What does a U-Verse utility box look like?

[RonH]

I noticed a lot of digging and AT&T trucks for the past couple weeks in my subdivision.  In the end, there is a light brown colored box about 5' tall, and maybe 3' wide by 2' deep.  Is this the infrasturcture going in for U-Verse?  The U-verse website still says not available for my area.

How long does it usually take from the time the cables go in to it being available?

[Gregg Lengling]

I noticed a lot of digging and AT&T trucks for the past couple weeks in my subdivision.  In the end, there is a light brown colored box about 5' tall, and maybe 3' wide by 2' deep.  Is this the infrasturcture going in for U-Verse?  The U-verse website still says not available for my area.

How long does it usually take from the time the cables go in to it being available?

Sounds about right, you should notice some vents and it will have a Electric Power meter on it as it is powered (also has battery backup).  They can be either the 46" tall box or the 60" tall box.  The 46" one has only room for 1 DSLAM rack whereas the 60" they can cram 2 DSLAMS in and thus serve more customers.  These are feed with fiber and are normally located next to or very close to the conventional thin boxes with all the cross connections in them.  It can be days to months depending on the provisioning and whether the fiber is already there.
There are pictures of DSLAMS (also called VRADs) over on Uverseusers.com.

See attached picture.

[bschmidt25]

Yup - that's what it the one in front of my place looks like too.  It was installed about 3-4 months ago.  I live on Good Hope Rd. and I saw them installing another box down the road in River Hills.  I also saw an AT&T U-Verse marked service van working on the one by me earlier this week.  Hopefully us North Shore residents are getting closer to launch...

[carpdiem]

There's several flavor's of VRAD cabinet's we're placing depending on location, living units, etc.  The smallest like Greg said are only large enough to house one 7330 shelf able to serve 192 living units).  Most of the one's we're placing are a 2 shelf (384 living units) version and are larger.  For area's which have a large number of living units (really big cross connect box near or at capacity) we place a cabinet that can house 4X7330 vrad shelves which can provide service to 768 living units.  Also, you may notice a white stick with an orange top nearby.  That's a good indication it's for uverse.  

As far as deployment, your best bet is the website.  Typically, it's 60-90 days once it's construction complete.  Placed, spliced, power, etc.  Then our records group has to load the counts into a system that flows into the order system/website and lastly marketing has to release it for sale.  Usually 60 days, but sometimes 90.

Hope this helps.  IM if you have more specific questions...

[tywest]

I think there is one of these boxes about 6 blocks from my house( in the city). It looks like it needs to be hooked up to electric yet. The town of Wilson is supposed to have service soon, i however live in the city of Sheboygan. I also noticed that there were some at&t trucks working for a few days on my street a couple of  weeks ago. Do you think this is a sign service may be coming?

[gparris]

Nice to see Sheboygan vs. our backward county of Kenosha getting some U-Verse action....good luck and keep watching!:D

[tywest]

I just learned that at&t will be working in the sheboygan area for the next 2 1/2 years. I can only assume this means good things for the world of expanding dsl and U-Verse. :rock: