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AT&T U-verse IPTV

Started by query, March 11, 2008, 15:08 hrs

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query

There's a new competitor for your television/VOIP/internet service in some areas of the country - AT&T's new U-Verse service.

We just had it installed - so far, so good - 3 Meg DSL, 240 channel TV -- much better deal than the cable company.  AT&T installs (for now) for free - including CAT5 wiring, a 2-Wire TV/Voice/ADSL modem, and in my case a Netgear gigabit switch in the basement.   The cost of the hardware is bundled into the cost of the service- unlike cable, they don't charge $10 for a DVR (one included, and it's addressable over the web, so if you forget to record something, you can log into your Yahoo account from any Internet connected PC/Mac with a browser and set it), plus two other set-top boxes.  They do for now support one HDTV/receiver, which will expand shortly.

The DVR is single-station only but with a firmware upgrade coming in June or so, will allow broadcast on any TV in the house.

It's an evolving technology, but so far it works flawlessly - the picture is incredible on the TV and upload speeds are now up to about 1M/sec, which is much more than they were. 

It's got some advantages over satellite - and others over cable (lower cost, for one) - plus voice is being added.  It's part fiber (to service boxes 3000ft or less from your home) and part copper wire - interesting technology.  Microsoft provides the software that operates the boxes.

If you have it (it's coming out slowly in locations, and AT&T is being cagey about their rollouts, partly no doubt to  blunt "discount" offers from the cable companies that might be targeted at potential customers) - you might want to give it a look.


scuzzy

I took a look for my area, and not surprisingly it is not available. Since we live slightly in the sticks I doubt that our schmuck town is anywhere near the top of their to-do list. Still, it looks promising.

I still depend on Sprint Broadband wireless for my Internet access. For $39.95 monthly, I get fantastic download speeds that sometimes tops out at over 7,000 Kbps. Unfortunately my upload speeds leave much to be desired, normally hovering around 150 Kbps.
Antec Performance TX640B Case | WinXP Pro SP3 & Win7 64-bit | Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R | Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale LGA 775 3.16GHz Dual-Core | 8GB (4x2GB) PC6400 G-Skill RAM | eVGA 7600GT 256MB PCI-E | 74GB WD Raptor SATA 16MB Cache | 74GB WD Raptor SATA 8MB Cache | 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 16MB Cache | External 640GB WD Caviar SATA 32MB Cache | Sony DRU-V200S DVD/RW | PC Power & Cooling Silencer 500W | Samsung SyncMaster 2494 (24") LCD Monitor | LG Flatron W2361V (23") LCD Monitor