Adios TWC

[bschmidt25]

After checking the U-Verse site every few weeks for almost the past year to see if it's available for me, and it not, finally today it is.  You have no ideal how happy I am to finally have another option to TWC!  If I could get D* I would have signed up years ago, but I face the wrong direction (North) in a multi-floor condo complex.  I ended up signing up for U-Verse after reading the relatively positive reviews by other users on here.  Besides having twice as many HD channels, I'm going to be getting an additional receiver and internet service for $15 less per month than the special I have through TWC that's ending this month (that I've had to keep begging for).  I've gotten really fed up with their lack of HD channels and obvious lack of urgency to add more, poor service and long wait times when I call them, and more recently my RR service going down 4-5 nights a week.  So we'll see how it goes with AT&T.  I'm getting the first month free and a $100 rebate with no contract.  I figure I have nothing to lose.  They have a VRAD right outside my building, so I'm hoping the HD quality will still be pretty good.  I was able to schedule an installation for tomorrow (Sunday).  I'll be sure to post my experiences soon.  Right now, I'm excited to finally be able to leave TWC behind.  :wave:

[syrett4]

After checking the U-Verse site every few weeks for almost the past year to see if it's available for me, and it not, finally today it is.  You have no ideal how happy I am to finally have another option to TWC!  If I could get D* I would have signed up years ago, but I face the wrong direction (North) in a multi-floor condo complex.  I ended up signing up for U-Verse after reading the relatively positive reviews by other users on here.  Besides having twice as many HD channels, I'm going to be getting an additional receiver and internet service for $15 less per month than the special I have through TWC that's ending this month (that I've had to keep begging for).  I've gotten really fed up with their lack of HD channels and obvious lack of urgency to add more, poor service and long wait times when I call them, and more recently my RR service going down 4-5 nights a week.  So we'll see how it goes with AT&T.  I'm getting the first month free and a $100 rebate with no contract.  I figure I have nothing to lose.  They have a VRAD right outside my building, so I'm hoping the HD quality will still be pretty good.  I was able to schedule an installation for tomorrow (Sunday).  I'll be sure to post my experiences soon.  Right now, I'm excited to finally be able to leave TWC behind.  :wave:

This is such a great feeling.  I'm so glad their empty promises don't frustrate me anymore.

[Danimal]

I am counting the days - Does anyone know if U-Verse is coming to Burlington anytime soon??

[RLJSlick]

Same here, I can't wait until it comes out to Franksville.  TWC must be losing a lot of subscribers by now.

[DooMer_MP3]

After checking the U-Verse site every few weeks for almost the past year to see if it's available for me, and it not, finally today it is.  You have no ideal how happy I am to finally have another option to TWC!  If I could get D* I would have signed up years ago, but I face the wrong direction (North) in a multi-floor condo complex.  I ended up signing up for U-Verse after reading the relatively positive reviews by other users on here.  Besides having twice as many HD channels, I'm going to be getting an additional receiver and internet service for $15 less per month than the special I have through TWC that's ending this month (that I've had to keep begging for).  I've gotten really fed up with their lack of HD channels and obvious lack of urgency to add more, poor service and long wait times when I call them, and more recently my RR service going down 4-5 nights a week.  So we'll see how it goes with AT&T.  I'm getting the first month free and a $100 rebate with no contract.  I figure I have nothing to lose.  They have a VRAD right outside my building, so I'm hoping the HD quality will still be pretty good.  I was able to schedule an installation for tomorrow (Sunday).  I'll be sure to post my experiences soon.  Right now, I'm excited to finally be able to leave TWC behind.  :wave:

Damn, by the sounds of your post, your living situation sounded downtown/eastside-ish. I was really hoping my weekly address check would've yielded the same results. "We're Sorry" as usual

EDIT - Ah, nevermind. Glendale. Still, their continued lack of movement in the 53202 zipcode (the densest zipcode in the state) is disappointing.

[bschmidt25]

Damn, by the sounds of your post, your living situation sounded downtown/eastside-ish. I was really hoping my weekly address check would've yielded the same results. "We're Sorry" as usual

EDIT - Ah, nevermind. Glendale. Still, their continued lack of movement in the 53202 zipcode (the densest zipcode in the state) is disappointing.

They installed a VRAD right outside my building almost a year ago, so I was checking it pretty frequently and wondering if I'd ever get it.  Someone from AT&T contacted me last summer and told me that it was because of the internal wiring in the building that it was taking so long.  As far as I know, nothing has changed since then, so I'm not sure what happened that it finally became available, but I'm definitely not complaining!

They came out yesterday (on time might I add).  The entire installation took about 2 hours.  They used my phone cable and ran CAT5 for everything.  First impressions are very good.  I was pretty worried about the HD quality and/or lag time with the receivers, but I think the picture looks as good, if not better than TWC and the channels change faster than the 9300HDC I gave back.  I really like the guide on U-Verse.  When you scroll through the channels it shows a live picture of what's on that channel, and overall it's a really slick interface.  The VOD comes up MUCH faster than TWC - pretty much instantaneous, and the remote DVR management (through the web) is a very useful feature.  I ended up getting the U400 package (everything) free for a month.  With all the HD channels, and a bunch of SD channels I never had before, it's pretty overwhelming!  The only downside I have found so far is that the HDMI was a little flaky for me.  If I turned off the box I couldn't get a picture unless I reset the box, so I switched over to component for now.  I hear this is a common issue with the box, so I'm hoping they'll address that issue soon.  Another very minor complaint is that the box doesn't have a clock on it and I was pretty used to it.  On the upside, it's very compact so I can get another component into my cabinet now.

When I took the TWC equipment back they (of course) asked me why I was cancelling.  After telling them I switched to AT&T, the rep immediately changed the subject and started talking about the weather (no joke).  I think they are going to be hurting real bad once AT&T starts lighting up more neighborhoods.  I have zero sympathy for them though!

So two thumbs up from me so far.  Hopefully you guys will be next!

[tencom]

A week ago, I had the oppurtunity to view UVERSE HD service, for the first time for several hours and my impressions weren't  very favorable to there technolgy.  I noticed several  major flaws in picture  quality. One fault that was very  noticable was that human faces, often times looked mumafied especially  when viewed from up close and on grass scenes.  The grass appeared as blobs with  levels shifting causing a tearing  patchy  artifical effect that was weird. and when scenes changed it took a second or two for the picture to build and on fast motion the data rate could not keep up with the action. I have  never seen HD video that was as bad as UVERSE displayed. I could only surmise that UVERSE excessivly  digitally compresses their video  to accomadate low-bandwidth paired cable especially in the spacial-mode and using large quantizing levels, to lower the data rate. My standards would never allow me to consider the UVERSE option.

[bschmidt25]

I have noticed some brief macro blocking once or twice, but I had that with TWC too.  I don't notice the artifacts that you do though.  I was watching the Brewers on FSN and WGN HD today and didn't see any degradation of quality from what I'm used to with TWC.  Yesterday I had TWC up and running right up until the tech connected the AT&T box and again, I noticed very little difference.  The picture is a little different, but not quality wise.  It seemed to be a bit darker out of the box, but bumping up the picture just a touch resolved that.  Maybe it depends on how far away you are from the VRAD, because I am very close (it's about 50 feet away from my building).  I'm pretty sure the phone cable in my building is crappy though.  It was built in the '70s and I'm sure nothing has been done since then.  

Nonetheless, even never having seen U-Verse in person before, I didn't think I had anything to lose by giving it a shot.  You're not locked into a contract, so if I'm not satisfied I could still go back to TWC.  Pretty sure that's not going to happen though.

[syrett4]

I am counting the days - Does anyone know if U-Verse is coming to Burlington anytime soon??

Not that I could ever find out this fall.  I kind of followed how its been progressing and decided I had to make a move now and switched to DTV in Nov.

[Danno321]

They installed a VRAD right outside my building almost a year ago, so I was checking it pretty frequently and wondering if I'd ever get it.  Someone from AT&T contacted me last summer and told me that it was because of the internal wiring in the building that it was taking so long.  As far as I know, nothing has changed since then, so I'm not sure what happened that it finally became available, but I'm definitely not complaining!

They came out yesterday (on time might I add).  The entire installation took about 2 hours.  They used my phone cable and ran CAT5 for everything.  First impressions are very good.  I was pretty worried about the HD quality and/or lag time with the receivers, but I think the picture looks as good, if not better than TWC and the channels change faster than the 9300HDC I gave back.  I really like the guide on U-Verse.  When you scroll through the channels it shows a live picture of what's on that channel, and overall it's a really slick interface.  The VOD comes up MUCH faster than TWC - pretty much instantaneous, and the remote DVR management (through the web) is a very useful feature.  I ended up getting the U400 package (everything) free for a month.  With all the HD channels, and a bunch of SD channels I never had before, it's pretty overwhelming!  The only downside I have found so far is that the HDMI was a little flaky for me.  If I turned off the box I couldn't get a picture unless I reset the box, so I switched over to component for now.  I hear this is a common issue with the box, so I'm hoping they'll address that issue soon.  Another very minor complaint is that the box doesn't have a clock on it and I was pretty used to it.  On the upside, it's very compact so I can get another component into my cabinet now.

When I took the TWC equipment back they (of course) asked me why I was cancelling.  After telling them I switched to AT&T, the rep immediately changed the subject and started talking about the weather (no joke).  I think they are going to be hurting real bad once AT&T starts lighting up more neighborhoods.  I have zero sympathy for them though!

So two thumbs up from me so far.  Hopefully you guys will be next!

If AT&T is stringing CAT5 in the home for free, it might as well string FIBER to the home or god forbid COAX.   I just don't see how they will push 4 HD streams down little old copper lines.

[mhz40]

If AT&T is stringing CAT5 in the home for free, it might as well string FIBER to the home or god forbid COAX.   I just don't see how they will push 4 HD streams down little old copper lines.

You can obtain very nice looking HD with just 8 Mb/s using mpeg 4.  Tacking on 4 streams of AC3 audio, that adds up to less than 34 Mb/s.  Tack on another 10 Mb/s for data and you are still under 45 Mb/s.  That's a piece of cake for the CAT5 wiring in the home.  Don't for get that most links in the home won't even need to support 1/4 of that bit rate, as the data will be fairly divided among the set tops and PC.

[RLJSlick]

This is the responds I got from TWC about updated HD schedule:
Thank you for writing Time Warner.

We appreciate your loyality to us. I have been here since it was Racine Telcable and like yourself, have seen many changes.

I can assure you we are working on adding more HD channels. We certainly want to provide our customers with the best service available and the best choices.

I was not able to review your account but I am sure you have compared the HD channels we offer at no charge. Once you have the equipment installed you receive our service 24 hours a day with many options the other providers do not.

At this time we do not have a time frame on when we will be adding more HD channels but I can assure you it will be this year.

Please let us know if you have any other questions. We appreciate your business and look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable.

Sincerely,

Penny
Consumer Contact Department
Time Warner

[Danimal]

This is the responds I got from TWC about updated HD schedule:
Thank you for writing Time Warner.

We appreciate your loyality to us. I have been here since it was Racine Telcable and like yourself, have seen many changes.

I can assure you we are working on adding more HD channels. We certainly want to provide our customers with the best service available and the best choices.

I was not able to review your account but I am sure you have compared the HD channels we offer at no charge. Once you have the equipment installed you receive our service 24 hours a day with many options the other providers do not.

At this time we do not have a time frame on when we will be adding more HD channels but I can assure you it will be this year.

Please let us know if you have any other questions. We appreciate your business and look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable.

Sincerely,

Penny
Consumer Contact Department
Time Warner

WTF??? What kind of "non-response" is that response??? :bang:

[Danno321]

You can obtain very nice looking HD with just 8 Mb/s using mpeg 4.  Tacking on 4 streams of AC3 audio, that adds up to less than 34 Mb/s.  Tack on another 10 Mb/s for data and you are still under 45 Mb/s.  That's a piece of cake for the CAT5 wiring in the home.  Don't for get that most links in the home won't even need to support 1/4 of that bit rate, as the data will be fairly divided among the set tops and PC.

I think you misunderstood me.  I know CAT5 in the home is plenty to stream full HD especially using a $50 6 port 100mbs/port switch.  My question was about from the VRAD to your home, and my understanding is that this connection is the plain old copper telephone line from the early 1900's.

[bschmidt25]

I think you misunderstood me.  I know CAT5 in the home is plenty to stream full HD especially using a $50 6 port 100mbs/port switch.  My question was about from the VRAD to your home, and my understanding is that this connection is the plain old copper telephone line from the early 1900's.

It is.  That's the concern I had too.  I wish AT&T wouldn't have scaled back their fiber plans as much as they did.  It seems pretty short sighted to me, but I guess they can always go back and add it later.  I think the issue they're going to run into isn't going to be bandwidth for HDTV, but rather bandwidth for the data service they're providing with U-Verse.  The codecs will keep getting better, but there's not much they're going to be able to do with the internet service long term as it is right now once people start demanding 10Mb+ pipes.