AT&T Uverse vs. WOW Ultra

[TTQ B4U]

Have had WOW Ultra and am very happy. Not many if any issues but am not at all familiar with AT&T offerings. Intrigued by the wireless connectivity? but what about uptime, quality, etc.

 

Looking forward to hearing your input.

 

Thanks!

[87GT]

Uverse is my only 2nd option where I live. I thought about getting it then I learned in the fine print they have a data limit of 250GB a month. That was a deal breaker for me. A friend in Hilliard loves it and says nothing but good things about it.

[TTQ B4U]

Uverse is my only 2nd option where I live. I thought about getting it then I learned in the fine print they have a data limit of 250GB a month. That was a deal breaker for me. A friend in Hilliard loves it and says nothing but good things about it.

 

I also checked and in my area they are speeds up to 24 down.....no go. I am at 35 and am not going backwards.

 

Oh well, that was quick.....

[Draco-REX]

Uverse is my only 2nd option where I live. I thought about getting it then I learned in the fine print they have a data limit of 250GB a month. That was a deal breaker for me. A friend in Hilliard loves it and says nothing but good things about it.

 

It was 250GB/mo but August of last year they bumped everyone on Uverse to 1TB/mo.

[jerrodh]

Have Uverse currently and get very spotty connections. TV & Internet both go down for a period of time multiple times per week... Will not renew contact. I've had techs out multiple times.

 

Works great with multiple devices when its on but we lose connection way to frequently...

[SpaceGhost]

2 Almost 3 weeks with AT&T "Gigabit" service, no loss of service, have't restarted the modem. While I see 200-350Mb/s constantly on my iPhone, I have no network card to connect that is Gigabit. And I do not use the AT&T router wirelessly. It's turned off. I use an Apple TimeCapsule, latest gen. While I agree it's a stretch to call it a "Gigabit" service, it's fast as shit, and more than we need. I do Directv, I will not change that, best TV service there is. Edited February 19, 2017 by Benjamin

[ShowHBK]

unless something has changed with AT&T's hardware and service, it completely blows ass. We had Uverse for a short time and to make a long story short. When people watched HD TV in the house our internet lagged HARD. When people went to watch more then two things on YouTube at 1080p the TV quality would go down. The Wireless boxes would lag or have reduced quality through 2 walls, 25 feed from the main box. Technicians were ass hats and would treat you like you knew nothing.

 

The final nail in the coffin was that the hardware they provided would not let us use our own wireless AP and the worst problem was that the box they provided was still using G band wireless. We were getting the speeds we paid for when I ran speed tests... but since EVERYTHING goes through the same wire it fucks up the entire system when you do more then 2 things at once... we switched back to WoW... WoW is better in every way.

[Cordell]

Had Wow a couple years ago, hated it, service went down alot, then they wanted to charge us to have a service call so they could fix their shit. Went to Uverse, but they couldn't provide the internet speeds I wanted in my area. Recently went to Time Warner, and after having them come back out last week because their shit wasn't fast as advertised it's working well. I'm seeing 70 megs most of the time.

 

I too will not part with DIRECTV, it has worked fantastically for the 3 years I've had it. At&t wouldn't bundle the crap either or give us decent internet, so I have no issue giving my money to Time Warner.

[bicranium]

Do not go from Ultra TV to U-Verse unless you're in a Gigapower area. Have had both. U-Verse was decent as far as not having general connection issues but the overall performance of their basic system is horrible. Long story short, the bandwidth for your internet and TV is shared with U-Verse so the second you are recording/watching more than 2 shows at the same time you start eating into your internet bandwidth and if you ever max it out at the 4 shows at a time (vs. the 6 shows at a time you can do with Ultra which never messes with your internet bandwidth) you will run into issues simply browsing the internet due to their shoddy equipment.

[Pntbll309]

I have att uverse and hate every minute of it.

[Zx2guy19]

I switched from UVerse to WoW in August and couldn't be happier. The internet is reliable, quick as hell and a better price (obviously I'm on a promo). I got a great deal on a router during Amazon's Black Friday and July so I dropped off rental as well. Definitely happy with it.

[El Karacho1647545492]

Had Uverse, the only thing I liked was their cable box interface was among the best I've used. very easy and intuitive. Other than that, they did not deliver ideal speeds.

 

WOW has been good. Their wireless box sucks, their cable box interface is horrible, but the service has been good pricing is excellent and speeds are stable and as advertised.

[unfunnyryan]

WOW has been good. Their wireless box sucks, their cable box interface is horrible, but the service has been good pricing is excellent and speeds are stable and as advertised.

 

I hear tons of complaints about cable providers when the vast majority of problems are from the shit equipment they provide you and charge you out of the ass for. Use your own equipment and you won't deal with a shit connection all the time. They provide you with junk, if you don't want junk, don't buy junk.

 

What does TWC charge for a modem/router/wifi combo now. $15 a month? I'm bored, so here's my thoughts for anyone that wants a fast, rock solid network for under $300. This will absolutely shit on whatever your cable company provides you with.

 

Modem: Get a Surfboard SB6190 or SB6183. Anything that does less than 16 channel bonding is outdated.

 

Router: Avoid consume grade. $300 linksys wifi router combo with flashy lights and antennas? It's a piece of shit. Get a Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite. $80-90. No wifi, this is a router only and a damn powerful one. Go on youtube to learn how to update the firmware, do that first. Then the guided setup is pretty easy.

 

Wifi: If you want wireless-ac speeds, too bad, run ethernet instead. Go on ebay and pick up a couple Airport Extreme A1408 for $25-40 a piece. If you can't find the A1408, the A1354 is almost as good. These are great wireless access points, terrible routers. Connect one by ethernet to your edgeroute lite, and if you bought multiple you can either run ethernet or configure others as wireless repeaters. You do not need a mac to configure these, just the apple airport utility software. I've been recommending people buy 1-3 of these for years now, you cannot beat the coverage and wireless performance for the price.

[El Karacho1647545492]

I hear tons of complaints about cable providers when the vast majority of problems are from the shit equipment they provide you and charge you out of the ass for. Use your own equipment and you won't deal with a shit connection all the time. They provide you with junk, if you don't want junk, don't buy junk.

 

What does TWC charge for a modem/router/wifi combo now. $15 a month? I'm bored, so here's my thoughts for anyone that wants a fast, rock solid network for under $300. This will absolutely shit on whatever your cable company provides you with.

 

Modem: Get a Surfboard SB6190 or SB6183. Anything that does less than 16 channel bonding is outdated.

 

Router: Avoid consume grade. $300 linksys wifi router combo with flashy lights and antennas? It's a piece of shit. Get a Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite. $80-90. No wifi, this is a router only and a damn powerful one. Go on youtube to learn how to update the firmware, do that first. Then the guided setup is pretty easy.

 

Wifi: If you want wireless-ac speeds, too bad, run ethernet instead. Go on ebay and pick up a couple Airport Extreme A1408 for $25-40 a piece. If you can't find the A1408, the A1354 is almost as good. These are great wireless access points, terrible routers. Connect one by ethernet to your edgeroute lite, and if you bought multiple you can either run ethernet or configure others as wireless repeaters. You do not need a mac to configure these, just the apple airport utility software. I've been recommending people buy 1-3 of these for years now, you cannot beat the coverage and wireless performance for the price.

 

All great advice from what I can tell.

 

I thought ISPs charged fees for "BYOD" (bring your own device) if you don't use their stuff. Obviously they can't take it away when you leave them and you can just use the same stuff if you change to a new ISP, but I was pretty sure they made it cost-prohibitive to do so. Just a generalization, I'm probably wrong.

 

Also, do you have suggestion for those of us who cannot cut the cord aka cable users? I would love nothing more than to be rid of the horrible WOW! cable boxes. I just don't know if it's a better idea to use an old PC I have lying around to build my own DVR/Cable box, or if there are products on the market that are cost-effective to purchase. I have an old FX4300 series CPU and HD7970 in a box I haven't used in a few years, would that be enough with a good SSD to run a DVR setup? Also, which cable providers allow/charge for that sort of setup?

[unfunnyryan]

All great advice from what I can tell.

 

I thought ISPs charged fees for "BYOD" (bring your own device) if you don't use their stuff. Obviously they can't take it away when you leave them and you can just use the same stuff if you change to a new ISP, but I was pretty sure they made it cost-prohibitive to do so. Just a generalization, I'm probably wrong.

 

Also, do you have suggestion for those of us who cannot cut the cord aka cable users? I would love nothing more than to be rid of the horrible WOW! cable boxes. I just don't know if it's a better idea to use an old PC I have lying around to build my own DVR/Cable box, or if there are products on the market that are cost-effective to purchase. I have an old FX4300 series CPU and HD7970 in a box I haven't used in a few years, would that be enough with a good SSD to run a DVR setup? Also, which cable providers allow/charge for that sort of setup?

 

Absolutely.

 

There is a lot of economy of scale involved here, but my parents switched from I believe 2-3 TWC HD DVRs and one regular HD box to a Tivo Roamio, and absolutely love it. The Roamio is being superseded with the Bolt/Bolt+, but is still a good option here.

 

The more TWC/WOW boxes you replace, the faster this system will pay off. Anyways, here's what you need

 

1x Tivo Bolt/Bolt+

• This is your central DVR and most expensive component. What you need depends on how many people you have watching tv in your house or shows recording at once
  
• The Bolt does 4k, blah blah blah...it's good okay
  
• Bolt, 500gb - 4 shows at once - $184 on Amazon
  
• Bolt, 1000gb - 4 shows at once - $299 on Amazon (note, you can upgrade and add external drives yourself)
  
• Bolt+, 3000gb - 6 shows at once - $499 on Amazon
  

 

1x Tivo Mini for each additional TV.

• $130 a piece
  
• These connect to your main DVR via coax, ethernet, or wifi. From there, you get the majority of the features you would get on the main DVR. Record shows, access recorded shows, whatever. They all come with an RF remote so the boxes can be hidden out of sight.
  

 

1x Tivo subscription.

• This is $15/month, but you will get your first year free with purchase of DVR. There is a lifetime subscription, available, it's like $400 or something.
  

 

1x Cable card rental

• I know TWC charges like $2.50 a month or something. meh.
  

 

So if you did the most expensive Bolt+, and 3 Tivo Minis, you are in for $890. Ouch. But how much are you spending on cable boxes right now?

 

In my parents case they were spending nearly $75 a month just on box rentals alone. Their tivo system consisting of a Roamio Pro and 3 tivo minis paid for its self in about a year.

 

BUT HERE IS WHERE IT GETS BETTER

 

Every TV you have hooked up to a tivo box is now a smart tv with a awesome RF remote.

You now have the following

• Netflix
  
• Amazon Video
  
• Youtube
  
• Plex
  
• SMART COMMERCIAL SKIPPING
  

 

That plus more, with apps that get updated often. TV manufacturers pump out TVs, maybe put out one update, thats it. It's kind of like the early days of android phones where there was so much diversity that upgrade support was gone within months. The tivo ecosystem is like apple, they have just a few devices, and millions of them on the market, so they are maintained for a long time.

 

Here is what you LOSE by going to your own DVR

• On demand
  
• Show start over feature that TWC offered on some channels
  

 

That's all I can think of for now. Otherwise the system is great. The DVR is far faster to navigate and search through shows than the junk cable companies give you. The bolt is supposed to be 3x faster than the roamio, so I imagine its pretty kick ass. If you have any other questions about it, let me know.

[El Karacho1647545492]

Absolutely.

 

There is a lot of economy of scale involved here, but my parents switched from I believe 2-3 TWC HD DVRs and one regular HD box to a Tivo Roamio, and absolutely love it. The Roamio is being superseded with the Bolt/Bolt+, but is still a good option here.

 

The more TWC/WOW boxes you replace, the faster this system will pay off. Anyways, here's what you need

 

1x Tivo Bolt/Bolt+

• This is your central DVR and most expensive component. What you need depends on how many people you have watching tv in your house or shows recording at once
  
• The Bolt does 4k, blah blah blah...it's good okay
  
• Bolt, 500gb - 4 shows at once - $184 on Amazon
  
• Bolt, 1000gb - 4 shows at once - $299 on Amazon (note, you can upgrade and add external drives yourself)
  
• Bolt+, 3000gb - 6 shows at once - $499 on Amazon
  

 

1x Tivo Mini for each additional TV.

• $130 a piece
  
• These connect to your main DVR via coax, ethernet, or wifi. From there, you get the majority of the features you would get on the main DVR. Record shows, access recorded shows, whatever. They all come with an RF remote so the boxes can be hidden out of sight.
  

 

1x Tivo subscription.

• This is $15/month, but you will get your first year free with purchase of DVR. There is a lifetime subscription, available, it's like $400 or something.
  

 

1x Cable card rental

• I know TWC charges like $2.50 a month or something. meh.
  

 

So if you did the most expensive Bolt+, and 3 Tivo Minis, you are in for $890. Ouch. But how much are you spending on cable boxes right now?

 

In my parents case they were spending nearly $75 a month just on box rentals alone. Their tivo system consisting of a Roamio Pro and 3 tivo minis paid for its self in about a year.

 

BUT HERE IS WHERE IT GETS BETTER

 

Every TV you have hooked up to a tivo box is now a smart tv with a awesome RF remote. Netflix, Amazon Video, Youtube, Plex... With apps that get updated often. TV manufacturers pump out TVs, maybe put out one update, thats it. It's kind of like the early days of android phones where there was so much diversity that upgrade support was gone within months. The tivo ecosystem is like apple, they have just a few devices, and millions of them on the market, so they are maintained for a long time.

 

Thanks! I feel like your replies should be stickied somewhere on CR, that's fantastic advice.

[cstmg8]

So this method would have you just paying TWC for a card accessing the channel package you want? Or do you retain one box as your cable access for the TiVo's?

 

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[justinwebb]

I just have smart TV's with roku's and a server that auto downloads when a show is up, auto extracts/renames and adds it to the media pool which is all accessible in plex. Its been working great for years, i do need to look into running ubiquity though with all hardwired connections.

[unfunnyryan]

So this method would have you just paying TWC for a card accessing the channel package you want? Or do you retain one box as your cable access for the TiVo's?

 

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

All you do is rent the cable card that is inserted into the tivo dvr. They (TWC at least idk about WOW) will also provide, free of charge, a tuning adapter that connects to the tivo via USB that allows it to access special content

 

I just have smart TV's with roku's and a server that auto downloads when a show is up, auto extracts/renames and adds it to the media pool which is all accessible in plex. Its been working great for years, i do need to look into running ubiquity though with all hardwired connections.

 

 

I have that all set up for my parents as well. The tivo plex app is fantastic

 

I run sonarr/couchpotato/transmission/plex all together on a freenas machine. Works wonderfully with private trackers.

[justinwebb]

All you do is rent the cable card that is inserted into the tivo dvr. They (TWC at least idk about WOW) will also provide, free of charge, a tuning adapter that connects to the tivo via USB that allows it to access special content

 

 

 

 

I have that all set up for my parents as well. The tivo plex app is fantastic

 

I run sonarr/couchpotato/transmission/plex all together on a freenas machine. Works wonderfully with private trackers.

 

Had freenas for a while, just started recently with Unraid.

[Cordell]

Unfunnyryan, I need to get you over to my house. You should have a consultation fee to help people plan this shit out. I'm one of those people who is not techy with this crap.