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.

Michigan Football Practice

Today I had the benefit of going behind the scenes and watching Michigan football practice! This was exclusive since practice is closed to just about everyone including the media. I was invited to attend by a former player who is close to the program. He also lead a tour of Schembechler Hall, which was very impressive. Overall it was a great experience!

I don't want to share insights about the team in case there are Uconn spies reading my blog. But I will say this: the quarterback situation should be interesting...

My Favorite New Show....

Sons of Anarchy

There have been two seasons, and I am currently watching the second season which is on FX reruns right now. This guy is my favorite character, Jax. It is about a motorcycle "club" who is dealing arms with the blacks, the browns, the arians, and the ira. Lots of action and a great storyline. I strongly recommend it for anyone who likes shows like The Sopranos. But in this show, unlike Sopranos, there is actually a lot of action.

Original Cell Phone Plan

When I was a sophomore at The University of Michigan in 1998-1999, cell phones were finally becoming affordable and people were replacing their land-lines. As a poor student, it was a tough choice because the plans were kind of tricky. I think I ended up with a 500 peak minute plan for $50/mo with free nights and weekends and first incoming minute free with Nextel and unlimited direct connect. No internet, no texting.

The funny part about this story is that a buddy of mine, to protect his name, we will call him "Simonizer." He decided to go with Sprint, who had a special "student" minutes plan. This plan consisted of 60 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, and first incoming minute free for a fee of $29 or $39/mo ( can't remember exactly how much). 60 anytime minutes is not a whole lot - and any additional anytime minute you use costs a fortune. The funny thing was we would call him and try to use up all his anytime minutes by calling him for no reason. Eventually Simonizer figured it out and when we would call him, he would say " this better be quick" and then hang-up on you at the 59 second mark.

Ridiculous.

Now we can get unlimited phone, internet, and text for $69.99 per phone. Not a bad value!

Product Review: IPAD

Yes, I just had to have one. And yes, it is awesome!

The only problem is that I can't use it for work because my work programs will only run with Internet Explorer, and it won't use Adobe Flash, and you can't multitask. I hear there will be an operating system upgrade this fall which will allow for more multitasking.

I really like the new Palm software, which does allow for multitasking. The problem there is the processor is too slow and while it is nice to have several "cards" open at once, I find myself frustrated with its slowness several times per day. If ipod/ipad start having more multi-tasking, I hope the processors are fast enough....

Final thought: I was hoping to have my ipad connect using my Sprint Card (usb) but ipad doesn't have usb and there is no adapter to make it work. So since I am so resourceful, I figured out I could get a mi-fi, and connect the ipad to the wireless network the mi-fi creates. Connect ipad to mi-fi - Works great!

I think the best feature is Netflix. I plan on outputting the ipad to the tv - I wonder what the quality level will look like?

Half-Time Report

Now one week after the all-star break, and the Tigers have a 5 game losing streak going, and it looks like that could get worse.

Rewind one week: Tigers were in sole possession of first place with a 1 game lead of Chicago and 3 or 4 games ahead of the Twins. But I think that was fool's gold, because we really are lacking in several areas. Not to mention every season (including 2006) under Leland, the Tigers have had a very poor 2nd half.

My prediction is that we finish just above .500, likely 5-10 games out of the hunt.

My Cell Phone Battery is...

Killing ME!

I have a Sprint Palm Pre and lately my battery has been dead before 5pm on many days. I use bluetooth, check email, and do some browsing, which I suppose is a lot of demand for power, but I have high expectations!

My solution was to buy a car charger on ebay for $5 (the same thing at the sprint store was $35 - ha!). This seems to be the solution, but not when I'm out of town with no car like I am today!