Anyone have U-verse? I have had TWC for about 13 years (this time), and had DirecTV for about 6 years before that. TWC has gotten so expensive and I just got a notice that they are going up again so i am considering becoming a nomad, switching every couple of years and milking the vendors for their new customer discounts. I would love to hear from anyone that uses U-verse as I am not that familiar with it. I only need TV and internet.
I don’t have it myself, but here’s what I’ve heard from co-workers. They said that TWC has a better channel lineup, but they like the functionality of the equipment/software better with UVerse. A few of the things I heard about U-Verse (being better) had to do with DVR.
I would personally give U-Verse a try just to get the hell away from TWC.
I just switched from TWC to DirecTV because time warner’s equipment is so bad. I actually wasn’t paying much with TWC (only $97 or so for internet & digital cable), but the boxes are just awful. DirecTV boxes are way better. I now have boxes in every room and DVR for only a couple dollars more than I was paying to have 1 box (non-DVR).
TWC screwed me on internet when I canceled though. They tripled my internet cost, which doesn’t make sense because I was only paying $19.95 before I even had cable, so it’s not like it was a bundled price. I’m just going to cancel it and sign up again under my girlfriend’s name. I"m not paying $60/mo for internet.
IMO, TWC’s best product by far is their Internet service.
I would not go the u-Verse’s Internet, but TWC’S will jack the price up if you drop cable.
I have U-verse. My biggest issue was that I kept having picture problems. The TV would constantly freeze and breakup. I have had to have them out to my house about 6 times to fix the issue. After the 5th time they figured it was a line problem and someone came out to fix the line down the street. It worked for several months then started acting up again. They swapped out my equipment and gave me the new wireless stuff and it has been working fine. Overall I’m pleased with the channel selection, just frustrated it took them so long to fix the picture issue.
I’ve had the full Uverse package for close to 2 years now. I had a few problems with the initial set up. It took about 2 months for it to work as expected. But…after finally getting the initial set up I’ve had zero problems.
As far as price goes, the nomad approach is the only way to go to get the best price. Criticize them as much as we like, these companies are at least smart enough to not have large discrepancies in their prices. With the exception maybe being Dish Network. From what I’ve read they are in the biggest need for customers. But at the end of the day, if you get similar packages, I’d be surprised if your total bill is more than $2 different going with any of Uverse, TWC or Direct tv.
Some of the specific features I’ve liked/ disliked with Uverse TV:
-Like the whole house DVR.
-Like the wireless boxes.
-Like the one charge for a box, not a charge for each box in each room.
-Like no outages during storms.
-Like being able to watch live TV even when the DVR is in max recording mode.
-Like recording 5 shows at one time.
-Dislike- the DVR acts more like a computer than the other boxes IMO. By that I mean sometimes you get the hour glass pop up while it’s trying to perform a function. But most of those times it only lasts a couple of seconds.
-Dislike the skip forward function on the remote. This may seem really minor. But I got so used to this functionality with DirectTV that it was an annoying change when I switched to Uverse. Basically with DTV I could hit the skip forward button a certain # of times, for 30 second intervals. So for instance when a commercial was coming up, I would hit the skip forward button 4 teams, and it would automatically skip 2 minutes in the recording. For Uverse you can only hit the skip forward button at one time intervals of 25 seconds. So you hit the button, wait for it to skip 25 seconds, then hit the button again, skip 25 seconds, etc.
-Dislike that you can’t rewind live TV after viewing recorded TV. I never realized how many times I would rewind a program when I returned to Live TV, after viewing a recorded program, until I didn’t have that feature anymore.
-Dislike that the Palladia and Smithsonian channels are not part of the “regular” HD package. Have to pay an extra $10/month to get them.
I went with Uverse recently and have been very pleased. Solid channel line up and the wireless boxes are killer. The fact that I can just carry a box out to the garage or elsewhere to watch TV really is awesome. DVR is good too.
The key to U-verse seems to be do they offer it at your home. Their online availability checker tells me that my home cannot be found–I have lived there for 10 years!–so I called them recently and they said they can service my house. I called today to place the order and they told me they do not have service at my house. Ugh. This is not a good start.
I had called them a few times and they always said no as did their little thing online. Only reason I have it it some uverse sales people walked down and knocked on my door (one was a former charlotte baseball pitcher which was cool). They said I was on the list of houses that could get it and they were right.
I recently switched in December from Dish Network for TV and Time Warner for internet to AT&T U-verse. The internet is vastly superior to the interrupted service I got over the last couple of years. The TV has advantages and disadvantages. After my promotional period runs out, I will probably end up switching back to Dish due to cost.
Current gripes about U-verse: can only pause live TV for 1 hour vs. 2 with dish. The upgraded sports package I have is inferior to the one I had with Dish. I’ve missed 2 Niner televised games I would have been able to view with Dish.
Bumps: got a $200 gift card for switching, free showtime and starz for a few months. Now have 2 mobile units where I can watch TV anywhere - can even take it out in the yard, etc… - was finally able to switch to high-def programming without having to pay extra installation that Dish was going to charge me as an existing customer. Can record way more shows simultaneously and also watch other channels while shows are recording- couldn’t do that before with Dish.
Once the promotion ends though, the financial difference will be too great, and I’ll probably switch back to Dish and finally get those upgrades I would’ve had to pay for before.
Would love to get it, but the Silicon Valley is a broken communication network. Each street is a crapshoot as to whether it has the necessary telephone lines and fiber optic. AT&T services U-Verse for the house 2 doors down, 100 feet away, but stops there, and starts up at the bend in the street 200 feet the other way.
Would get it if they extended into Union County