I Canceled UVERSE Again

For the second time in two years I have sent AT&T’s new IPTV service known as U-VERSE packing. The first time I canceled U-VERSE it was because the quality of their high definition channels was terrible and you could only watch HD on one television in your house at one time.  Being the HD lover that I am that limit and the quality is what did it in for me.

The second time I ordered the service was because I heard the service improved, and surprisingly it did.  The high definition quality was visibly much better, not quite as good as the HD quality offered by the satellite companies but much better than it was; in fact I would call U-VERSE’s HD quality acceptable.

Besides the HD quality getting better, AT&T also upgraded their service to support up to two live HD channels in your house at one time.  This is a nice step forward but still not enough for me.  Of I am watching one HD show and recording another on the DVR no one else in the house can watch HD.  Granted I am not your normal customer as I have 6 HD televisions in my house.

Another addition they added was the availability of Local Access / Public Access to the lineup.  For this to work the receiver needed to download a special application and this application let you view internet based feeds of selection public access channels, unfortunately all the public access channels they carried were about an hour away from where I lived, they offered no local access channels.

Since the first installation they also added other interactive applications, but the time it took to load these applications made them useless. 

One feature that I was waiting for before leaving U-VERSE again was their whole house DVR service.  Since UVERSE only comes with one DVR for your entire house, watching television on the televisions that did not have the DVR was painful, especially when you are use to watching television with a DVR.  Connecticut was finally upgraded with the new whole house DVR service; this allows the non DVR receivers in your house to watch recordings from your main DVR.  But unfortunately this is all that upgrade does, it only allows you to watch recordings made on the main DVR.  It does not allow you to set timers, delete recordings and review DVR schedules.  If you want to set a show to record you need to go to the main television and set it up. I am sure it will get better over time though, as Rome was not built in a day.

The reason for my canceling this time basically comes down to the economy, I already subscriber to Dish Network, DirecTV and a number of other services.  I decided to save my $100 a month for other things.

One thing I know is if and when I decide to try it again, I am sure UVERSE will be better than it is today. UVERSE is not perfect yet, it still has lots of flaws but it is getting better!

More HD Locals for Dish Network

Dish is doing well with its push to offer 100 DMA’s their locals by the end of 2008.  Dish is now up to 76 markets in the USA reaching 72% of US television households.

The cities added today in HD are Columbia-Jefferson City, Mo.; Des Moines-Ames, Iowa; Lincoln and Hastings-Kearney, Neb.; Omaha, Neb.; Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk, Ill.; and Waco-Temple-Bryan, Texas.