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Well I had AT&T U-verse installed on Labor Day. Appointment was 8-10am. He got there about 9am...ONE GUY. I'm thinking, "Great. This is gonna take all day."

He had already disconnected my ADSL and moved my pair to the VRAD before he came to the door. Signal at the box was a little weak so he moved me to another "card" at the VRAD...signal good now...low 50s.

I asked him what was on his order to make sure it was right. 3TVs, one DVR, Internet to 6Mbps...yes, the order was right. Then I showed him where the three TVs were and I showed him where I wanted the RG. He went out to get cabling and tools. After we talked a bit he didn't want to do a drop in the office where I wanted the RG. He wanted to bring the cables into a closet that is next to that room and run the cables through the wall. It's not exactly what I wanted but I reluctantly agreed. I guess he could have just left the RG in the closet except there is no power in there and I needed to cable my network to it anyway. All the cabling would be hidden anyway. Then we started talking about the cabling. He automatically assumed that he would be reuseing my coax at the drops. When I told him that it was satellite and still active for a few more months (I told him a little "I'm under contract" lie) he finally realized that he was gonna have to do three new drops. I apoligized and said that is what I want but I would help him do it. He agreed. I also told him that I had wall plates already that he could use but he said he already had some. He drilled a hole into the three walls for his wall plates. I decided that he would probably go faster if he was using his own gear so I didn't bitch about the extra wall plates he installed. He did a professional job installing them and they are actual RJ-45 jacks, not network wire hanging out of the wall.

He rolled out three lengths of Cat5e (yes, Cat5e Indoor/Outdoor cabling, checked it myself) into my living room for a rough distance measurement and numbered them. He then added a fourth cable directly from the wire box and fed it into the attic from the aforementioned closet. He went into the attic and I fed the cables to him. He took his wall drop metal chain and gave me a rare-earth magnet. He tied the chain to the cable and dropped it into the wall space and I used the magnet to draw the chain to the holes he created. Three drops done relatively quickly. Then he pulled the fourth cable to the end of the house and drilled a hole to the outside right next to where the phone cables go into the house and pushed 20 feet of cable to the outside box. Once that was done he added a whole house DSL filter to my outside box, cleaned up the older wiring a bit and hooked up the new cable to the box. He attached that wire to the house and used silicone sealer to keep the weather out. He did a good job on the outside.

We go back to the closet and he discovers that he pulled the wires to the wrong jacks and he has one that is way longer than it needs to be and one that is too short. Bummer. He tapes the box of wire to the short feed and goes back to the attic. He pulls the wire into the attic and I went to the master bedroom (the short wire went there) and start pulling cable through the wall. Eventually I pull the entire length of old wire through and get to the taped-up joint of old wire to new wire. Now it's long enough. He let me keep the length we had just pulled out of the attic...about 75 feet of it at $.30 per foot...cool.

Now he cuts the wires to length at the closet, tapes them all together and shoves them through the base of the wall into the office. He sits down with the 4 wires and strips them looking for the one that goes to the box. He finds it on the third try. Tells me the signal is in the high 40s so there's not much of a signal drop from the box to the room. I'm thinking good...more signal is always good. I get my UPS and the RG as he strips the last cable and puts an RJ-45 end on the VDSL line. Then we plug in the RG and after about 45 seconds it syncs and starts taking its downloads. While that is going on he puts RJ-45 ends on the remaining cables. I tell him I can't help there and to call me if he needs anything. After he finished that he strips and connects the three wall jacks and screws them in...again, very clean and professional. He plugs in the cables he made and I run a temp cable from my firewall to the RG to get the internet working.

When I tried to go to the setup site the RG complained that there was a firewall behind a firewall but I said to ignore it. After that, nothing worked. I think that was my fault because I had forgotten that the firewall was configured to use OpenDNS and you can't do a registration that way. To expedite the setup I bypassed my firewall and directly connected my switch to the RG. After rebooting my laptop and getting a new IP from the RG I go back to the registration page. It works now. I register with my existing email address and blah blah blah. After I register the installer makes some other minor changes to the RG configuration and he cycles the RG. After that the internet was working perfectly. I'm going to try to add my firewall back this weekend. I know this is a firewall behind a firewall configuration but I do that at work and I know networking so I can do it. The firewall gives me detailed logs and shows me my bandwidth in real time. It also tells me how much bandwidth I use per day, week and month. Now that Comcast wants to cap bandwidth use I want to keep track of how much I use. If it doesn't work I'll switch back...no biggie.

He went to install the box in the bedroom. I went to unhook my VIP622 Dish receiver so that I can hook up the U-verse to the HDMI and S/PDIF connections. While I'm doing that he hooks up the box in the master bedroom. I hook up the DVR in the living room. We test all the boxes and they all work. They were a little bitchy after first being hooked up but after some time they started behaving. They were probably taking downloads also. The installer cleaned up his mess and packs his equipment. He almost left behind his laptop and a power screwdriver. The entire install took about 4 hours so he left about 1pm.

So far I'm pretty happy with the TV service and VERY happy with the internet service. I know that the Dish Network service and the U-verse service aren't identical as well as the equipment/functionality. I was prepared for that. However I have noticed some differences and thought I would call upon the brain truse of satelliteguys.us for help.

Now, to the questions.
1) The DishNetwork receivers can have a timer that is Mon-Fri or a weekly timer (every Friday from 6 to 9am). I don't see those options on the Motorola boxes. Am I missing it? The boxes really don't have instructions on how to use them.
2) The wife and I fall asleep to the TV running in the bedroom. The DishNetwork receivers have an inactivity timeout but it's defeatable. The Motorola boxes also shut themselves off but I can't find a way to defeat it. Is there a way?
3) I've created a Favorites list of channels we watch most but the "Guide" button shows you everything. To view the list I created you must push "Menu"-> Down Arrow to Favorites-> Go to get the list. Also the Guide button starts you at the channel you're on but the Favorites list doesn't, even if the channel you're watching is in the list. Is there a way to default to the Favorites list?
4) I've noticed an occational audio glitch on the DVR that's connected to my stereo via S/PDIF. I haven't noticed it on the other TVs that are connected via composite cables. Is this a known issue with the S/PDIF connection or is it a problem with the Motorola1216 DVR itself?

I can't think of anything else right now. It's 2:13 am and I'm exausted.

UPDATE: Last night my bedroom box tuned to an URGE channel didn't shut itself off. Maybe the night before it took a firmware update or something...more to come.