I'm the one who got the postcard in the mail and sent the info to Engadget yesterday. Upon further investigation today, there are 96 HD channels that U-Verse is offering in Broward County (Comcast is at 40). However, this is not without it's shortcoming. First off, you can only view (or record) 2 'live' HD streams at a time. This means you can not watch 1 HD program in the master bedroom, a 2nd HD program in the guest bedroom, and record a 3rd HD program on the living room DVR. In the same way, you can't view an HD program in the bedroom if the DVR is recording 2 HD programs in the living room. There is not enough bandwidth to stream more than 2 HD channels at a time per house. I have also read many on-line customer reviews that have stated that the HD picture and sound quality on U-Verse is not as good as some cable providers, and many customers have had issues with losing TV and internet connections for periods of time. All of these shortcoming is because U-Verse only uses Fiber up to a point, and then converts it to copper (in the neighborhood node) before running it to the house. So the signal still have to be compressed for it to fit in the bandwidth of the copper.
The U-Verse TV pricing is about $10-20 less per month for comparable packages compared with Comcast. For Internet, the pricing is about the same as Comcast with the 6mbps being $43, 10mbps at $55, and 16mbps at $65.
At this point, I think I'm going to stay with Comcast and see if Verizon FIOS makes its way down here. With FIOS its fiber all the way to the house, low compression, and not limited to 2 HD streams like U-Verse. There is an AT&T Experience Store located in West Palm Beach and Miami if you want to 'demo' U-Verse before having it installed.
Correction, the Internet offered is: Max 18 - Up to 18.0 Mbps downstream and up to 1.5 Mbps upstream Starting at $65/month Max - Up to 10.0 Mbps downstream and up to 1.5 Mbps upstream Starting at $55/month Elite - Up to 6.0 Mbps downstream and up to 1 Mbps upstream Starting at $43/month Pro - Up to 3.0 Mbps downstream and up to 1 Mbps upstream Starting at $38/month Express - Up to 1.5 Mbps downstream and up to 1 Mbps upstream Starting at $33/month
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I'm the one who got the postcard in the mail and sent the info to Engadget yesterday.
Upon further investigation today, there are 96 HD channels that U-Verse is offering in Broward County (Comcast is at 40).
However, this is not without it's shortcoming.
First off, you can only view (or record) 2 'live' HD streams at a time. This means you can not watch 1 HD program in the master bedroom, a 2nd HD program in the guest bedroom, and record a 3rd HD program on the living room DVR. In the same way, you can't view an HD program in the bedroom if the DVR is recording 2 HD programs in the living room. There is not enough bandwidth to stream more than 2 HD channels at a time per house.
I have also read many on-line customer reviews that have stated that the HD picture and sound quality on U-Verse is not as good as some cable providers, and many customers have had issues with losing TV and internet connections for periods of time.
All of these shortcoming is because U-Verse only uses Fiber up to a point, and then converts it to copper (in the neighborhood node) before running it to the house.
So the signal still have to be compressed for it to fit in the bandwidth of the copper.
The U-Verse TV pricing is about $10-20 less per month for comparable packages compared with Comcast.
For Internet, the pricing is about the same as Comcast with the 6mbps being $43, 10mbps at $55, and 16mbps at $65.
At this point, I think I'm going to stay with Comcast and see if Verizon FIOS makes its way down here.
With FIOS its fiber all the way to the house, low compression, and not limited to 2 HD streams like U-Verse.
There is an AT&T Experience Store located in West Palm Beach and Miami if you want to 'demo' U-Verse before having it installed.
Correction, the Internet offered is:
Max 18 - Up to 18.0 Mbps downstream and up to 1.5 Mbps upstream Starting at $65/month
Max - Up to 10.0 Mbps downstream and up to 1.5 Mbps upstream Starting at $55/month
Elite - Up to 6.0 Mbps downstream and up to 1 Mbps upstream Starting at $43/month
Pro - Up to 3.0 Mbps downstream and up to 1 Mbps upstream Starting at $38/month
Express - Up to 1.5 Mbps downstream and up to 1 Mbps upstream Starting at $33/month