I Like My U-verse

It's been a while since I've written a blog and since it's really cold outside, so here you go.  I thought I'd give my opinion on my U-verse service from AT&T.  I worked on U-verse repairs almost every day before I retired, but was never able to sample it as a customer.  Obviously, being a customer of a product makes anyone who works on it, even more knowledgeable.

For all you nerds out there, I'm on a thirty-two meg profile.  My maximum is fifty-six meg downstream and about eleven meg upstream.  My quality tests were perfect and I have no reason to believe they have changed.  We only have two televisions, both on a new cat5 wire.  The installer was going to make one wireless, but I talked him out of it.  That turned out to be a good decision, which I'll explain later.

I haven't had any major problems and the quality is pretty awesome.  With that said, I have experienced a complete freeze and had to reboot a set top box.  I have noticed pixilation a few times but nothing that would amount to a major issue.  Digital television has it's pros and cons just like everything else.  I'm pretty sure that I've worked on customer's lines who have experienced those same small problems and found there was nothing broken to repair.   They just loved reporting imperfection.  The Charter digital service we used at our former residence(there wasn't U-verse at that location) had the same kind of issues at times.  Again, I still thought it was okay.  The big difference between the two was the Internet speed.  In the morning Charter was smoking at twenty-eight meg per second, but at night, I was lucky to get six meg.  The good thing about U-verse Internet is that it doesn't bog down in the evenings.  It's the same speed all day long.

U-verse has a great channel line-up.  You can go online and check those lists out for yourself.  The guide is unmatched as far as I've seen.  I wrote about it many blogs ago and you can read it by clicking on this link.  Like other companies, there are too many home shopping channels.  I wish they could all be grouped together and or be blocked out entirely.  Those of you who are addicted to them know their location anyway.  A simple solution is just to create a favorites menu and use it.  I did, but I usually forget about it.

The only real problem I found was location specific.  The location of the wireless router wouldn't allow me to have service in the back of the house.  One of those things I've also had customer complaints on.  I downloaded an app on my phone which worked like a wireless meter.  I was able to walk around the house and measure the wireless signal strength.  I discovered that once I left the room where the router was, the strength dropped off quickly.  So much so, that by the time I took a tablet to the last bedroom, there was no service at all.

My solution to the problem was a simple one.  I unplugged the second set top box, which was located more in the center of the house, and plugged in a network switch.  I plugged the set top box back in and rebooted it.  It came up fine and TV service worked great.  I plugged another router into a spare port and set my tablet and a couple of other devices to connect to it.  Problem solved.  I have read that routers with a real antenna have a better range and that seemed to be the case here.  Had the installer used a wireless box here, my solution wouldn't have worked without the installation of a wire back to the U-verse router.

I do have one other complaint and it's a local one as well.  When I told one of my new neighbors that I was getting U-verse installed, he said I shouldn't do it.  He said that U-verse only gives local channels in the Birmingham, Alabama market.  During a recent tornado, people felt that the Cullman area didn't get the emergency coverage they needed.  Cullman weather is covered out of the Huntsville National Weather Service Office.  I took his warning seriously and installed a digital antenna outside so I could receive all the Huntsville channels for weather emergencies.  I've noticed already that Huntsville does tend to have better local coverage and the weather forecasts are much more accurate. We even shop more in Huntsville than Birmingham so I'm not sure how this problem could be corrected.  Maybe it's just a government requirement, I'm not sure.

I'll also mention we have U-verse telephone service as well.  It works fine, we just don't use it much.  Since we're only allowed two hundred minutes per month, everyone just uses a cell phone.  Telemarketers and wrong numbers tend to wear it out, calling at all hours anyway.  I've had to block a few and threaten a couple of others to stop calling.  The "do not call" list just doesn't work anymore.  I even had one to "spoof" my number when they called.  That is a problem with VOIP lines.  The phone rang and when I looked at the caller-id, it startled me.  I was calling myself.  That one got blocked as well.

Overall, I'll have to say that U-verse is a great product.  If you qualify for the service where you live, you might give it a try.

After abandoning my Apple TV,  I purchased another video streaming product that I'll tell you about next time.  I will say that I'm extremely pleased with the quality and content.  Need a hint... starts with a "R" and ends with a "4'.

REAL High Speed Internet

     You may remember one of my earlier blogs about slow to NO Internet entitled Surfing Thru a Straw.  Well, the exact thing happened again last week.  You might think, no that isn't possible but it is and it did.  My Internet, along with thousands in my general vicinity, was slow for three days then completely out of service for four days.  After the third day, the company was no longer even taking trouble reports, there was just a recording saying an outage existed for my area.  Really?  Awesome deduction, can you just fix it?  I even notified management of the problem on the first day.  It was determined to be in the downtown office early on(because it was so soon from the last time??).  Oh well!  I was told on the third day they were waiting on a "maintenance window"!  That means they were waiting till after midnight to take it down and fix it...  I said, "it's not working now, why wait?"
  
      With two college students in the house, not to mention that we've all become somewhat dependant on the Internet, I was ticked.  My loyalty only goes so far...  I picked up the phone and called Charter!  I spoke to Laura who said she could have my service installed in three days.  That was on the second day of the outage.
 
     On Friday, my installation day, I woke up excited.  Just for fun, I turned on the computer and discovered my normal 1.5M/sec service was back up.  Wow, someone finally fixed the problem, but too late to save this customer.  But that's okay, BellSouth's old customer service was WAY too good, right AT&T????  I turned the computer off and thought, "never mind"!

  
   
     My Charter tech called around 1PM and arrived about 1:15PM.  I have to admit that seeing a Charter truck in my driveway was something I never expected to see!  He was finished a short time later and my old BellSouth modem lay silent.  No lights, no power, no service...  kinda like usual! 
  
     My DSL speed, however, was soaring!  12M/sec is totally awesome!!!!  This is the way the Internet is supposed to be!  I click on something and it is there!  I don't wait on YouTube videos anymore.  The feeling was even better than when I went from "dial-up" to 1.5Meg/sec.  It was blazing fast!  A couple of months ago, I purchased Apple TV, and although happy with it overall, it was not what I had expected.  Well, with 12MEG service, my opinion of it has changed.  Something similar will be the future of television.  Choosing what you want to watch, instead of being force fed network garbage, definitely has it's advantages.

     I also priced the only other option, which was 4G cell coverage, but it was cost prohibitive.  I'm happy with my choice to go with Charter DSL.  The switchover was easy because I already had a separate router behind my BellSouth modem.  The Charter technician got his modem up and running.   I unplugged from one to the other and It was business as usual... well, it worked and was very, very fast!

     I'm sure that I am not seeing the big picture when I look at various companies Internet delivery service.  What I see are every one's tiny delivery options costing the customer a tremendous amount of money.  The Japanese seem to be way ahead of us on this.  I recently watched a video showing their Ultra High Definition service.  It is 16 times the clarity of HD.  A true 33 megapixel picture.  They plan to begin broadcasting it around the year 2020.  We don't have anything like it nor can any company deliver the bandwidth required.  Our companies are just milking subscribers for 3D image trickery.  It is a short sighted philosophy.  The pipes to homes need to be larger... think fiber optic to the house!  I've heard Verizon in California is focusing in this direction.  With fiber optics the bandwidth is virtually unlimited.  It is the network of the future.  Companies who are focusing on wireless broadcast spectrum are going to be left behind.   Wireless is too limited and spectrum is very expensive...  but hey, it's just my opinion!