ATT Uverse vs Cox Cable

[GG]

My wife is wanting to switch.   It will save us about $60 per month.   

She is pretty pissed that Cox raised out rates $30 per month recently and did not bother to notify us, just slipped in the bill.

Has anyone been using ATT Uverse?   Do you like it? 

What have your internet speeds been like? 

[nathanm]

My wife is wanting to switch.   It will save us about $60 per month.   

She is pretty pissed that Cox raised out rates $30 per month recently and did not bother to notify us, just slipped in the bill.

Has anyone been using ATT Uverse?   Do you like it? 

What have your internet speeds been like? 

The DVR is similar to Cox's DVR. The PQ is similar. You can record up to 4 SD shows at once using the Uverse DVR. Uverse has more channels.

Oh, I forgot to mention the Internet speeds. I had the 10Mbps service and usually saw about 9Mbps. Pretty standard for DSL.

If I weren't so wedded to TiVo, I probably would have kept it, although it's not really any cheaper than Cox. I liked the extra channels, but I hated the DVR. Not as much as I hate Cox's DVR, though.

[Hoss]

My wife is wanting to switch.   It will save us about $60 per month.   

She is pretty pissed that Cox raised out rates $30 per month recently and did not bother to notify us, just slipped in the bill.

Has anyone been using ATT Uverse?   Do you like it? 

What have your internet speeds been like? 

Get ready then, because Uverse, from what I understand from a friend I have at their call center, is going up in kind later this quarter.  It's one or the other.

But I'm sure I'll get the standard treatment from Tim H in 3...2...1

[Conan71]

I was kind of throttled when I got the gratuitous and unannounced rate hike myself.

I had to replace my cell phone today so while I was at the AT&T store at 14th & Lewis I thought I'd see if they have Uverse in my new 'hood.  They do, but without the cash-back, pricing is pretty much the same as Cox for like services, unless he misunderstood what I want in my bundle.  I'm also still not 100% clear what channel line up I'd get.  I like my Cox line up and I've not been using their DVR service.  That's likely something I would take advantage of with Uverse.

I'm really a pretty low-tech person, and I'm familiar with Cox since I've used them through all the permutations dating back to the old Tulsa Cable Television days so changing to something different isn't something I do easily.

[RipTout]

Know Nothing knows sumptin.

Went over this just yesterday with an audiophile/techead who likes his broader bandwidth capabilities and I came to the same conclusion.

There is a small box behind each tv?

Coax to the box and splitter for HD from there?

Not much rewiring necessary.

[BKDotCom]

could someone clarify...
With ATT, does each TV analog-tuner require a set-top tuner?  How about TV's with digital tuners?
I've got COX..  looks, like at best I'd save about $10, but I'd like to try and bargin COX down...

[Hoss]

could someone clarify...
With ATT, does each TV analog-tuner require a set-top tuner?  How about TV's with digital tuners?
I've got COX..  looks, like at best I'd save about $10, but I'd like to try and bargin COX down...

Just tell Cox you're thinking about switching to DirecTV or UVerse.  They'll discount you if you've been a long time customer.

[patric]

Much more on this topic:

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=11730.0

[nathanm]

could someone clarify...
With ATT, does each TV analog-tuner require a set-top tuner?  How about TV's with digital tuners?
I've got COX..  looks, like at best I'd save about $10, but I'd like to try and bargin COX down...

All TVs require a box with Uverse. With Cox a TV with a QAM tuner can get CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, and OETA in HD and in SD digital without a box. (If you can find them) Sometimes a few other channels can be found unencrypted, also, but they come and go.

Other than the DVR, I found the HD fee annoying, but what annoyed me even more was that you have to pay yet another $5 a month to get all of the non-premium HD channels. They have a few that they refuse to throw into the base HD package. (Universal HD, MGM HD, and one other I forget now)

Oh, and just FWIW, the menu speed on the DVR is slightly better than on the Cox box, but it's still nothing anybody should be proud of. The only technically interesting thing about it is the near instant channel changes. It still misses recordings (although fewer than the Cox box) and still has a hard time getting only first run episodes.

The most annoying thing about the total home DVR is that you can't program it from other boxes, so if you see something you want to record while watching TV in the bedroom, you have to either hoof it out to the living room right then or risk forgetting. And why they couldn't put 256MB of RAM in the non-DVR boxes and give them trick play features, I'll never figure out.

[GG]

Thanks for the info everyone.  We are going to give it a whirl.  I'll let you know what we think. 

[tulsa1603]

I'm a technophobe, but was going to sign up for U-verse with my upcoming move to a remodeled house since they keep bullying me lol.  So, my question is, do I need any phone jacks or coax only?  There are a few phone jacks in the house, but they aren't exactly where I'd want them.  But I don't really care about having a landline, so I wasn't going to add any or move any.  I know with my current dishnetwork, I had to have phone/coax at the box.  So confused about how to wire this thing up.  Can someone tell me if I have coax jacks where I want my TVs, is that all that matters?  I had the electrician put new coax jacks at each TV location - so each is new and will be run back to a central box.  Also, I assume my desktop computer will need some sort of coax jack?  Or what?  I need a "_______________ for Dummies" to explain this to me.  I will ultimately have 3 or 4 TVs, a desktop computer and a laptop.  Can the desktop and laptop both be wireless?

[nathanm]

I'm a technophobe, but was going to sign up for U-verse with my upcoming move to a remodeled house since they keep bullying me lol.  So, my question is, do I need any phone jacks or coax only?  There are a few phone jacks in the house, but they aren't exactly where I'd want them.  But I don't really care about having a landline, so I wasn't going to add any or move any.  I know with my current dishnetwork, I had to have phone/coax at the box.  So confused about how to wire this thing up.  Can someone tell me if I have coax jacks where I want my TVs, is that all that matters?  I had the electrician put new coax jacks at each TV location - so each is new and will be run back to a central box.  Also, I assume my desktop computer will need some sort of coax jack?  Or what?  I need a "_______________ for Dummies" to explain this to me.  I will ultimately have 3 or 4 TVs, a desktop computer and a laptop.  Can the desktop and laptop both be wireless?

You only need a phone line for the gateway, everything else can run over coax or phone, it doesn't matter. They'll run a new line for free (or included in your setup fee) if you want the gateway somewhere there isn't a phone jack, as long as you're getting TV and Internet both.

Your desktop can use wireless if you have a wireless card. Hopefully there's at least a coax where you're putting the computer. Then the gateway can go there and you can use regular Ethernet for it and the gateway can backfeed all the TV boxes over coax from there.

[TUalum0982]

I'm a technophobe, but was going to sign up for U-verse with my upcoming move to a remodeled house since they keep bullying me lol.  So, my question is, do I need any phone jacks or coax only?  There are a few phone jacks in the house, but they aren't exactly where I'd want them.  But I don't really care about having a landline, so I wasn't going to add any or move any.  I know with my current dish network, I had to have phone/coax at the box.  So confused about how to wire this thing up.  Can someone tell me if I have coax jacks where I want my TVs, is that all that matters?  I had the electrician put new coax jacks at each TV location - so each is new and will be run back to a central box.  Also, I assume my desktop computer will need some sort of coax jack?  Or what?  I need a "_______________ for Dummies" to explain this to me.  I will ultimately have 3 or 4 TVs, a desktop computer and a laptop.  Can the desktop and laptop both be wireless?

We don't have a land line in our house.  I had cat5 jacks all throughout the house.  They hooked the gateway up via Cat 5 that was in the living room.  They hooked up both the dvr and other set top box with ethernet and ran HDMI to both TV's.  They didn't use coax at all on my setup.  I kept them for 30 days, but when it boiled down to it, I decided to keep my directv.  You can have Cat 5 drops ran pretty reasonably back to a central location with a local electrician if you don't have any within proximity.


Both systems had their pros and cons, but the cons outweighed the pros on Uverse for my fiancee and I.  Not to say thats how it will be with you and your family, but it wasn't for us.  The total home dvr was nice, but other features that Directv had were lacking on Uverse.  If you want more details, PM me. 

[Gaspar]

Our fun with Cox and Direct TV has finally run it's course.  For the last 5 years we have shopped services every Spring.  We typically call Cox and Direct TV and tell them that we are shopping, and they reward us with a year of free something.  For the last couple of years we have been given free HBO and Cinemax from Direct TV, and the medium bandwidth internet for the price of the standard bandwidth from COX.

uVerse has just informed us that they are available in our neighborhood and made us a deal that beats our "special" discounts from both companies with a lock on the price for two years.

This is an old thread, so I'd like to get everyone's opinion of uVerse today.  Are there any problems that we should be aware of before making the switch?

[rebound]

We switched from DirectTV to Uverse a few months ago and are very satisfied.  I can't say that it's "better", but we like the combined billing of phone/Internet/TV, and it's cheaper than having disparate services.  It seems like the picture quality is better also, but that could just be perception because I like to save money.