 Review by eric_n_dfw 
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 8 years, 536 visits, last login: 10 days ago
 Euless,Tarrant,TX
 $69 per month
 about 10 days
 "Painless install, rock solid DSL connection, good price"
 "TV quality can degrade with high motion & DVR needs some UI enhancements"
 "Great DSL, crappy DVR."
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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** UPDATE 12/24/07 **
Just cancelled my UVerse TV service and, aparently, I get to keep the internet connection! SWEET! Like I've said before, the only real down side of UVerse is the *awful* DVR software but their DSL link is rock solid. I've reactivated my DirecTV Tivo so now I have the best of both worlds - FTTN DSL and my beloved, mod'ed up DTivo ;o)
(I'll update my monthly cost when I get my next bill)
** UPDATE 12/11/07 **
Internet connection awesome, but that DVR is still giving me headaches. This weekend it stopped recording a movie (iRobot on F/X) right at the climactic ending scene! (2:33:00 into a 3:00:00 show) I'm betting the DVR rebooted during the recording - I've seen it reboot in the middle of the day a couple of times, which is something my Tivo didn't do - it waiting 'till the middle of the night and tried to avoid any time slot where it was recording something I had told it to. I'm also really starting to miss my wishlists. I'm probably going to be calling AT&T and DirecTV today to see about switching to "regular" AT&T/Yahoo DSL and reactivating my DTivo.  (
** UPDATE 11/27/07 (4 weeks after install) **
The internet connection is rock solid - never any problems, especially since I ran a dedicated Cat5e line from the gateway/modem to my DVR. I probably will upgrade from the 3Mb service I'm on now to 6Mb but what I really would like is faster upload (1Mb just doesn't cut it for all the photos I post to Flickr and I want to start posting family videos for the grandparents to see)
The biggest problem I'm having is with the &$^*&#Q^$#$ DVR! I am really considering dropping Uverse over it. Last night I found that it didn't record both hours of a MythBusters special (usually that show is an hour). My DirecTivo never had that problem - you'd think that with AT&T providing the guide the thing would work as good as DirecTV's... aparently not. This, coupled with the problems I posted below, has be on the edge of going back to DTV and just swithcing to standard AT&T/Yahoo! DSL.
*** END 11/27/07 UPDATE ***
*** BEGIN ORIGINAL REVIEW ***
Coming from EarthLink with MyVoice I can't be happier about the combo of UVerse's internet and good old AT&T POTS phone service. I also switched from DirecTV with the Tivo based DVR, I'm a little less enthused with that change, but it's bearable.
INSTALL:
Luckily, I already have Cat5e ethernet run everywhere so the installers were able to just tap into my network and didn't have to drag any coaxial or ethernet cables anywhere. Install took about 60 minutes at most.
INTERNET:
I am now getting solid 3MB/1MB DSL (I may upgrade to 6MB/1MB, but I don't really need it right now) - the gateway stats seem to indicate that the raw speed available to the house is about 28MB/2MB. The only problem I had was, I believe related to the TV service - see "ODDITIES" below.
TELEVISION:
I don't have an HDTV but can attest that the SDTV quality is very good - I've only seen a couple of hicups and a little bit of macro-blocking while watching some NFL this weekend. I've watched 4 NHL games though, and all looked great. The DVR, however, is not quite so great; I'm coming from a DirecTV HDVR2 Tivo based DVR that I had hacked up quite a bit and increased drive space to about 240GB. The AT&T one works, but it lacks the UI polish that Tivo has and it also exhibts a lot of lag - so much so that you end up hitting the remote key's twice because you're not sure if it registered, only to end up double-clicking that button. I'll probably post a review of it on my blog somethime soon and will updated this with that link. The ability for it to record 4 SD shows at the same time is a very welcome improvement to my Tivo though. AT&T promises some software updates over the next year, hopefully some of the shortcomings will be addressed.
PHONE:
Ok, UVerse doesn't provide phone service, (although the gateway does have a couple of phone output RJ11 jacks that are covered with a clear plastic stickers so I'm guessing a VoIP solution is in the works), but I had to drop EarthLink MyVoice - not that I'll miss it - so I went back to POTS from AT&T. Not much to say about it, it just works.
ODDITIES:
I started to get a some really bad slowdowns the first couple of evenings, seemingly coinciding with watching the Dallas Stars hockey games in a time-shifted mode (lagging real time a bit). The video wasn't having any breakup or anything, but my DSL speed tests were showing as low a 22Kbs! We also were having problems with our 2 laptops keeping connection to my Airport Express WAP. I disconnected that WAP and enabled the one built into the AT&T / 2Wire gateway and have had absolutely no problems since. I then re-installed the Airport Express but am using it as a music streaming receiver for iTunes only which is working fine. My theory is that all of the multicast traffic that the TV traffic uses is flooding the Airport Express. I'll probably fire up ethereal or something some day to verify that, but the frantic blinking of my network switch seems to support it. If that's the case, I will probably drop another dedicated Cat5e line to my DVR and isolate that traffic from my main LAN with a router. (I've been wanting to upgrade my data network to 1000x switches anyway, this could me a good excuse!)
Followup comments:  koolkid1563
Premium,MVM
join:2005-11-06
Powell, WY
clubs:
 ·Bresnan Online
| Multicast If you want to isolate the multicasts, try to keep all of the STBs with a direct line to the RG without going through switches. The RG does IGMPv3 snooping so that it only sends the data to the hosts that request it, instead of treating it as a broadcast. | |
|  |
eric_n_dfw
join:2001-10-22
Euless, TX | Re: Multicast You were right! I ran another Cat5e line from the RG to the DVR and my switch traffic LEDs are back to a normal pace. No router/firewall necessary.
Thanks! | |
|
eric_n_dfw
join:2001-10-22
Euless, TX
 ·EarthLink
 ·AT&T U-Verse
|  DVR Support Email
>As a new user (2 weeks) I'm happy with everything about my UVerse service except the DVR software.
>1.) The interface is very slow, often I don't know if it registered my remote key-presses and end up doubling a key.
>2.) Then there's the very slow guide, it shows "Now Loading" much to often.
>3.) Third, it would be much easier to navigate recorded shows if it had folders for all episodes of a given series rather than having to scroll past dozens of episodes to find something else.
>4.) Lastly, when hitting play after fast-forwarding, it would be nice if the play head would jump back a few seconds. (Tivo and Verizon FIOS do this)
>Thanks!
Here's their response:
Greetings,
Thank you for being a Uverse customer. We do apologize for any technical difficulties you are receiving with the DVR software. Unfortunately the functionalities of the DVR have not been updated. If you are experiencing any further issues please contact our technical support department at 1-800-288-2020.
Regards,
Your AT&T U-verse Service Specialist
Since then, there has been one DVR software update (that I know of), but it didn't really address any of my issues. The menu's are supposed to be faster, but it's not by much. | |
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