Thread: My Uverse Review Part 1: Installation

I had the opportunity to have Uverse installed yesterday prior to us moving into our home next week. The Uverse guy showed up 45 min late. I had a scheduled install between Noon and Two. He didn't show up until 245. I did get a call from Uverse dispatch letting me know that he would be late, but no time frame on how much longer it would have been. When he did arrive, I took him through the house, which wasn't much as the previous owners didn't have any type of cable service at all and there was no existing wiring. I did request when he wall fished the cable from the crawl, and to use the biggest paddle bit he had, as I have some prewireing to do myself. The moment I mentioned Wall fish, he said that he was going to charge me 80 bucks per wall fish. (the dude was trying to get out of the job) I then said he could take his stuff and leave as customer service said free installation including wall fishing as I had no prewiring at all. He then went to his truck and called his manager, and then came back to the house and said that it was ok for him to do the wall fishing. (not a big deal to me, I didn't want the tech drilling through brand new carpet I just had layed.)

He began working on the NID looking for the pair from the VRAD to the house. At first he wasn't able to get a sync, and put a trouble ticket in. It ended up being that the pair was reversed and he was able to achieve sync about an hour later. In the mean time Three other techs showed up at the residence as it was about 430pm and they were coming off of their jobs. I was glad to see this kind of tag team action going on. By this time the Original tech had began wiring and had three of the holes drilled and ready to be fished with lines ran.

We pulled the rg6 through my daughters room and the living room (I was helping) and got that all set. The other techs were working on the nid and getting that all straight. We finally got to my room and cut the whole for the final line and it turned out that the tech cut the hole one stud left from where the wire was and we were going to have to re drill. He sent one of the other techs down to re drill the wire, when he drilled into the wrong spot and missed the wall by two inches. Instead the drill went up through the living room's trim (damage claim)

IT was about 6pm by the time this happened. They re drilled the hole appropriately this time in the right spot, and we finished that wall fish. When the tech was asked why he wasn't using a flex bit to do the wall fishes wich would have prevented the damage claim and made the wall fishes go alot quicker, He simpley said that att would not give them flex bits or the tools needed to do it. None of the techs on site had a flex bit. There were other tools that they could have used to help make the job easyer, but they didnt have.

So now that were all fished and the face plates were on, they brought the wire from the crawl, and straight up in the garage like I requested, but left no service loops. Also, the tech's left the residential gateway hanging in the garage instead of mounting it to the wall. It wasn't until I requested that it be mounted properly that they did it. (it was 7pm by this time and they were trying to jet as fast as they could. So he fixed the gateway, showed me how to use the system and rolled out of there by 730. The tech said that I was one of the coolest customers that he has had and I knew my stuff. He also said the last customer that he had flipped out when something similar to the wall fish go wrong. Being an installer myself, I was kool about it as I know stuff like this is bound to happen. I just want it fixed. Im about 1200 feet from the vrad which I assume was good.


Also, the installer was cool enough to leave me a brand new box of rg6, I think he forgot it, but I can put that to good use as I have to wire for Directv, Free to air (cband) and OTA. Wich is good for me as I just have to get a box of Cat5e and I can begin wiring.

First Impressions on the service, PQ is amazing good, but the real test will come when I hook my 1080P 65 inch tv to it as we used my daughters 32 inch hdtv to test the locations. The vod service is better than dish networks, enough said! It compares with comcast and Directv's but could be improved. I am dissapointed that none of the HD channels are mapped to there perspective local channel numbers or are not taken preference over SD channels. I would have liked to see 2, 2-1, 5, 5-1 ect. I quickly realized that QVCHD is a joke, G4 HD and BETHD is an even bigger joke. The HD lineup compares with directv's and smokes comcast's and dish's. I was excited to see Comcast Sports Net Chicago in HD full time allong with the Alternate HD channel up wich is sorly lacking on Dish Network. (this is one big reason why dish is losing market share to directv and uverse.

The service itself is not bad, once you get past the limitations. I could see myself subbing to Uverse over Directv if the HD stream limitations were lifted. I will post a more indeph review in a few weeks after I have been able to really test out uverse but so far so good. I will post pictures in a bit

One thing I was surprsed to hear was that the techs said the cable lines do not have to be grounded, because the NID is. Is this right?

Originally Posted by goaliebob99

One thing I was surprsed to hear was that the techs said the cable lines do not have to be grounded, because the NID is. Is this right?

That would kind of make sense, since the NID is the point of entry from the outside.

I think the RG6 would be no different if you ran a jumper from 1 room to another room,which does not need to be grounded.

Every phone system that I've ever seen has been grounded with a pencil ground rod so I wouldn't be surprised if they were right.

I never liked flex bits for wall fishing unless I was trying to reach a tight spot and found them to be unwieldy when trying to drill. Glow rods worked really well for wall fishing and came in handy on a extra tall walls.

Looking forward to hearing about the pq on the big screen.

Quick question Goalie,
I understand there would be a reason for a drip loop out side, but your set up is inside, is there really a need for it, other than to look neat and allow extra slack for later ?

As for the ground , normal procedure is to ground to wherever the Edison is grounded, which is normally a simple ground rod.

Jimbo

Yeah well glad they got things done for you.

Pretty cool... interested to see the rest of the review.

Also interesting to see the different trends from region to region. No one I know in the south are laying carpet anymore, just wood and tile. Or on new construction they stain and etch the slab. About to rip the last two rooms of carpet out of my house. I hate carpet, area rugs are easy to clean with the pressure washer

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Quick question Goalie,
I understand there would be a reason for a drip loop out side, but your set up is inside, is there really a need for it, other than to look neat and allow extra slack for later ?

As for the ground , normal procedure is to ground to wherever the Edison is grounded, which is normally a simple ground rod.

Jimbo

Yes, it allows for the signal flow in the line to route better as a direct 90 degree bend could deterate the signal than a gradual bend through the wall. It also allows for some extra slack in the line if the connection ever needs to be changed.

Thanks for the info!