DirecTV vs. Uverse

[amc80]

We currently have DirecTV and use Charter for our internet. The combined cost is ridiculous- close to $200. I called Charter (which was $60) and got that down to $39 with no modem lease fee. DirecTV offered me a whopping $20 off a month. So that puts me around $170 for the two. With Uverse, I can get more channels for $114 a month including internet. So about $60 cheaper than DirecTV.

I've heard awesome things about Uverse but I've also read that there are some issues, mainly in picture quality and internet speed. They are coming on Thursday to set me up so I still have time to back out if I want. I don't really care about these issues, but DH will. Has anyone had experience with Uverse?

 

[star sparkle]

DH and I have Uverse and we love it. Never had any issues, and I love the wireless receivers - we have 2 wireless receivers and a regular box, and we're able to move a wireless from DH's man cave to the guest room when we have houseguests so they have the entire selection of channels as well.

Our internet has never had a problem, and I've never noticed anything wrong with the picture quality. DH loves watching his sports in HD, so if he ever saw problems I know I'd hear about it.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

When we moved to our new neighborhood 3 years ago, Charter had not come in yet (new development) and the only option was Directv and ATT DSL internet. Once the year was up and the specials were gone, I think we were paying around $170 for both.
Finally Uverse became available and we were able to switch to Uverse for TV and internet. We are currently paying $106 including tax, but it will go up $30 when the first year is up. So still, $136 is really good compared to what we were paying.

Uverse has been more reliable than the Directv. Directv sometimes went out in storms. A couple of times Uverse has not turned on, but if we unplug the power on the box, it reboots and starts back. Another plus is that we have a portable receiver upstairs, and our daughter can use it either in her room or in the upstairs den (and she is the only one up there, so it is dumb to pay for two receivers!). We have U200 TV which is more channels than I ever care to have, but my husband misses a couple of channels like Smithsonian, so I may have to add some kind of package to make him happy. I still think we'll be well under the $170, though.

 

[amc80]

Thanks for the input! This helps a lot. I was getting nervous that we'd notice a big difference in quality and/or internet speed. The Uverse rep said it's actually faster than stated broadband speeds since with cable internet the bandwidth is shared in a neighborhood, where with Uverse it's dedicated to each house. I didn't know if that was just a sales pitch or what. We watch a lot of sports and that's where the quality could be an issue.

 

[kgizo]

We have uverse. The installer explained that There is XX amount of bandwidth which is used by Internet and HD TV. So, if you are a family and 2 people are watching HD and 2 people are on their tablets it will be slower as you are using 4 services. It's just my hubby and I so no problems with speed, but the explanation was the first I had heard about HD using bandwidth.

I will say they are overwhelmed so if you have any probs repair service is slow. They are clueless, neighbors on each side of us have it but it took them 2 weeks to confirm we are in a service area.

From a use standpoint I hate the remote and channel guide. There is no logic to the remote and I'm always accidentally pushing the wrong button, even after having uverse for 9 mo. With others you can set up a guide of your fav channels easily, but with uverse it's too much work. I hate shuffling thru all the junk channels.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

I have just had about the worst customer service experience with AT&t. I have spoken to 7, yes 7 reps and they still can't fix my bill.
I was offered phone and internet, as a bundle, for 45.00 per month. You wouldn't believe the bills I received.-hundreds of dollars, I have Comcast for my cable and switched over to the interent and phone to them yesterday.

I honestly found the people so stupid, I can't bear to even think that that company is operating in the US. I filed a complaint with the consumer fraud division which has notified AT&T of my problem. I do not recommend them.


Annette

Oh, and to top if all off, My phone and internet didn't work for at least 2 times when I tried to make a call. This is the U-verse.

 

[ame]

I will *never* get a dish service, DirecTV or otherwise again. We could never keep a signal to save our lives. The service was atrocious.

We don't love UVerse either, but we get a signal way better than DirecTV. If ANYTHING happened with weather, if there was even a TINY cloud, we got nothing with DirecTV. DishNetwork was even worse.

As much as Charter is the devil, Charter had the best signal and internet of all of them.

 

[House Cat]

Hi,

I have just had about the worst customer service experience with AT&t. I have spoken to 7, yes 7 reps and they still can't fix my bill.
I was offered phone and internet, as a bundle, for 45.00 per month. You wouldn't believe the bills I received.-hundreds of dollars, I have Comcast for my cable and switched over to the interent and phone to them yesterday.

I honestly found the people so stupid, I can't bear to even think that that company is operating in the US. I filed a complaint with the consumer fraud division which has notified AT&T of my problem. I do not recommend them.


Annette

Oh, and to top if all off, My phone and internet didn't work for at least 2 times when I tried to make a call. This is the U-verse.

My mom had this same problem. She spent hours on the phone with them to no avail. She finally gave up, spent hundreds of dollars to get out of her contract, and went to another service, just so she wouldn't have to deal with their customer service again.

 

[iLander]

We have Dish HD and love it. We only get 3-4 minutes of outage during epic rainstorms, probably 3 times a summer. Otherwise, clear sailing. We have their DVR with Hopper and it's fantastic. The Hopper skips through commercials and I just sit there feeling like those fat people in Wall-E. The hopper also makes it so our DD can watch our DVR at her place, saving her a cable bill. We can also watch on our phones, laptops, traveling, whatever. The hopper automatically records all prime time shows on the major networks, plus all the timers that we have set for our shows. It can record up to 3 shows for us, and 4 for primetime, all at once. We've had dish for 10+ years and love it. Our bill is about $100 a month, but we don't get a lot of movie channels (HBO, etc).

Instead of movie channels, we have Netflix and Amazon Prime. Between the 2 of them, they're about $15 a month and there's tons of shows on both. Amazon Prime is the free delivery service (a lot of staples are cheaper on Amazon than in the grocery store! plus free 2 day delivery), but they also have free shows (like the Riches with Eddie Izzard!) that come with the service, actually better stuff than Netflix. For first-run, we have the Red Box down the street. On the app and website, you can reserve movies, and get alerts for new movies as they're released. We can do pay=per-view, but it's hard to resist a movie for $1.

The key to all this is a smart TV, which makes switching between services easy with the remote. We got an LG at Costco about 2 years ago.

We get our internet through our phone service, which is $49 a month. We have the highest speed available, because I use it for work.

We've tweaked and fussed with our TV viewing for years, and this is our optimum set up. Needless to say, we are couch vegetables. Between the TV setup, the Amazon prime for groceries, and downloading e-books from the library, there's really no reason to leave the house.