ATT&T U-verse

A slight departure from the purpose of this blog, but I wanted to give a mini-review of AT&T's U-verse product. We recently switched from Comcast and we were glad to do it. Price wise you’re looking at more bang for the buck - more channels in general and more of them in HD compared to Comcast at similar price points. We're also getting the full 18 mbps internet that they offer, which is substantially faster than what Comcast currently offers in Nashville. So for roughly the same price we're going from having Comcast's basic digital TV package and 6 mpbs internet to having over 200 channels and 18 mpbs net. Not bad.

Internet

Now with Comcast you get their "burst" which skews speed tests and accelerates the first few minutes of your downloads, but with U-verse we're getting consistent download speeds that are more than 3 times faster than the sustained speeds from Comcast. Now all of this will change when Comcast unveils their faster internet products (some markets are already seeing these speeds), but since I live in Nashville - and we rarely EVER get something sooner than later here - I think U-verse will remain the fastest internet offering for now. There are rumors that AT&T will double their maximum download speed sometime in the near future, but that will probably require a price increase. So for now I’m very satisfied with the speeds I have.

Negatives

There are a few negatives, namely that the HD quality seems to vary. Some channels are great, others show artifacts and strobing effects. AT&T is apparently using a different compression scheme than what Comcast uses, and that they periodically improve the feeds as the technology improves. So hopefully the HD channels that are lagging now will improve in time. Also, if Verizon FIOS is what you’re after, you’re not going to get a fully suitable replacement here with AT&T. Unless you’re in a brand new neighborhood, you’re probably only going to have fiber to within 3,000 feet or so of your house. From there it’s over traditional phone lines. The install process took 4-5 hours, including them having to run a new twisted pair line from the pole to our house. AT&T will definitely spend the full day with you, if necessary, to get their product up and running. But in the end it seems like FIOS delivers substantially faster internet to their customers. But with the costs they incur to full wire a town, it’s no wonder that FIOS is offered in limited markets.

Finally what really puts U-verse over the top for me is some of the features they offer, namely the ability to watch DVR recorded material on any box in the house, being able to watch and/or record 2 streams of HD and 2 streams of SD at the same time, the ability to schedule programs on the net, and a better looking interface. The latter is pure aesthetics, but hey it counts. U-verse’s DVR interface is no TiVo, but it’s close.