Does anyone have AT&T U-Verse around here? (Atlanta: house, to live)

[grindin]

It seems that service doesn't seem to be everywhere in Atlanta quite yet. I'm no fan of Comcast, but I wouldn't wish Charter Cable on my worst enemy, and I may get DirecTV if push comes to shove, but I was curious about U-Verse and trying to see if it would be worth waiting for.

Too bad Atlanta may NEVER get Verizon FiOS , since this is AT&T country.

[johnatl]

Originally Posted by grindin

It seems that service doesn't seem to be everywhere in Atlanta quite yet. I'm no fan of Comcast, but I wouldn't wish Charter Cable on my worst enemy, and I may get DirecTV if push comes to shove, but I was curious about U-Verse and trying to see if it would be worth waiting for.

Too bad Atlanta may NEVER get Verizon FiOS , since this is AT&T country.

My friends in L.A. have FiOS! Talk about being blown away - I loved it.

[grindin]

Originally Posted by johnatl

My friends in L.A. have FiOS! Talk about being blown away - I loved it.

I know, right? It's not fair! LOL.

When I plugged in my new address, it seems that U-Verse is not available there. It's not available at my current address either. Atlanta was one of the first cities to have fiber-optic cable lines in the area, weren't they? I guess they're still gradually letting the network in?

[neil0311]

I know some here will disagree, but Comcast here in the Atlanta area is now all digital and the HD and Internet offerings are almost as good as FIOS. FIOS does not add any compression to video, so technically the quality is better, although I bet most people couldn't pick the FIOS picture out of a lineup on most sets.

I'm quite happy with Comcast and 100+ HD channels and DOCSIS 3 Internet access at 30 Mbps down and 7 Mbps up.

[rcsteiner]

We had some folks come around and offer AT&T U-Verse service to us in the northern Mableton area back in November, and I actually had an installation scheduled for early this month, but I terminated the pending installation after doing a little bit of research.

The internet and phone would probably have been fine compared to what we now have with the Comcast Triple-Play package, but the TV service options were more limited given our existing equipment. We have a ReplayTV, and even though it's a low-res (SD) DVR, it's connected to the internet and the videos it records are sharable and playable on all of our PCs. U-Verse had no way of supporting it at all. To me, this was a deal breaker.

At least Comcast provides a Pace Digital Adapter that the ReplayTV can use as an external tuner and directly control via IR Blaster ... thus allowing us to keep using the ReplayTV in parallel with the HD-capable DVR they provide. Best of both worlds, IMO.

[ffej]

Having been a DirecTV customer for 9 years, I recently switched to u-verse TV, internet and phone. So far it is working great. I loved DirecTV when I lived in CA and didn't have to worry about losing the picture during storms. Another thing I started to dislike about it is that with every software upgrade with new features (automatically downloaded and installed from the sat), the box started performing slower and slower (e.g. guide, changing channels).

Ultimately, finishing the basement was the catalyst for the change as it was easier to get the whole house wired without drilling holes and running cable along the perimeter of the house (brick).

The hardest part for me at this point is learning the new channel numbers. sigh.

BTW, no contracts with U-verse so you can ditch it if you don't like it.

[PKCorey]

I just want faster broadband and I refuse to get comcast...

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

I just want faster broadband and I refuse to get comcast...

Uh, you don't have to subscribe to U-Verse to get DSL .

[CMMom]

We have U-verse. There are some definite plusses (can start a program in one room and watch it from the same stopped point in another, can record 4 programs at once), but a few minuses:

1) Our primary TV (the one to which the receiver is attached) works great, but sometimes the secondary TV's "freeze up," both on live and recorded TV. You can restart the box, but sometimes it freezes up repeatedly.

2) You can't stop live TV on the secondary boxes as you can with a Tivo box (can do so on the primary TV).

3) I find the remote control somewhat confusing and infuriating compared to the Tivo remote (e.g., how to get back to live TV from recorded TV).

Mainly minor stuff. Price is slightly less than Comcast, but not significantly so. I have found the internet to be quite good (less random outages than Comcast). Customer service is definitely better than Comcast, but that's not really saying a lot.

[PKCorey]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

Uh, you don't have to subscribe to U-Verse to get DSL .

I have ATT dsl now but 3 or 6mb is slow compared to Comcast. I want some FIOS speed.