🚀 go-pugleaf

No real point to this message, but feel like posting it.

There was some discussion recently about the Uverse service from AT&T and
areas where ONLY the internet part of it was available, no phone or
cable/video service.

It's just marketing.

They appear to have re-badged DSL, calling it Uverse. 

Because of some changes at Casa del Ripco I'll cover later, I went recently
back to their website, looking to see if there was a clue if Uverse was
anywhere near Albany Park. Was somewhat surprised to find out "ITS AVAILABLE
NOW!!!!".

Everything was labeled Uverse, but only the "Internet" portion of the
program was clickable. Selecting that shows the 3 common DSL packages, the
1.5mb, 3.0 and 6.0mb speeds, along with the same 150GB a month cap, which is
odd since Uverse customers are supposed to get 250GB a month.

So they are just putting lipstick on a pig, removing all mentions of DSL and
just calling it Uverse.

Here at the homestead we had a problem last month, the phone line basically
died, taking the DSL out. Since me and Melissa sort of depend on the
connection, the "within 3 days" repair estimate was sort of a pisser.

Don't get me wrong, I've been satisfied with them, have been since like
january of 2001. There have been outages, random reboots of the modem but
not anything of concern overall. What did start to tick me off besides the 3
day repair estimate is that fucking cap they imposed. We've been paying them
$70 to $90 a month for the service we are on (Pro-S) for the last decade,
yet we're lumped in with the same group that gets the same service for that
$19.95 or $24.95 introductory rate. The only difference is we're on static
ip's, they aren't.

Call us pigs but because "we're in the biz", 10GB a day is average around
here, or 300GB a month. With that cap in place, you get 150GB then have to
pay $10 for each 50GB over that. It's reasonable, sort of, but with us it
would be an additional $30 a month, if the usage stays the same. But you
know it's not.

Now turning to Direct TV, which has been pissing me off for a couple years
since "a no-cost receiver replacement" was needed, which ended up costing me
$22 a month in extra fees for lease and service charges, started to get a
hard look.

These guys really have a lot of balls. It's a dead end business they are in
and really need to look at keeping customers. They can't provide any
internet services, phone services or anything else besides "TV", yet they
think that alone is worth more. And oddly, some of their services rely on
you having an internet connection, which you are paying another party to
provide.

I've been with them since the late 90's and although "you can play the game"
and call every 6 or 12 months to argue about the bill, which ends up with
some reduction, I just don't like it. Plus it seems like they got smart and
usually require a 1 year commitment with getting the credit. So they'll say,
yeah we can give you a $20 a month bill credit for six month, as long as you
agree to a 1 year commit. That way if you go back after the 6 months,
they'll tell you that you are still under contract for another six months
and can't do anything for now. Cancel the service, sure no problem, but
they'll charge you for the credit and remainder of the contract. Win-win for
them. Some discount.

So I decided to see about getting in bed with the devil and started to check
Comcast out. At least the "double bundle" services, tv and internet. 

It really doesn't seem too bad in our case. Of course the price doesn't come
out to what they say it will be, but working forward, reading all the fine
print, it really doesn't seem like a bad deal. What they claim is $68 a
month comes out to about $103 for the first six months, $123 for the next 6,
then a $10 jump from there for the 2nd year. After that it seems out of
hand, in excess of $153 but I figured by then, Uverse might be near or some
other alternative.

Actually for us, keeping the AT&T dsl, dumping Direct TV and getting that
Comcast package might save a few dollars. We'd have two internet connections
which was the main point.

The way I figured it, Direct was costing us $88 a month, two receivers, no
dvr, no "on demand" service, basic plus the HD channels was it. Figuring we
were going to pay AT&T an additional $30 a month for overages, that sort of
gave me $118 a month as a point of reference.

Using both the dsl and comcast gives us 400GB a month, one plain digital
receiver, but with on demand, one dvr and a channel lineup that actually
seems better than direct, as far as the HD channels go. 

So I went with it and so far, it seems pretty good. The internet service is
even more than expected, was supposed to be 12mb but the installer said most
people are getting near 24mb, and it is, more or less. Haven't seen it dip
below 18mb anyway, and the 3.5mb upload is consistant.

So it's 3x to 4x faster on downloads, like 7x faster on uploads compared to
the best AT&t has to offer in that respect. Off course there is no static
addresses on this, but don't really care, we just need it for overage.

Maybe it's a wash with the money, but we get to keep the copper phone line,
have two internet connections, added a dvr to the mix and have on demand
options now. If the bandwidth/downloading is balanced, don't have to worry
about the extra charges and with those factored in, I think we came out
ahead for the mean time.

There were other charges I'm ignoring for now, the install came out to
around $50 and I opted not for a modem lease, ran $150 out of pocket for a
decent cablemodem/wireless router. But I think that'll balance out when
direct does another price increase, being an ex-customer now.

And by the way, expect a 45 minute call to direct when you cancel, they just
don't want you to go but never say anything to make you stay. But they keep
trying, over and over.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com