Dish vs. U-Verse (AT&T Fiber)

ncted

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Jul 4, 2004
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OK, I've had some other threads going about this, but things are coming down to Dish or U-Verse (the Fiber service, not VDSL2) at the house I am moving to. I am specifically looking for opinions from people who have had or experienced U-Verse TV service and Dish and can compare the two. My gut tells me Dish is the way to go, but that is probably due to never having used U-Verse as much as anything. DirecTV, which I have now at my current house, is not an option due to LOS issues, BTW. Hopefully some people here can help me out in making this decision.

Thanks,
Ted
 
well you sill need uverse for internet anyway, so a package deal may be cheaper

I can make it cost about the same during the promotional period, but after the 2 years are up, U-Verse actually costs more per month, even with bundling. For the purposes of this discussion, I wanted to focus on the user experience, reliability, functionality, etc. since that the information I am missing.
 
Do you need more than one feed at a time? Watching and recording. Folks have posted here about PQ (& other?) problems when trying to get three, or even two, simultaneous HD feeds. This is second hand, I have no first hand experience with U-Verse.

But they certainly are on the way out.
 
U-Verse TV service is being phased out and the technology of the receivers is old and will not be updated.

Actually, that is not entirely accurate. The U-Verse brand is being retired. AT&T announced recently that they would be redoing the platform, along with DirecTV, and DirecTV NOW to create a single platform which isn't dependent on the delivery method. They are deploying Arris PACE 8110 6-tuner DVRs in Fiber markets, which is pretty recent technology from what I can tell. The Microsoft/Ericsson software IS old though, which is why they are creating something new. AT&T would prefer customers use DirecTV, but they are not going to kick millions of subscribers off the service any time soon.
 
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Do you need more than one feed at a time? Watching and recording. Folks have posted here about PQ (& other?) problems when trying to get three, or even two, simultaneous HD feeds. This is second hand, I have no first hand experience with U-Verse.

But they certainly are on the way out.

Given the Fiber connection can handle 1Gbps of IP traffic, it shouldn't be any problem getting the 6 HD streams that are supposed to be available to the customer.
 
Actually, that is not entirely accurate. The U-Verse brand is being retired. AT&T announced recently that they would be redoing the platform, along with DirecTV, and DirecTV NOW to create a single platform which isn't dependent on the delivery method. They are deploying Arris PACE 8110 6-tuner DVRs in Fiber markets, which is pretty recent technology from what I can tell. The Microsoft/Ericsson software IS old though, which is why they are creating something new. AT&T would prefer customers use DirecTV, but they are not going to kick millions of subscribers off the service any time soon.
Uverse TV service is being phased out.
 
Tried out the Uverse DVR at the AT&T store. I have to say it was pretty disappointing. Not sure I could live with that for 2 years. Dish, Directv, and TiVo have spoiled me.
 
OK, but let me bring up something I don't recall anyone bringing up in your thread(s)...have you actually looked at the U-verse lineup & did a comparison between their (HD) lineup & both satellite providers? If not, you might actually be surprised to learn that U-verse's HD lineup blows away pretty much everyone else's. Except for 1 missing Showtime, Starz & Indieplex HD channels, they have ALL of the premiums in HD, & several HD cable channels that I'm still waiting for either sat provider (or Comcast, LOL) to finally add...since it IS 2017!
While there are many disagreements on the legacy U-verse HD pic quality, others over at DSLR are now saying they look better on the fiber service...which you would think they should.

If I could get Gigapower here, I'd definitely give U-verse fiber TV a try...but it'll be a LONG time before we are graced with it's presence here in Springpatch, if EVER... :rolleyes:
 
OK, but let me bring up something I don't recall anyone bringing up in your thread(s)...have you actually looked at the U-verse lineup & did a comparison between their (HD) lineup & both satellite providers? If not, you might actually be surprised to learn that U-verse's HD lineup blows away pretty much everyone else's. Except for 1 missing Showtime, Starz & Indieplex HD channels, they have ALL of the premiums in HD, & several HD cable channels that I'm still waiting for either sat provider (or Comcast, LOL) to finally add...since it IS 2017!
While there are many disagreements on the legacy U-verse HD pic quality, others over at DSLR are now saying they look better on the fiber service...which you would think they should.

If I could get Gigapower here, I'd definitely give U-verse fiber TV a try...but it'll be a LONG time before we are graced with it's presence here in Springpatch, if EVER... :rolleyes:

Yeah, actually, the channel lineups are one of the things that make me consider U-Verse a real option. Especially since I would need to get the U200 to get all the channels my wife would want, and the U300, which adds Starz, Encore, and Showtime, only costs $5 more. When I told my wife last night that it was looking like we were going to have to get Dish because I didn't like the U-Verse DVR, she was not happy. I think she was really counting on being able to get rid of the dish in the yard. We have friends who have had U-Verse for over a year now, and they like it fine, although their only previous experience was with Time Warner Cable, which is about as bad as it gets, so not a great data point. Someone mentioned in another thread that there is a 30-day out in the U-Verse contract, so maybe we just need to try it.

I am pretty adamant about not getting TWC, and my wife is very adamant about not trimming trees or having a dish unless we have to, so U-Verse might be the compromise. We have a couple more weeks before I know exactly when we will move in, so there is still some time before a decision has to be made.
 
So, why are we having this discussion. It is obvious that what the wife wants is what the wife gets. A happy life is a happy wife.

If only it was that simple. If things were to go badly with Uverse, I would absolutely get asked, why I didn't know things would go badly. My wife also routinely tells me to "just figure out what is the best solution and do it." It is a balancing act to be sure. None of this is to say she is particularly difficult to deal with, but, like all of us, she wants perfection from something that is inherently imperfect.
 
If only it was that simple. If things were to go badly with Uverse, I would absolutely get asked, why I didn't know things would go badly. My wife also routinely tells me to "just figure out what is the best solution and do it." It is a balancing act to be sure. None of this is to say she is particularly difficult to deal with, but, like all of us, she wants perfection from something that is inherently imperfect.

And in our discussion about this topic tonight I get the following from my wife:

"We haven't heard the best things about U-verse, so why not just get Dish?" SMH
 
lol.. when are ya planning to make the switch? I'm still debating switching from AT&T (directv) to Dish next month. My biggest negative about AT&T is only having 5 tuners, or 7 tuners on the new HS17 compared to 16 channels on the Hopper 3.
 
lol.. when are ya planning to make the switch? I'm still debating switching from AT&T (directv) to Dish next month. My biggest negative about AT&T is only having 5 tuners, or 7 tuners on the new HS17 compared to 16 channels on the Hopper 3.

We will probably move in at the beginning of September. We are getting a bunch of work done to the house beforehand (painting, new HVAC, hardwood refinishing, etc., so we don't have to live there when it is happening. I will probably have whatever new TV service we get setup ahead of time, so we don't miss any content, maybe a week or two before we move.

FWIW: 5 tuners has been fine for us, but I can totally see people wanting more these days. Even 7 seems a little slim if you have a big household. Then again, kids these days seem to watch everything on their phones, so what do I know?
 
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