AT&T U-Verse

Factual Questions
1

I just switched to AT&T U-Verse this week. The installation went pretty smooth. My place was already wired for internet, phone and cable and the installer pretty much just patched into the existing networks, replaced my router with another ( ginormous ) one and installed two TV boxes. The TV signal is much better than the old cable one and the options and services provided by the new TV boxes are way cooler than the old Time Warner ones. Sure enough, I can now record 4 channels at once and watch shows recorded on one box from the other. So far, so good. The only WTF? moment was the first time I went to pause live TV on the set in the bedroom. It said that that functionality was not available. The functionality is available on the TV in the front room and, as far as I can tell the two boxes are equivalent as far as the signal is concerned, they are split off the same line. But, somehow, one box seems to have higher precedence than the other. My question is, why would this be the case? With all the whiz-bang wizardry that is apparently built into these new TV boxes, why can’t they provide the ability to pause the live signal at more than one location? It seems like such a silly thing to not be able to provide.

2

Why not call AT&T customer service???
If they can’t help…

3

Because the Dope is:

  1. Faster
  2. More fun
  3. More accurate

than AT&T’s phone tree.

4

Sometimes after booting up, the Uverse box is slow to fully load all its functionality. On-Demand, DVR, and other features should eventually come online. If there is a continuing problem, you should call AT&T. Most AT&T call-trees can be circumvented by pressing 0 a few times.

5

I don’t think I phrased my question quite right. I’m not saying that I think anything is not working correctly with the U-Verse TV setup. I think it is doing what it is supposed to do. My question has to do with what is it about the technology that requires it to work that way? I would think it would be trivial, given all the things that those boxes can do, for both of them to be able to pause live TV but for some reason it isn’t. I was just wondering about what that limitation is.