because they need to run co-ax from your phone box to your RG location,
and then co-ax from there to all TV locations in the house ( up to 3, I
think for free ). We only have 1 TV, but that run is going to be a pain
because there's no access. From what I've read, they often can't finish
the install in a single day. They are talking about going wireless from
set-top box to RG in the future, apparently to reduce the installation
hassle.
For me, the only real selling point is the DVR, because even though we
have a couple hundred channels from DirecTV, there's rarely anything
watchable when I want to watch. My wife also likes the idea of AT&T
On Demand, because DTV pay-per-view is pathetic, and DTV signal does get
spotty in heavy weather.
I'd be interested to hear other comments before Friday ;)
--
David Hillman
_______________________________________________
Support Team.Net http://www.team.net/donate.html
Suggested annual donation $12.96
Shop-talk mailing list
http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/shop-talk
http://www.team.net/archive
|