Can anyone please tell me the difference between Time Warner Cable & AT&T U-verse? (house, taxes)

[Deelightful]

Hello,

I've been thinking about switching from Time Warner Cable to AT&T U-verse for cost savings.

Currently, I have my phone, cable and internet through Time Warner. I have Time Warner's DVR system, and I love it. I've heard that there are some major differences with the AT&T U-verse system that I may not like. There's something about restart and recording, but I don't have details.

Can someone who has had both tell me what the positives and negatives are? Also, can you tell me what you currently have?

Thank you in advance.

Dee

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by Deelightful

Hello,

I've been thinking about switching from Time Warner Cable to AT&T U-verse for cost savings.

Currently, I have my phone, cable and internet through Time Warner. I have Time Warner's DVR system, and I love it. I've heard that there are some major differences with the AT&T U-verse system that I may not like. There's something about restart and recording, but I don't have details.

Can someone who has had both tell me what the positives and negatives are? Also, can you tell me what you currently have?

Thank you in advance.

Dee

here are some subtle things about the ATT uverse DVR system that I dont like. I have never used time warner

1) no prioritizer for series recordings. This means that sometimes a show may not record because someone else conflicted with it. Im not sure what the algorithm is to determine what records

2) With sports if you are recording and watching at the same time if the recording time ends before the sports program is over (i.e. overtime) the dvr doesnt stay on the same channel so once the program is over you cant switch over to live TV to watch the rest. We missed a few big games with overtime. We now record sports with around 2 hours of extra time on the back end.

3) The DVR turns into an "off" mode by itself. This means when you turn it on there is no history of recording so if you happen to turn it on to a show that you might be interested in you cant see the last 30 minutes

4) when you watch a recorded program, the dvr doesnt keep recording whatever channel you happened to be on. If you accidentally switch from watching live tv to a recorded program you will lose whatever history you were watching



5 When there is a lot going on you get major pixelation. Like confetti or concerts with flashing lights.


The service was a lot less expensive than what we had before and missing a few programs here and there isnt that annoying so we are ok with it. But it definitely has some usability issues.

[homeinatx]

Used to have phone, internet, tv with Time Warner, changed to U-Verse, and am pretty happy with it, except for when something goes wrong. Worst customer service - on the phone for hours trying to reach a human, very bad, but has not happened too often!

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by homeinatx

Used to have phone, internet, tv with Time Warner, changed to U-Verse, and am pretty happy with it, except for when something goes wrong. Worst customer service - on the phone for hours trying to reach a human, very bad, but has not happened too often!

Ive actually had very good success with uverse support. I get in within a minute or less usually instantly. I have had to call maybe 5 times because of a buzzing on the phone line which was apparently caused by the wiring in our house.

[paul6835]

I'm about to switch from landlines & DSL + TW cable. I used to have TW cable+internet & Vonage phone.


1. uverse digital phone lines support fax, this is huge to be me because I need a fax. digital phone is cheaper because of all the taxes on a land line but I've been forced to use landlines for a couple reasons, fax being one of them
2. I found TW cable internet to be too unreliable to run phone over it (I work from home)
3. I found TW to be more expensive for comprible levels of service
4. UVerse carries the Big10 Network overflow channels (clearly not a concern for those in Big12 country)
5. UVerse has fiber internet. I just got 2nd highest plan at 12 down 6 up. This is 4x's what cable internet is. I do a lot of presentations over livemeeting so this is HUGE
6. UVerse allows you to view recorded shows from other TVs (so I've been told), TW does not
7. TW allows only 2 shows per TV to be tuned in. Tuned in meaning recording or watching. If you have 2 shows recording, you can't watch a 3rd.
8. From what the other posters described, TW may have a better UI to their DVR

I'll follow up when the install, so far I'm excited to drop TW

[robino2001]

Originally Posted by paul6835

5. UVerse has fiber internet. I just got 2nd highest plan at 12 down 6 up. This is 4x's what cable internet is. I do a lot of presentations over livemeeting so this is HUGE
6. UVerse allows you to view recorded shows from other TVs (so I've been told), TW does not
7. TW allows only 2 shows per TV to be tuned in. Tuned in meaning recording or watching. If you have 2 shows recording, you can't watch a 3rd.

As an FYI...
5) is a lie... 1.5 up is the fastest they offer no matter what package you have. The UVerse salespeople are super-notorious for lying and upload speed is a common lie. I've had Uverse for over 2 years now and recently tried to temporaily upgrade to the best upload speed they had. I was told by the semi-salesperson that I was going to 18 down/6 up, after the change, I still had 1.5 up - called tech support and they said no matter what the download speed is, 1.5 up is the max. Now with that said, they have upgraded their abilities so they should be able to offer 3-4 up very soon, but just as an FYI - you've been lied to.

6) is nice - total home DVR is why I keep them

7) is true, but be aware only 2 streams can be HD and you have 4 streams for the entire house... live or recording. Again, their recent system upgrade will allow for 3 HD/4 total in the near future.

[mark311]

Originally Posted by robino2001

7) is true, but be aware only 2 streams can be HD and you have 4 streams for the entire house... live or recording. Again, their recent system upgrade will allow for 3 HD/4 total in the near future.

Just to expand on 7) above. You can have two HD streams and two SD streams with Uverse. So even if you have one TV, you can be recording two HD shows, one SD show, and be watching a fourth SD show at the same time.

The good thing about Uverse is that there is no contract. If you don't like it, you can cancel and go back to Time Warner. The reason I switched from Time Warner is because their DVR's are antiquated and very problematic. Other than that, their service is good.

[riaelise]

I've used TWC for 5+ years and have had little to no problems or interruptions in service. We pay under 130 for two boxes, unlimited nationwide phone, and internet. It probably isn't the newest/best show in town but hubby and I are believers in "if it ain't broke don't fix it."

[wylkell]

At the core, the two are wholly different fundamental technologies. TW is the older common cable system you pretty much see anywhere while att uses a multicast ethernet-based solution made by Microsoft. You'll notice with an att box, your using either CAT5 (ie, computer cable) or a coax cable (either one will work in any STB), and that your set top has an actual IP address on it. It's like a computer, so it can re-use your existing computer network if you have it in place already. There are some advantages to the att model, like having a single DVR in the whole house instead of putting a DVR anywhere you want to watch recorded video (again, because the DVR is "a computer", it can be a server for other set tops), but it also has limitations.

With att, you have to think about how many "streams" of video are coming into your house at one time. The limit in most places is 4 streams, with only 2 of them being HD at any one time. This means that you can have that one single DVR box in the corner recording 4 shows at the same time (while your watching a 5th recording somewhere else), but if you have 7 TVs, your not going to like it. So att is better when you have a smaller family with less TVs or less people watching different programs on them. TW would be better if you had excess TVs and wanted a DVR or STB in every room (since they send all channels down the pipe, any TV can watch any channel, while uverse sends only the ones you need/ask for). When i was single and living alone, i loved the Uverse model because i would just set my TV to record whatever i wanted and i never saw any of those "scheduling conflict" messages since i'd rarely schedule 4 shows in the same half hour block.

From a purely personal point of view, uverse also has a much nicer interface (newer, cleaner, easier) then TW, and you'll notice it most in places like VOD and Apps (if you ever use those). The TW VOD looks like it's from the 90s and half the time i've seen friends try to use it they get a "error 113" or something like that which TW support tells me is "server busy". Also, AT&T's remote is loads better (not heavy, not top weighted, and not clumsy and full of buttons you dont need) but that's my opinion.

I've had both TW and Uverse and i'd get UVerse again before TW. I'd even get a satellite system before TW if i had to. Of course, all of this is purely from a TV service point of view. Phone i've never used (i have a cell) and internet is internet. It'll work fine unless you have cabling issues or are in a bad area for that provider (i've actually had TW recommend their competitors to me before when they couldn't fix my internet connection after 2 months of service calls every 2 weeks)

Oh, and on TW's restart service, i cant comment as i've never used it. I've heard it's only for certain programs (ie, popular like american idol) but uverse doesn't have that feature at the moment.

[satxguero]

Originally Posted by wylkell

Oh, and on TW's restart service, i cant comment as i've never used it. I've heard it's only for certain programs (ie, popular like american idol) but uverse doesn't have that feature at the moment.

You can use it on any channel that you are watching.