 Review by bky 
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 7.3 years, 2114 visits, last login: 2 days ago
 Arlington,Tarrant,TX
 $98 per month
 about 15 days
 "Watching TV is cool again, connection reliability is rock solid as it has to be."
 "Interleaving make gamer smash!"
 "Not FTTP, but I still love it."
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I'll start with the TV service where I have the U200 package. Wow, I don't think I will ever go back to standard cable after my experience so far. The on-screen UI is just awesome to say the least. I can't get over how much I love the channel switch preview box and other features. The dvr functions are great, allowing you to record up to 4 programs simultaneously and schedule recordings remotely through your yahoo homepage. I've noticed that my HD/DVR box will sometimes peg it's resources and cause some aggravating latency when using the UI, often a 5-10 second delay between push-button on the remote and the function actually being carried out. I thought this was only when viewing HD programming at first, however that does not seem to be the case. I think it might be related to 1080p screen configuration, which I only hope could be fixed later on with a software update.
The internet, well, it's fast DSL and it works. I have the 6Mbps/1Mbps 'Elite' tier, which was a downgrade from 10/1 on cable. One thing that I did not realize before switching to U-verse is that the DSL utilizes interleaved signalling (»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interleaving) for data transmission. This is great in regards to delivering the unforgiving medium of video/television over IP, however it adds a noticeable amount latency to the internet connection compared to traditional DSL service(to put this in perspective, imagine that on ADSL you would ping 10-20 to a local game server, whereas on u-verse VDSL you would ping 25-40). Now, the only reason I picked up on this is because I'm an online gaming enthusiast where I found that my latency was actually a small amount higher than my previous RR cable service. If you are not an online gamer and/or don't care about low response times, then don't worry at all about this.
The cost for the service was too sweet not to switch. It cost me absolutely nothing for setup/installation. My monthly bill is actually a few dollars cheaper than what I was paying for base digital programming from time warner, who with I didn't even have a DVR or HD service.
What would u-verse have to do in order to make me a completely happy customer?
Allow customers to opt-out of using interleaved signalling with VDSL (if this would even be possible). Do I think they will ever do this? Hell no, but that's the bottom line.
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