after 17 days, I now have AT&T Uverse

[Guest tx2sturgis]

Its a long story with boring details but since you clicked on this thread, here you go: I signed up for Uverse on the 7th of December.

 

This is Uverse internet, not digital Uverse TV. Uverse, for those who dont know, is the AT&T service that uses fiberoptic cables run in the alleys and streets and then a drop of copper pairs, (usually your existing phone line), to the house. In brand new affluent neighborhoods they run fiber directly to the house.

 

I currently had DSL service at the 3 Mbps tier. Not super fast, but fast enough for me. It runs me about $35 a month. The Uverse sales rep offered to bump me up to 12 Mbps and drop the price to $25 a month for a year, with free install and free modem. I said 'sign me up!'

 

Famous Last Words.

 

 

We scheduled the install for the 20th of December, due to conflicts with work and other obligations we all have that time of year. (plus that allows time for the self-install modem to arrive) The technician will show up between 8 am and 8 pm.

 

Ok...set aside a whole day and hang around the house and wait.

 

The tech never showed....but my DSL internet stopped working that morning.

 

Hours on hold, many calls made, rescheduled for the 28th of December.

 

Another day waiting around my house all day, and again, the tech never showed.

 

Still no internet, and still no Uverse.

 

More time spent on hold and customer service is apologizing all over themselves, and promising it wont happen again...and I reschedule once again: January 4th, Wednesday.

On the 2nd, i get a text on my phone confirming a tech WILL be there on the 4th.

 

I left all the doors and gates standing wide open, all day. I am there all day. NO ONE SHOWS UP!

 

Ok, I'm pissed!

 

I call that night (hold for an hour)and they PROMISE there will be a tech here Friday. The phone rep even gives me the maintenance dept phone number. And the central office is only 5 blocks from my house. I live near the middle of this little town of 25,000 people. I'm NOT hard to find!

 

I finally get a call Friday afternoon. This guy is 'subbing' for the primary tech, who I find out is a GIRL, and she is out for a family situation. Huh? For 2 weeks? So this guy is here in 2 minutes, tests the line, hands me a modem, we plug it in, POOF! data detected!

 

I log in, sign up, and wow...instant internet! its MAGIC!

 

He says they were supposed to send a modem 3 weeks ago...I said yeah the phone support people told me three times it was on its way. It never showed.

 

He also apologized in person for the delays and the service, but said he was a substitute and the gal that normally does all this has been 'busy'...whatever that means.

 

Well the end result is now my internet is working, and the speed is showing to be around 11 Mbps now....and the webpages and videos are loading QUICK!

 

So...I spent about 17 days with no internet, no Netflix, no Hulu, no Youtube, no streaming music.

 

I was able to so some limited surfing and email using the local 3G service on my ipad, and iphone, but its just not the same.

 

Now the funny thing is:

 

I had texted this female friend that 'my internet was down'...i get a couple of texts back and then she quips, 'well I thought macs didnt break!'...she knows I'm a mac person.

 

I texted back that its the service, not the computer, the mac is fine. Just no internet working to the house.

 

She wrote back a simple: 'oh'

 

Shes a blonde, and a cute one at that, but thats the same thing as thinking that a nice expensive Sony Plasma TV will work even if there is no signal to it!

 

I guess to some people the words 'internet is down' means the computer quit.

 

Oh well.

 

 

Things are getting back to normal here, and I got caught up on some shows I watch. I dont have cable TV and we are 50 miles from the nearest TV market so I only get about 3 channels of network crap, so this is kindve a big deal for me. Its my main source of entertainment, news, weather, sports, movies, email and so on.

 

After all this, I can say its hard to imagine going back to the days of no internet. Is that what our great, great, great grandparents said about hot and cold running water? or electricity?

 

Wow.

 

Happily surfing again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2012 by tx2sturgis

[Freebird]

Yep...it's almost sad in a way. I don't know what to do with myself if I don't have access to the Internet, email, etc. I was in Gatlinburg last weekend and the cottage that we had rented had no internet. I did use 3G service by tethering my phone and that got me by. A little slow but a LOT better than nothing.

[silent67]

I have had DSL for years and I will admit it is nice to have. I don't think I would die if it all went away though. I do think some folks would probably blow their brains out at he loss of internet, cellphones, smartphones, TV and whatnot ,but I think I would make it just fine. It would hurt at first but I think a lot of people would get use to it. The ones that could not are probably useless in the big scheme of things and we would all be better off with out them. I am not trying to get anyone upset but I do think that you can get use to anything. We could start visiting neighbors and helping each other again instead of sitting in front of a monitor all the time. Your next door neighbor can be dead for 6 months and you would not even know it these days.

[Venturous Randy]

Yep...it's almost sad in a way. I don't know what to do with myself if I don't have access to the Internet, email, etc. I was in Gatlinburg last weekend and the cottage that we had rented had no internet. I did use 3G service by tethering my phone and that got me by. A little slow but a LOT better than nothing.

 

I was in Gatlinburg Thursday and yesterday and it was about 60 degrees and clear. It sure did make me long for spring. Hope you enjoyed your visit to our little corner of the world.

Ya know, I had my laptop in the car and never thought about turning it on.

RandyA

[RandyR]

A friend of mine recently got a small box to attach to her TV that talks to her DSL wireless router and provides TV access.

 

I'd never heard of this before. but it seemed to work ok.

 

It also has a bunch of music only channels.

[Guest tx2sturgis]

A friend of mine recently got a small box to attach to her TV that talks to her DSL wireless router and provides TV access.

 

I'd never heard of this before. but it seemed to work ok.

 

It also has a bunch of music only channels.

 

 

Its probably either a Roku Box or Apple TV...maybe a BoxeeBox....there are several of these on the market.

 

It lets you watch internet provided video content such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Itunes movies and tv shows...whatever, but instead of watching the programs on your computer, it streams the content to your large TV screen. Pretty inexpensive, they are essentially an internet appliance.

[Drkngas]

I've had so many battles with ATT U-verse that I have been tempted to yank it out many times. After the 5th wire run from their box to my house and a proper cable routing under the sidewalk avoiding the expansion joint, I think they got it right. They didnt belivee me when I said it only went down when the neighbor edged his yard.

[deepforkriver]

First of all, I am not going to go into detail about ATT. Only to say, I very very very much with passion, dislike everything about them. whew, ok having said that, I too was informed I HAD to change to UVERSE. Long story short, after they required to run my credit, etc etc etc, They DOUBLE BILLED ME. My blood pressure is rising again, hang on............. ok, I'm back. They continued to bill me for home phone/internet AND Uverse. The little lady said she was glad I notified her, they could do nothing until they had xx amount of people call and complain. I'M JUST SAYIN, WATCH YOUR BILLING, THEY WILL SCREW THAT UP NEXT!!!!!!

[muaymendez1]

The part of the story where thr blonde thought your computer was down reminds me of my wife.I preform oil changes in my driveway to save cash abd know what oil ang filter are going in and the next morning she wakes up to a flat abd says iBROKE her car.Next time she will pay some shop to do it because it they break it they should fix it.Mind you I plugged the tire as well

[BuddyRich]

We have moved several lines and changed services and such over the last year at work, in different offices and even different states. AT NO TIME did at&t get it right the first or second time. Pretty pathetic on their part. No matter how big they are. They are back in the mind set of "We're the Phone Company" as Lily Tomlin would say.

[Guest tx2sturgis]

They did seem to have some 'issues' getting this going, and I left out some details...but the result is that now my internet is fairly fast:

 

 

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1696180148.png

 

 

10 Mbps. Other speed testing pages showed a lower score...as low as 4.5Mbps on one page...but still, its faster than what it was before. Speedtest rates it as Grade 'C'...slower than 53% of the US. And my upload speeds are only slightly faster than what they were before, but for a home user in a 2 horse town, its not bad.

Edited January 9, 2012 by tx2sturgis