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U-verse arrives. Oh, joy!

Posted by Photonstopper on January 26, 2008
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They arrived as scheduled and worked all day Friday. The AT&T installers found our '70s condo was a bit difficult to work with. They were, however, open to suggestions, courteous, careful, and a pleasant pair of guys to have working in our house. By the end of the day I had emptied three closets and one bookcase to accommodate the new wiring: some of it coaxial cable and some of it cat. 5e. The upstairs and the main floor weren't very difficult, all things considered, once the old cable paths were figured out and partly replaced. The TV for the basement, however, was another matter. Thank goodness the U-verse system is network-based! The cat. 5e cable run I had put in between the second floor and the basement (with great difficulty) a few years ago was put to good use; it now carries data packets for our restored broadband Internet access and the set-top box for the TV down here. The guys arrived at about 9 AM and left after 4 PM. There was only one shortcoming which, for us, turned out all right: the head installer couldn't get our high-definition TV to display images via its component inputs — the highest quality outside of HDMI (which the TV doesn't have) and the only true high-def display it can give us. Hi-def TV via a regular composite video input isn't worth much! After they left, I explored the installation manual for the set-top box. I discovered the unit's output resolution could be safely changed because, much like a modern computer, it will test a setting before making that setting permanent. If the setting doesn't work, the unit safely returns to the one that did work. I changed the setting to 1080i and it looks very, very good.

Overall the image quality of the TV is very good. Standard "cable" channels look fine, better than we were experiencing with DirecTV satellite service, and high-definition channels look very good but not excellent. Local HDTV broadcasts, especially, suffer some loss of clarity. Whereas they were razor-sharp (you could see the actors' pores) viewing local HDTV shows via antenna, the local channel HD now is only a little better than standard definition. The color seems to have been shifted; we noticed so-so sharpness, garish colors, and marked red flesh tones watching The Ghost Whisperer on local HD Channel 19 via U-verse. Unpleasant, really. That is our only disappointment. We'll likely purchase an HD tuner to use in watching local broadcasts over-the-air to enjoy the incredible quality we know is available for free locally. Adjusting to the new array of channel numbers and the new remote controls, well, that's a learning process!

Internet access is, technically, the same speed as we had with our DSL. We selected the U-verse "Pro" access which is advertised as 3 Mbps download, 1 Mbps upload. This morning testing via the Speedtest.net site, I found we were getting 2.9 Mbps down and 943 Kbps up. Close enough to keep AT&T honest and, interestingly, noticeably faster than my recent experiences with DSL. I'm thinking it may be the higher-capacity "residential gateway" router AT&T installed in Her office. The gateway router provides all TV and network access to our house.

What exactly is AT&T's U-verse technology? Can't say. It does, in fact, come down our street and to the phone box on our house via POTS wiring, not, from what I can tell, over fiber. From the phone box it enters the house and the residential gateway (router) via coax cable. Inside the house it's cat. 5e to the set-top boxes and computers. The router has built-in Wi-Fi with WPA encryption … good signal strength in the house and very fast access. Whatever U-verse technology is, it is nice to have excellent TV quality available again. Oh, and to be saved from "dial-up h3ll." Trying to live without broadband Internet was, we believe, harder than living without 200 channels of TV.

Would we recommend U-verse? Yup! Except for the misunderstanding concerning DSL disconnection, the whole thing went as promised. Installers did what they needed to do while taking our needs and preferences into account. Video quality is very good. HD quality is mixed but not excellent (very good on "cable" HD channels, not-so-good on local HD channels). The price is right. We're happy!

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Bye-bye DirecTV!

Posted by Photonstopper on January 17, 2008
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 4 Comments

When She tried to watch a little television at the end of a long, stupid day at the office yesterday, DirecTV wasn't delivering. It may have been the service's fault. It may be an equipment failure at our end. We had strong satellite signal but no programming. Whatever else it was, it was the last straw. I was making no calls to DirecTV's crap customer support. After many futile attempts to diagnose and fix the problem myself, I called DirecTV and officially terminated our service. Then I went online and ordered installation of AT&T's U-verse television service with high-speed Internet access. It was supposed to be installed January 22. We'd been with DirecTV for a long time and, by and large, liked their service. It cost less than cable with more programming per dollar, was reliable, and had top-notch customer service. Over time we watched it slide downward by every measure until now we part company. Bye-bye DirecTV!

So next I called EarthLink and ordered our DSL service terminated and EarthLink service rolled back to dial-up so we'd have at least some connectivity between DSL disconnection and AT&T installation. I hated to do it –EarthLink has been great all this time– but the broadband bundled with U-verse will cost a fraction of EarthLink's and  the savings will add up. The customer service person was easy to talk to, politely tried to keep me as a customer, and quickly complied with my requests. The EarthLink high-speed service cut took effect at midnight, last night: no high-speed access though the DSL modem was showing it had a signal (a "soft" disconnect). Gad! I'd forgotten how agonizing dial-up can be and it has gotten worse since most Web sites now assume you have broadband. Arrrrrgggggg!

In the mean time, AT&T is showing some flukes early on. Whilst online placing my order, the automated system told me it saw that we had DSL service and said it must be disconnected in order to have the U-verse service installed. I called AT&T and spoke with a live customer service person who said, no, that's not correct — the DSL can stay in place and even be operated at the same time as U-verse services. I received an email confirmation of my order this morning and thought everything was fine… we only had to suffer through one week of Internet and TV withdrawal. Of course tonight we receive a call (on voice mail) from AT&T saying our installation has been canceled because there is currently DSL* on our telephone line! The live customer service person's advice was incorrect. Thanks a lot AT&T. Time for a little more training of your customer service staff, don't you think?

Calling AT&T Technical Support got me connected with "Billing," of all departments, and the man there worked through our situation with me. Unfortunately we are at the mercy of the disconnect process and it will be seven to 10 days before we can place a new order. Ugh! At least I was given a direct-in phone number to call once we are sure of disconnection… maybe cutting some time off the process and definitely bypassing the phone answering system!

Late in the evening I noticed the DSL signal light was dark on the DSL modem. That tells me there is now a "hard disconnect" of our service. Now… how long will it take for word of that disconnection to reach AT&T?

* Covad is likely the company that owns the connection in the AT&T central office that needs to be cut at EarthLink's request. So we have no service, but the physical connection is still in place preventing the new service installation.

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The end for DirecTV?

Posted by Photonstopper on November 26, 2007
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 3 Comments

We've subscribed to DirecTV satellite service for many years. That goes back to the days when we lived in Cleveland and the city had no cable TV service. Satellite gave us lots of programming, excellent customer service, and at a price lower than cable when cable became available. Sunday morning we had a power outage of about two minutes. When the power came back our DirecTV receiver rebuilt its channel list the way it normally would in such a situation. The difference this time was that our local channel satellite feed was gone. No matter what I tried I couldn't get the local channels back. We get lousy off-air reception except for a couple of digital channels so we really want those satellite local channels. A call to DirecTV customer service didn't resolve the situation… the guy said we should buy a new receiver. Well I have to say that sounds bogus. We're receiving all of our other satellite channels with good strength only the local channels have disappeared — channels we must pay a surcharge to receive this way! Stupid. So AT&T's U-Verse IP television and Internet service package is looking better all the time; it also isn't affected by weather the way DirecTV is. Kind of hate to say goodbye to our satellite provider but customer support means a lot and I didn't get it Sunday. I'll try again tonight and what happens then may just be the deciding factor!

UPDATE: Tonight I unplugged the receiver so that I could connect it to a spare UPS I had laying around. Kind of clunky but I figured it would be good to protect the satellite receiver, stereo receiver, and the DVD player from power problems including brief blackouts. I called DirecTV customer service to give them one more chance. Just as I was finishing my explanation of our situation I checked the on-screen channel guide and –surprise– the local channels were back! All I can figure is mebbe having the receiver unplugged from power for a longer time may have completed the reset it needed whereas it didn't get fully reset with an intentionally short power-down. Or mebbe it was DirecTV's fault and they didn't want to fess up. In any case, the DirecTV support woman said she thought when I was working on the equipment I must've jiggled the antenna cable just right to restore service. BLOCKHEAD! The satellite feed is a "1" or a "0" — it's either connected or it's not so you'll always get all or nothing. A loose cable isn't going to cause most channels to be listed and leave out a few. Where did they go? Did they leak out on to the floor?? Sheesh! DirecTV support used to be fast and effective — call 'em up, within a few seconds you were talking to a real person, and the problem got resolved. Now, once you get past the horrible phone answering system, it's little help and a lot of sales talk. A year or so back we also had a less-than-pleasant experience with their local on-site service provider who tried to trick us into signing a service contract! We have our local channels back now (no thanks to "them") but this experience has really soured me on DirecTV. It still may be time to move on and the end for DirecTV.

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