I’m thinking of dropping Comcast and signing up for AT&T U-Verse. Anyone out there in SDMB land use AT&T? What do you think of it?
I have it. They’ve got good serviced, but its not without drawbacks. The company is sketchy, they’ve been known to take 400 dollar or more “deposits” which end up being unrefundable (and you’re not informed of that until your first statement, when they refuse to refund the money).
The service is reliable, and as long as you watch no more than 2 HD shows at once in your home, you’re fine. Remember, you have ONE DVR. Two HD tuners and 4 SD tuners.
In a word? Awesome. I switched to Dish Network 6 weeks ago and I’ve been kicking myself for all but the first 5 minutes.
I don’t know what Todderbob is talking about there being a deposit. I didn’t pay a deposit. They never charged me any fees for anything and I changed my programming and internet speed level all the time. AT&T can be a little sketchy but I seriously cannot recommend Uverse enough. It was the best cable service I’ve ever had even when you account for AT&T.
We’d lose Dish reception every time it rained. Never with U-Verse. They had a pretty good promotion where they’d pay you to sign up for additional packages/channels and then you could drop them later. So far we’ve been very pleased.
I currently have DirecTV bundled with my phone and DSL service, and about three months after I signed up for it U-Verse became available in my area. I was a bit annoyed because U-Verse sounded like a good deal but I was now locked in to a two-year contract with DirecTV. Then a few months ago I was talking to someone at AT&T and when they tried to talk my into signing up for U-Verse I mentioned my DirecTV contract, and they said that because I currently had the bundled service they would be able to “buy out” the DirecTV contract at no cost to me. I’m still thinking about it, particularly because of the occasional problems I have with signal loss during bad weather (although it hasn’t been as bad as I’ve heard some people claim it is - particularly when they’re trying to push cable service).
How does Uverse compare to Verizon’s FIOS? Anybody have experience with both? Thanks.
I’ve had both, and prefer Uverse. I had fios in DC and have uverse in Ohio, so ymmv.
Verizon had bad customer service, and you rarely needed to call them. AT&T had nice customer service people, whose hands are tied most of the time, but will do anything and everything (including discounting your monthly bill for six plus months) to make you happy.
Does U-Verse provide fiber into your home or does it run over copper into the house? And what kind of speed do you get on the Internet access component?
Had Comcast. Just the pits. Realized the amount of angst they caused in my life was just not worth it, so I cancelled. Switched to U-Verse about a year ago and it’s been great. Better reception, cheaper, better service. Couldn’t be happier.
Uh, yeah. This, for me too. Very happy with U-Verse, and Comcast can go suck donkey balls.
Test Date: September 22, 2010 11:25
Connection Type: WiFi
Server: Columbus, OH
Download: 8.92 Mbps
Upload: 1.41 Mbps
Ping: 155 ms
Thats the speed we pay for, give or take .92 Mbps.
I refuse to get U-Verse solely because of the unrelenting solicitations I get for it. At least two mailed advertisements per week, and when I log into my AT&T account page (to check my home phone/DSL bill) every other mouse click brings up a full-page “CONGRATULATIONS! U-Verse is now available in YOUR AREA!” screen that I have to click “No, Thanks” on, again and again.
I know it’s available. You told me over and over. I don’t want it. You will not wear me down, AT&T. Stop trying. It’s only strengthening my resolve.
I’ve had U-verse for about a year, and have been generally happy with it. We especially like the way we have one DVR but can watch anything on it on any of our three TVs in our house.
Ditched Comcast for UVerse and couldn’t be happier, plus we only pay $100 a month (cable and Internet, no premium movie channels) when Comcast charged $150 for that and only two DVR recordings at once.
I’m pretty sure they run over copper into your house but could be wrong; I wasn’t there at the install. No “deposit” required, either.
Just signed up for U-Verse! I’ll be saving money and getting more service, nothing wrong with that 
Also, the new iPhone app let’s you download “select” tv shows to your phone or iPad, over wifi.
I used to get tons of mail asking me to sign up for AT&T DSL but now I get tons of mail about Uverse. They even sent a guy to my house trying to get me to sign up. I am happy with Direct TV so I see no reason to change.
I have U-Verse. It’s no better/worse than other cable companies IME. It is, however, cheaper, which wins every time.
Concerns:
Internet speed: Yes, I could pay more for better. But the base speed is pretty low.
DVR clunkiness: This is a common complaint I hear. The responsiveness of the remote is pretty crappy, and can be frustrating. The GUI is also clunky and unresponsive at times. Also, when you need to reset your DVR and/or router, you lose a lot of your settings (like deleting channels that just “get in the way” to make surfing a bit more convenient. They may have fixed this, though.
I still recommend it. I have an iPhone, and the app is pretty good (slow as well, but I’m not complaining about being able to program my DVR thousands of miles away). The show selection for streaming is pretty poor (very children-specific) - it’s a gimmick at best.
One option that’s kinda nice is that when the phone rings, caller ID displays in a corner of the TV. Don’t know if other services provide that but it does make screening simple.
We had it for two months and then had to drop it because of continuing signal problems. Nonetheless, I remain a big fan of the service. Internet speed was a little low, but tolerable. Support was excellent in terms of responsiveness and professionalism… except the 6 different techs that came out to the house to fix the problem were not able to diagnose and repair correctly. After hearing ‘well, I fixed issue, you should be good to go now,’ one too many times we pulled the plug.
I remain jealous of our friends several blocks over who have a flawless installation.
Actually, I really liked the UVerse DVR GUI. It seemed much more intuitive than the Road Runner GUI I have now and is one of the biggest reasons I miss the service. Different strokes I guess.