Comcast

[Oscar Garcia]

Well it likes Comcast will be getting rid of DIY and FineLiving here in the Houston area at the end of the month. Bummer! -Oscar

[Mark & Juanita]

Take a look at DirecTV or the other satellite vendor. Generally cheaper than cable, more channels, and better service.

[Dave in Houston]

One more reason I'm glad I dumped Comcast. Bought into the whole AT&T bundle including DISH satellite.

[Leonard Shapiro]

they did that to us here in central MD too. then brought it back on a pay package with other channels I do not want. so I do without. the good news is my local pbs station suddenly has brought back American woodworker,woodwrights shop,router workshop,new Yankee workshop to air I have had to suffer with occasional and infrequent runs of new Yankee workshop(not in order) for the past few years

Len

[Gould]

Comcast is pure evil. Run as fast as you can to some other service/TV provider. You will never regret it.

[DLB]

my local pbs station suddenly has brought back American

Len,

I'm in Balto Co., I looked on MPT's site but don't see NYW listed. What station/day/time are you seeing it?

Dave - Parkville

[Swingman]

... and, being fed up to the max with Comcast and their faceless, corporate mindset, I'm getting rid of them to give u-verse a try, which just hit our area of the city (West side of West U) the first week of January.

Despite all the horror stories, a friend about mile away, where u-verse has been available for about a year, has been touting it as being faster than her cable on the broadband internet side, with which she has had no problems.

I'll keep Comcast broadband, which has been more or less solid, until I see whether vdsl actually has more throughput, despite being a tad bit slower than my Comcast broadband in the advertisement ... really could care less about the TV side.

[Steve Turner]

I've been trying to get AT&T to give me a straight answer about whether U-verse is available at my house, but so far without luck. I live in a brand new development, and the neighbors all around me are getting set up with it, but the website claims that it's not available at my address. It also shows that the two houses on either side of mine don't get it, but the houses two doors down on either side *do*! Go figure...

[Han]

Steve Turner wrote in news:01Jkj.1460$nK5.454 @nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com:

It seems that AT&T U-verse is similar in principle to Verizon Fios. As such, it would be limited to so many points of distribution per wire or strand of fiber. If the available number are spoken for, you'd have to remove an old customer to get a new one, or string a new wire from a new distribution point.

[B a r r y]

It is.

[Swingman]

"Steve Turner" wrote

My wife had the same situation at her office, which is less than 300 yards from the aforementioned friends residence, who has had u-verse for about a year.

Being a hybrid combination of IP/DSL/fiber optic/twisted pair (most places it's just "fiber to the node" (FTTN), then copper the rest of the way to the residence), it apparently has the same "distance from the CO/DSLAM" limitations that DSL has (unless you happen to be lucky enough to actually have fiber all the way to your residence).

They've also been having a devil of a time with the technology, apparently.

A lot of technical wizards claimed it wouldn't work and are still convinced AT&T is making a mistake, but AT&T defends u-verse by saying that, whereas cable broadcasts the entire neighborhoods traffic to every router in the neighborhood, their system, being IP based, routes only what is actually destined for each individual router/location.

That, theoretically, should give you more throughput, despite the 2Mb/sec less advertised speed for the fasted u-verse "broadband" ... we'll see.

(Like I said, I could care less about the TV side)

What I would really like to see available here is Verizon's FIOS ... that's some awesome "broadband"!

Basically, until we get FTTH (fiber to the home), I'm just viewing U-verse as a way to shoot a BIG middle finger at Comcast.

[Lee Gordon]

They're dumping DIY here in CT as well. AND they just raised their rates again. So far, it appears neither FIOS nor U-Verse is available in my neighborhood. Looks like I'll have to choose between Dish and DirecTV.

Lee

[Leon]

Is that Dish Satellite by any chance Dish Network?

[B a r r y]

That's what those new refrigerator sized boxes on the poles are for.

U-Verse actually has a more stringent distance limitation than data DSL, so the boxes aren't far from the customer. The usable distances change based on the exact cable makeup and quality in a specific 'hood, and in some cases, the presence of certain other types of circuits in the cables. Individual neighborhoods are "pre-conditioned", where bridgetaps are manually removed, records are verified, and bad pairs are cleared.

There are also times when two neighbors might actually be fed from different crossboxes. In this case, he's got it and you can't get it. Sometimes, these borders make not make sense, as the cable stubs were laid out based on dialtone and "proposed" development , and some undergrounds can run through back yards.

In other cases, cable records are inaccurate, so a specific customer's U-Verse applicability is not available to the rep on the phone, or the self-serve web lookup utilities. "at&t" still has different record keeping facilities at the different companies absorbed by SBC, and then with SBC's purchase of AT&T. There is no nationwide record keeping system, so accuracy of availability quotes can vary.

[Dave in Houston]

Yessir.

[Brian Henderson]

Warning: I have a friend who tried out the AT&T hybrid system and had nothing but trouble. If it's just internet, he gets about 6Mbps, but if they try to put TV on top of it, he gets all kinds of digital breakup, lockups, artifacts, etc. A lot of that is trying to shove all that data down copper lines.

I agree with you, wait until you get fiber to your door like I did. I get 15Mpbs plus FiOS TV that doesn't break up at all (except for the first day, but they were upgrading the system and everyone in the area had problems). I'm finally completely off the copper grid. :)

Blog Me!

[Swingman]

"Brian Henderson" wrote

You suck!

[llilly]

Oscar I live in Houston too, I hace comcast for my internet but have refused to let them handle my TV or phone. I have Directv and have had it for several years and am very happy. The only outages have been in the heavest rain storms. Other wise no complaints. Lynn

[Brian Henderson]

I had to wait almost 2 years for it to finally get to me and I'm the first one in my area, residential or commercial, to have the service. I might suck but I fought tooth and nail to get it.

Blog Me!

[Phisherman]

I dumped cable over 12 years ago. No regrets.