First Impressions of AT&T U-Verse
After a five-hour installation job – apparently, many are longer – I am now among the first in San Diego County to have AT&T U-Verse, a new fiber-based service with a node down the street. They are definitely not calling it “IPTV.”
The service provides cable modem-like speeds for Internet, a wireless router and 400 channels of video, including 25 HD channels. A free Digital Video Recorder is also thrown in. After one day, I can report that the picture looks great on my new HDTV, and the Internet speeds are good, too.
For AT&T, U-Verse is considered critical to its future in media and communications. Accordingly, the company’s vision isn’t just confined to TV and Internet. This spring, for instance, AT&T showed off a TV version of Yellowpages.com (although it isn’t expected to be widely deployed for several years).
That’s basically it for the local connection – although home shopping efforts, launching down the road, are probably going to be tied in with the Yellow Pages service and might have some local capabilities. Three colorful buttons in the middle of the universal remote have been expressly reserved for shopping.
Beyond local, there will also be voice services. Today, I found out (by reading my instruction manual) that AT&T plans to introduce a full line of U-Verse voice services – just like Time Warner, which competes against it locally. (The current absence of a phone tie-in is actually kind of strange.) AT&T will also be introducing the ability to show your Yahoo! photos on TV.
My friendly pair of installers – AT&T employees, not freelancers – told me the company provided them with three weeks of classroom training but nothing in the field. So they were pretty much learning on the job. But they were good.
AT&T followed up on the installation with a college student, who came around to show my wife and me how to use the DVR features, etc. For instance, I learned that I can program the DVR directly from My Yahoo!. That is cool – especially when I am travelling. Their excellent care made me kind of melancholy, because I am not used to getting such good service from AT&T.
I’ve got the complete package for two months for just $74, and there is no contract. And I get $50 for every neighbor I refer. I think there will be several. Let’s see how Time Warner competes against it. This is one war that I am looking forward to.
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What’s even more interesting is that you might even be able to watch your content from anywhere in the world simply by having access to the Internet (at least that’s what we’ve been told by a sales representative). What does this mean for the Slingbox???
AT&T TV & Internet was installed in Dallas on Nov 7 by a non-AT&T contract
tech. He incorrectly connected the TV to fiber optics through a coaxial
cable. We had audio problems..It took two weeks, hours on the phone with
tech service and three different AT&T tech’s before we found a competent
one. One of our neighbors has had this service since April and still is
having problems.
I would not recommend At&t Uverse to my worst enemy!!! Poor technolgy design
and due to that I have had nothing but problems with outages with my cable and
internet!! Horrible customer service and nothing gets resolved and they do not
care and just want you off of the phone. The 800# they give you is bull
and get transferred all over the place and no one is helpful until you ask for
manager and it takes at least 30 minutes to get one on the phone. Do not use
AT&T for your internet/cable ever.
Wow what a nightmare. It makes me glad to be an employee and subscriber of DISH Network where there’s a constant focus and striving effort to provide the best possible customer experience. DISH also has a lot of other things over U-Verse. Including alternative viewing options like dishonline.com and TV everywhere. There’s also something to be said for not having all your communication/entertainment services piped in from the same line, in the fact that if one service goes down you can still enjoy the others.