Is ATT Uverse Good?

Overall experience after one full day of checking it out: 10 out of 10!

Why did we make the switch from Directv?

I've been a loyal Directv customer for 9 years, but finally decided to make the switch. The reason for the change was primarily due to a better product. You see, Directv makes their old customers pay "lease upgrade" fees to add an HD receiver, or to have a DVR, or an HD DVR. Back in 2001, none of that stuff existed and it didn't matter. But when TIVO/DVR's came out, we shelled out $250 for a Tivo box. Then when HD came out, we upgraded for another $150. Then HD DVR was a must, and it was another $300. Recently the old TIVO box died and we lost our DVR ability in the bedroom, and I started thinking the "whole house DVR" is where we need to go. The problem is that Directv is just now rolling out that product, and they want another $250 lease upgrade fee for me to do that. However, they are giving those receivers away for new customers, and it just pisses me off. Their business model is flawed. They will shell out hundreds and hundreds in incentives to gain a new customer, but won't do jack to keep their loyal customers. For example, I called and said I was thinking of switching to Uverse and I want the whole home DVR, and they said they would give it to me for $200 instead of $250. Not good enough!

In addition, we have HD TV's in the kitchen/sunroom and in our bedroom, but the Directv receivers were not HD. In order to upgrade both of those receivers they wanted another $50 each plus shipping, etc. Again, a new customer would have received those boxes for free.

At the end of the day, Uverse has given me whole house DVR and HD on all three TV's. That is a permanent upgrade I wanted.

Programming: I really wanted ONDEMAND, and Directv's ondemand is a joke. It takes like an hour to download a program, where Uverse is instantly and the library is bigger.

Cost: Not only was all the equipment free, but they are giving me $40 off per month for the first six months ($240 value) plus a $100 prepaid visa card, plus free HBO and Scinamax (I mean Cinemax)for three months ($60 value) totaling $400. If you want an apples to apples comparison vs Directv you have to include all the one-time upgrade fees for another $300 and I come ahead by $700 over the next several months.

After that, the fees are the same on a monthly basis.

Quality: I am very pleased with the Uverse HD quality and ease of use with the DVR, Whole House DVR, and ONDEMAND. It only took me a few minutes to get used to it.

Instalation: As always with ATT, it was horrible. Ordering was confusing as hell because I already had Uverse Internet services. I guess the system they use gets very "confused" when you have an existing line of service and then add another. So I actually order the tv service a month ago and got so frustrated that I cancelled my order. Then after a few weeks thinking about all of the above, I put another order in, and spent about an hour talking to several different reps on the phone trying to straighten it all out. Until the guy actually showed up earlier today, I was unsure if my order was actually in the system. When the installation guy showed up today, he was great - I give him a 10 out of 10. He was only here for 45 minutes and had everything up and running without any snags.

All considered, I give Uverse a strong endorsement. Now, I'm just dreading the call to Directv to cancel my service. I know they are going to try and resell me, but I won't let that happen. And, since I am leasing their receivers, they are going to make me mail them back to them, which is annoying.