Our son gave us a new telephone set on Christmas. It has caller ID capability. Yes, we are still dinosaurs and do not yet have caller ID.

When I called AT&T to get rate quotes for various services I was overwhelmed with all the choices including a sales pitch to switch our internet and cable TV to AT&T U-verse. Our area is one of the places where this service is now available. The rates for the combination of phone, TV and Internet would be great. I'm wondering if any of you have experience with this service.

Kathy, I don't have ATT Uverse but I do have my TV, phone and internet bundled together with Time Warner and I love it. I love the one rate phone with no long distance charges anywhere in the US and I also really like Caller ID on my tv! It sure beats getting up to see who is calling, lol. I think the price is great as well.

If you see Suzie on your caller ID, jump up and answer :D

Suzie, I would even forgo my favorite episode of Star Trek if you were calling!

Thanks Karen & Suzie. We're still weighing the pros and cons. We currently have Comcast cable TV & Internet. AT&T says that their high speed fiber optic service is faster, but our research does not agree with that. But the U-verse has so many more channels on the TV for a lower price PLUS a free digital recorder. I never did add the digital recorder to our Comcast when I was thinking about that last August. With the writer's strike there isn't much to record these days, but somewhere down the line I'm sure I'll want it again. The bundle with AT&T has more features at a lower cost than Comcast. AT&T uses Yahoo hi-speed Internet.

We could get phone service bundled with either service but it would change from a land line to voice over internet. We're still not completely sold on that idea. Dinosaurs probably had this much trouble making decisions and that is why they are now extinct!

Kathy, I am using voice over internet now and I can't tell the difference between this and a land line. Absolutely no difference whatsoever as you use the same phones that are in your house now. The quality is the same if not better than my old land line. Had I not been here when the cable company installed the new modem for the phone, I would not know I had VOIP.

What does ATT use for TV, is it satellite?

Karen, is the following the answer to your question?

"AT&T U-verse TV is all digital television service that uses the power of Internet Protocol Technology to provide you with more programming choices and viewing options.

Please visit the Offers section of AT&T U-verse online at http://uverse.att.com for more product and service information."

Oh Kathy, that is something totally new! I did not know that they were doing digital TV over the phone lines now. Most of the phone companies that offer a bundled service for phone, tv and internet use satellite tv (like Dish TV) for that portion of the service!
I looked at your link, it looks really cool but rather expensive.

For my high speed internet, unlimited long distance phone and cable (that does not include the premium HBO type services) I pay $109 a month. I couldn't find a price for the 3 services bundled together at the ATT site?

Karen, I was quoted $110 a month (plus taxes and fees) for the triple bundle. The same triple play with Comcast here would be $129 a month plus taxes and fees but their DVR would be extra.

I've Googled "AT&T opinions" and am now reading a lot of opinions; some good, some bad - still so much to learn.

Kathy, then that is a good price! I couldn't find the 3 bundled items when I looked.

Kathy - do you happen to know if you have fiber to the house? Or is it a fiber optic network with copper wiring going to the house? If it's fiber to the house, then it's FTTP (fiber to the premises) which should give you a generation faster than any cable service and I would jump on that in a heartbeat. I do know that U-Verse is supplying FTTP in certain areas but not sure if that's the case in your situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_in_the_United_States

Masaki

Masaki - no, we do not have fiber to our condo. In fact, one of our questions that remains is where is the closest converted box? I remember reading about some mighty unhappy people in town who ended up with one on their property this past year. They are large and unsightly. There is a box by the nearest major cross streets about a half mile from us. Unless there is a closer one we're not too sure of how good the service would be for us.

As of now, we have an appointment for a technician to come out on January 14th. They could have come much sooner but I wanted the delay because I'm so unsure. I may call to cancel him. I don't like the fact that most of the questions I asked on the phone were answered with "you don't need to worry about the that, that is our job, the technician will take care of that."

Kathy, I wouldn't cancel the tech but I would find out if there is an evaluation period or if you cancel the service if you don't like it. I have a hunch that you WILL like it, though.

There is no contract and there are no installation charges. So we will only be billed by AT&T for the actual number of days we have the service with them. We've been advised to keep our Comcast until we're sure we like the U-verse. But we expect to incur charges from Comcast to reconnect what the AT&T tech disconnects if we decide to discontinue the U-verse and reconnect the Comcast.

We're hoping that the tech can answer a lot of our questions before actually starting any work inside our home. From what I've learned, after they come to your door they'll go outside to find where the nearest equipment is located and can explain whether they need to add additional equipment outdoors on our unit or in our basement. We live in a duplex condo. The gas meters for our unit and our neighbor are located outside our unit. (Their gas line runs through the rafters of our basement.) The electric, telephone and cable are located outside our neighbor's unit and run through the rafters of their basement into our unit. If we don't like what we hear from the tech after he checks all this we could cancel at that time and incur no charges at all. If he expects that we can be connected without a lot of hassle then we'll give it a try.

Hmmm ... certainly wouldn't hurt to hear the tech out and see what they say. Like Karen said, you might like the service a lot.

One point that I'd like to point out though which is an issue with VoIP phone service is that if the power ever goes out, your phone will be dead as well which means that you won't be able to call 911.

Masaki

Yeah, we know that about VoIP phone service. We do have a pay as you go cell phone that we use for emergencies and on vacation etc. And the phone does have some kind of built in GPS that would tell 911 our location.

I've learned that installing U-verse does not change our land line service for our telephone. I've confirmed that with several sources. But I have cancelled our Jan. 14th installation. The main reason for this is that after asking around on a few new forums that I've joined I learned that, contrary to what AT&T told me over the phone, I can go into local AT&T store and speak directly with a U-verse specialist and see a demo. I cancelled the order I had placed with the phone service rep because I did not like being lied to. Next step is to go back to the store with my husband. I'd rather give the commission to local gal working her way through college.

I would agree with Masaki and make sure you are covered for 911, in our case we have Vonage for about a year, that was a disaster. For months when we lost power a couple of times we had no phone, also we have a alarm system in our house and the couple of times it triggered, we later found the alarm company was not being called because the alarm was dialing on a dead line.
We have Comcast highspeed internet/Phone/Cable with 2DVR boxes and and extra fax line, its a little pricey at $180.00 per month, but the service is fantastic, and Comcast now has Powerboost for a faster internet.

Frank

Kathy - looking forward to hearing what you thought of the demo!

Frank - our phone line in our house can be finicky sometime - occ. it'll just go dead for no good reason (luckily it only lasts for about 5 minutes or so). It's so intermittent, it's not worth calling a tech about since with my luck, it'll work completely fine when they're here. Anyways, our alarm is hooked up to our phone (obviously) and when the phone line goes dead, the alarm starts beeping to alert us about it - it's really annoying when it does that since we can't do anything to fix it. In 5 minutes or so, the line comes back alive, the alarm stops beeping, and peace is restored.

Masaki

The demo is, of course, fiber optic all the way and it looked fantastic. We won't know until the tech comes out what we'll actually receive here. We did schedule an appointment for the 22nd. They could have come sooner but that was the earliest our schedule worked.

Sounds great! Like you said, a lot will depend on what happens at your actual location. Suspect the features will be the same but it might take longer to download things (pay per view movies as well as computer downloads) than a completely fiber system.

Masaki

Our U-verse installation was done today. This being Michigan in January, we had the bother for the first hour or so of the technition coming in and out during our snow storm. But after 7 hours all three TV's and all three computers are working fine. We did not go with the HDTV additional cost of $10 per month. We can add that at any time and they can make the switch without even coming inside. From what I could tell this afternoon, the one instance where that will really make a difference is for HDTV sports. It was only when I put on the Big Ten Network that I saw the difference on our one set that currently is HDTV. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that our oldest TV (the small one in the bedroom) works fine with U-verse. I'm ready for a good excuse to replace it with a nice flat screen.

My husband has not taken the time yet to do the speed tests and such to see how our internet compares with what we had with Comcast but as far as my Internet surfing, it is working just as well as Comcast cable.

Congrats Kathy, I hope it meets your expectations! Did you get the phone service as well?

My own take on HDTV is if you have it you will enjoy all programs not just sports. Just watch National Geographic chanel once and you will never go back to normal TV

Yay, Kathy! Looking forward to hearing what your husband thinks.

Karen, our phone is still separate. Our next step is waiting until they offer a discount for bundling the billing for our regular at&t land line with U-verse. At that time we will upgrade to the package with caller ID, unlimited long distance etc.

Masaki, my husband is going a little nuts this morning trying to make the final changes to our E-mail in Microsoft Outlook.

Bill, I expect that we'll eventually make the switch to HDTV. For right now we're still in our learning curve.

The darn converter boxes put out a fair amount of light even when the TV's are off. My husband put a book over the one in our bedroom last night to stop me from complaining.

We've had the U-verse for 5 weeks now and are very satisfied. There were bugs to be worked out during the first week - mainly with our Email accounts - but my dear husband persisted and with help from technical support finally got everything working properly. I've gotten used to the green glow from the converter box in our bedroom.

The first billing arrived with no surprises. Comcast is taking their sweet time refunding what had been paid in advance to them. A check is promised to be in the mail by the end of March (2 months after canceling their service).

And Karen was correct - I love the DVR! So far we've only used it to record as many as 2 programs simultaneously. It can handle up to 4 at a time, but with only 1 of them being HDTV.

The strange thing is that our next-door neighbor was so impressed with our experience that he ordered U-verse. When his installer came out the following week and also got the reading that the TV signal would be weak he could not get permission from his supervisor to proceed with the installation. We’re lucky that our installer was more persistent and got permission to try our installation one step at a time because it worked!

Glad to hear, Kathy!

We have been with U-verse for almost 2 months. After some installation glitches (3 trips by techs to our house), everything has been smooth sailing. DVR is outstanding. On-demand programming is great. Bundled billing is efficient. All's well.

Luke, glad to hear that U-verse is working for you also. It was good hearing from you on this thread. Your review of your first PG trip was a big contributor to my catching the FP flu. :)

Some folks are just slow in making changes. We finally took advantage of a 1-month free offer to try HDTV with our U-verse service last Friday. I'm sure we'll keep it for the extra $10/month when the trial period is over. 2 of our 3 TV's are HD and the difference in picture quality is brilliant.