Switching to U-Verse today

by **Clem** » February 9th, 2012, 11:03 am

At some point between now (9am) and 11am, the installer is scheduled to arrive and switch me from Time Warner's All-in-One service to AT&T U-Verse. I've heard some horror stories about U-Verse installations, but those were from a couple of years ago and I'm hoping they've worked out all of the kinks.

The net result of this move will save me about $25/month, get me "whole home DVR", and boost my internet speed to 18Mbps. I'll post a little review of everything goes afterwards. Frankly, I'm kind of nervous -- it never seems like technical installations of any sort go smoothly for me.

by **Jammer** » February 9th, 2012, 11:06 am

I have wanted U-Verse but cost wise it wouldn't make sense since we only have basic cable here. Have never had problems with AT&T's Internet service though.

by **Phogasm** » February 9th, 2012, 11:10 am

My uverse switch went smoothly and I love it. So much space on the dvr now and I have two living rooms so the whole home dvr is amazing for me and my family. 6 bucks to rent a movie on it is a bit pricey but when I don't feel like driving to a redbox its worth it. My favorite option on the remote is the Channel Shortcuts. It organizes the channels by category.....networks, sports, news, educational, and variety. I didn't sign up for automatic bill pay and forgot to pay it over the holidays. When I called to get it turned back on, they said it was 60 bucks per box for a reconnection. So it would have been 300 dollars just to reconnect it unless I signed up for automatic bill pay..........that was a no-brainer!

by **Clem** » February 9th, 2012, 8:03 pm

I think I'm going to dig U-Verse a lot. The DVR is so much better than the TiVo Premier, which was slow and had a really shitty interface IMO. The internet speed on U-Verse is slower if you run a speedtest, but that's because Time Warner uses "Speedboost", which boosts the first 15MB of any download. However, on larger downloads, the sustained speed is about 30% faster.

I'm sure I'll spend the next few days figuring out all the bells and whistles of the DVR and getting my universal remotes all squared away, but initial impression is that this switch was a good call.

by **Clem** » March 25th, 2012, 10:31 am

Yesterday, my primary U-Verse box (the one that actually has the DVR in it) began making a sound somewhere between a "beep" and a "chirp". The power light was on, but there was no picture. Repeated reboots of the box ended with a blue X on the screen with two dots below it. I called tech support and they told me that there was no such thing as a blue X and that I must be seeing a red X. I explained that I was not lying, nor am I color blind and that red displays as red and blue as blue on all any other device attached to my screen.

The guy ran some remote diagnostics and said that the DVR had taken a dump and that he'd have to send me a new one. However, he can't send me a new one because there's a pending change order on my account. I said, "no there isn't". He said, "it says on the system that you are changing your phone number". I said, "no, I am not." After going back and forth for several minutes and being put on hold probably 4 different times, he finally said that they can ship me a new DVR.

Next Saturday.

I'm not real thrilled. So once I get my new DVR up and running, I'll be giving customer service an earful and threaten to go back to Time Warner. We'll see if they make any billing adjustment or give me some free shit to keep my business (I'm thinking unlimited adult PPV for a year would make me feel better).

by **Clem** » December 19th, 2012, 9:58 am

Little update here. I really love the shit out of U-Verse. Not just the service, but the customer service. Whenever I call them, I always wind up getting a very friendly person located in the USA. And it always seems like I come away with free shit after calling them.

Example 1: I saw that my bill had gone up by $5 one month. I figured it was part of some promo that expired. The person on the other end credited the money back and extended the promo by another six months. She then asked if I'd like Showtime and Starz for free. I asked is this some promo that will eventually expire and jack up my bill by $20/month. She said nope, we'd just like to give you Showtime and Starz for free for as long as you remain an AT&T customer.

Example 2: Since I'm getting both of my kids cell phones for Christmas, I really no longer need a land line. I called U-Verse and the first person I talked to told me that since I was in a bundle promo, removing my land line would raise my bill by $30/month. She agreed with me that didn't sound like an awesome deal and connected me to Customer Retention. The woman in CR said that whoever set up my account originally bundled all of my services "ala carte" and that she could move me to the U450 package (every single channel including all premium channels) and remove my land line and my bill is going down by $40/month.

This is night and day compared to any dealings I ever had with customer service when I was with Time Warner.