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Comcast vs AT&T U-Verse

C

Carbo

Diamond Member
Presently with Comcast and have been for many years. TV and internet. Service isn't bad, although download speeds aren't anywhere near the advertised speeds. But it's the price of Comcast that has me considering my options. AT&T is mailing and calling me with some tempting offers, but it isn't always about the money if the product sucks.
For anyone who has first hand experience with AT&T, are you happy with their service and product?
 
There are two types of AT&T U-Verse, fiber to your house (similar to Verizon's FIOS) and Fiber to the node/neighborhood with a DSL last mile.
I had the Fiber to the node setup at my apartment, speeds with the internet were good, but the TV was a bit over compressed and I couldn't watch or record as many HD streams at once as advertised. However the channel guide on the cable boxes rocks.
 
Just got stuck with AT&T DSL at my brand new home since cable isn't ran yet...speeds suck ass (subscribed to highest speed of 6mb and can barely get over 3mb) and the customer service is a joke, as soon as cable is available I'm going back cause the cost is worth it...can't comment on the sat service since it hasn't been installed yet
 
Damn near everyone I've worked for who has switched from Comcast to U-Verse has hated the U-Verse tv service. No personal experience with it, though.

Call Comcast and tell them you're switching over to DirecTV, they usually offer you a discount to stay with them. Just play the charades every year. I mean, there is no downside to telling this to Comcast.
 
I don't know about TV, but I'd get U-verse net without question if I could. Very close to advertised speeds and not one outage in the ~6 months I had them. Comcast had one a month it seemed before I switched. Now I'm in a complex that doesn't have u-verse and I miss it a lot.
 
I'm a big fan of UVerse. Their techs (at least the ones I've had experience with) that come out to install the service aren't worth a shit, but the product is good. I don't do massive file downloads or gaming, so I really can't comment much in that area of thier internet service. Uverse TV service is awesome and it would take big changes on Comcast's side to get me to switch to them.

Just FYI, I have fiber to the node with DSL in the last mile to my house.
 
The AT&T rep on the phone was very insistent, of course, and guaranteed me 24 MBs download speed, (vs the 12MB tier I have with Comcast now. . .but never get). If that 24MB speed is correct I have to assume the fiber optics is running straight to my house, no?
 
Carbo said:
The AT&T rep on the phone was very insistent, of course, and guaranteed me 24 MBs download speed, (vs the 12MB tier I have with Comcast now. . .but never get). If that 24MB speed is correct I have to assume the fiber optics is running straight to my house, no?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. And you shouldn't believe what the AT&T sales rep is saying. You will not get a constant 24 Mbps download speed. I can promise you that. Getting that speed guarunteed to you would require business service that costs you massive amounts of money.
 
Carbo said:
The AT&T rep on the phone was very insistent, of course, and guaranteed me 24 MBs download speed, (vs the 12MB tier I have with Comcast now. . .but never get). If that 24MB speed is correct I have to assume the fiber optics is running straight to my house, no?
Click to expand...
It would have to be...
 
Carbo said:
The AT&T rep on the phone was very insistent, of course, and guaranteed me 24 MBs download speed, (vs the 12MB tier I have with Comcast now. . .but never get). If that 24MB speed is correct I have to assume the fiber optics is running straight to my house, no?
Click to expand...

Sales Reps LIE...more so if on commission.
 
My wife calls in to Comcast every 6 months or so and threatens to switch until they re-instate our promo prices. Pricewise, I think we're par with fiber (HD-DVR TV + HBO, SHO, Starz + Internet). Bandwidth isn't what's advertised, but still more than I use.

FWIW, my sister with U-verse (dunno if the fiber goes to the house) complains more frequently about outages, than my parents do with Time Warner/Roadrunner cable (both in Wisconsin).

Personally, I'd probably switch to a fiber offering if I wasn't too lazy to deal with the hassle. Comcast has been good to us overall anyway.
 
With any TV/phone/internet service, the quality depends on where you live. My subdivision is only 4 years old so all the wiring is new. YMMV.

I'm in south Texas and have UVerse and it's pricey, but great. I have ADSL last-mile (or whatever copper to the house is called). I pay for 12MB/s service and I get those speeds. TV/HDTV service has been consistent and picture quality is very good. Now, I'm not like a lot of you guys; I don't put my eye 1" from the screen and count every pixel to MAKE SURE it's 1080p. The HDTV channels look great to me and the service doesn't drop out in the rain/windy conditions. I'm happy.

Now, I'm a new customer so I got all the promotional pricing. IIRC, the discounts I get for having all 3 services (phone/net/TV) add up to about $30 a month. When they expire in a few months I guess I'll have to call up ATT and start screaming.

I lived in the same area about 7 years ago and was stuck with Time Warner cable. The service sucked. The speeds sucked. The picture sucked. Customer service sucked. Maybe they are better now, but I didn't take any chances. When I moved back here recently, I went with ATT. I also have ATT cell phone service, so I get one (very big) bill vs. a bunch of small ones. My two pennies.
 
It's been about a year and a half so far with Comcast, and I've had pretty decent luck. My first modem looked like it came out of the early 90s and was replaced after maybe a month or two. They could never figure out what caused my "micro-lag" (only lagging for 1-3 seconds at a time), which was rather annoying while playing online games. I eventually purchased my own Motorola Surfboard 6121 DOCSIS 3.0 modem, and the "micro lag" is gone.

Although, I had a huge problem last week where I literally dropped to dial-up speeds with my SB6121. I still had my old Comcast-provided Surfboard (5000-series DOCSIS 2.0) modem as I haven't had the time to return it yet, which I should probably do so soon... it's a $7 a month rental charge for that $50 modem. :\ But anyway... I hooked up my old modem, and the Internet worked fine. I put the SB6121 back in place, and the Internet was terribly slow. The following Monday, I put the SB6121 back again, and everything was fine. Comcast could never figure out what was wrong, and I couldn't either.

I believe it was Comcast performing DOCSIS 3.0-related maintenance though, because ever since I hooked the SB6121 back up, I get much higher PowerBoost speeds (5MB/s downloads). The only bad thing is that PowerBoost only lasts for like 50MB, so it's over pretty quickly. 😛

EDIT:

As a note, even though I do have DOCSIS 3.0 enabled for my receive (download), I don't actually get any faster overall speeds. With the SB5k and SB6121, I get 2.5MB/s sustained.
 
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I have uverse internet only (no tv or phone). I have their fastest option and it really is as fast as they advertise (at least in my area). I can't comment on tv as we don't watch anything but netflix, hulu, and other rented internet shows (UFC on roku for example).
 
UVerse is great. The FTTN type is VDSL-based, with an IP DSLAM (yay for no ATM). When I had it installed in my last apartment, the tester trained at 52mbit down/10mbit up. Of course, I was only paying for 6mbit down/768kbit up...I consistently got 7.5mbit down/1.2mbit up. I would switch back instantly if it were available where I'm currently living.

FTTH would be nice, but it is not available in this metro area.

The other really nice thing about UVerse is that the set-top boxes can be used as HPNA converters to bridge your ethernet over your home's existing coax.
 
i've been with uverse for almost as long as they have been in houston and my only complaint is moving service. i've done it twice now and both times were a huge headache. the first time was before they implemented the ability to transfer service; i had to cancel my service and sign up again as a new customer, losing everything i had on my dvr and losing the pricing i had when i signed up originally (it was much worse at the time of my move). the second time they had implemented service tranfers, but they still charge $36 to "activate" service at the new address (even though the previous owner had uverse and hadn't disabled it yet) and they promised a lot of perks that they didn't deliver on (free hbo for 6 months turned into 3 months after activating. $50 rebate card didn't happen at all because the person who promised it "wasn't authorized to do so").

the service itself is great.
 
Comcast business class here. I pay for 22/5 and usually get 60/40 or something like that. Not a blip in the service yet.
 
I HATED U-Verse for the 2 months I had them. It wasn't any cheaper than Comcast, the picture quality was significantly worse, and their customer service was terrible.
 
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