Well I'm coming up on the first month of uVerse service. First comment : I posted earlier about my POTS ( Plain Old Telephone Service - old school phone signals over copper line ) going dead a few days after the initial install ( see the "Hello Reno" thread ) and the issue was resolved ... as you might expect :
1 - I call AT&T and say, "Hello, my POTS line is dead and I think it's related to my recent uVerse install."
2 - AT&T service guy : I'll connect you to uVerse ( in India? Alabama? California? No idea.)
3 - uVerse tech support person says, "Whoa, POTS is handled through the regular AT&T phone service division. Re-routing you to them.
4 - Local ( Reno ) AT&T POTS tech support guy says that he "has no idea about that new fangled uVerse stuff." He runs a test on my line from the AT&T office, and says, "your line is off the hook." I say, "Uhm, no, all phones are on hook." We go back and forth, and then he says to check each and every phone in case it died and tied the line up. I do, and then pop open the phone box on side of house and unplug the test jack to the network, plug in a regular phone, and still no cigar ( this is the standard test detailed inside the phone box cover, to differentiate between problems in your house's wiring ( your $$ to fix ), or between your house and the rest of the world ( AT&T's $$ to fix. ))
5 - After all of this, POTS repair gets dispatched next day, shows up at house, and calls me, saying "whoa, you have uVerse stuff installed. You need to call the uVerse guys." I say, "I already got their number, thanks."
6 - Talk to the uVerse guys - they send a uVerse swarm of vans to my house, and identify the problem as a bad 'splitter' - I don't know the technical name right away - where the incoming copper is plugged into this device and Coax comes out of it and taps into your cable box and network. Fixed! But, why did it work at first and then die about three days later? We'll never know.

Besides this, most things have gone rather well. The quality of the TV is as good or better than what I had with Dish TV. The channels change instantly on pressing surfing buttons. The line-up of on-demand movies is much more extensive than what I got through Dish TV. The VDSL speeds and reliability are much more than what I had before.

So, here are my misgivings so far, in no particular order of irritation :
- A : The remote is horrible. Even if you get lucky and program the correct device code to control your receiver or DVD or what not, there are no instructions or intuitive ways to figure out how to use the remote for anything specific for your device. For example - I got the receiver to turn on and off by using the third receiver code in the very long list of numbers to try. But, there is no way to select the input source - the most important thing to do with a receiver; ie to switch between DVD, TV, the uVerse input, etc. etc. Ditto on the DVD programming - how do you get the DVD's menu to pop up instead of the DVD Player's menu? Arrgg.... Finally, the night time lighting is goofy. Only a few buttons light up when you click a remote button. In the dark, it helps to be able to see the 'menu', 'rewind', 'fast-forward', etc. etc. buttons. How hard would it have been to light up the whole remote? It seems it would be easier than just lighting up a few buttons. Odd.

- B : Nazi - like movie rental policies. Most on demand ( pay per view ) movies say that they are available to start being watched for several months after you pay for them. But, once you start, you have twenty four hours, and boy do they mean it ! I rented a movie - some cheesy chick flick - and watched the first half right after ordering it. I started watching the second half the next night, and with about twenty minutes left - boom! The video stops, a uVerse screen pops up and says ( paraphrased ) "Your twenty four hours are over!" Then you start seeing the same movie's free preview start playing. What about giving us a week to watch a movie? Or even putting some brains in the DVR software that allow someone to finish the movie if the remainder is started before twenty four hours are up? Anything but cutting us off exactly at twenty four hours, in the middle of watching something. Compare this to Dish TV - movies are dumped to your DVR exactly like any other recorded show, for viewing as many times as you like over as long a period of time as you like.

- C : On demand movie information. No movies listed have the rating next to their listing title, nor do most have the rating in the summary of the movie. You have to drill deeper into the details to see the rating. It would be nice to see a rating right next to the listing, or at least the summary, to quickly filter movies with certain ratings out.

- D : Multiple charges for same movie. Perhaps this is simply user error - but, I ordered "10,000 BC Widescreen" < cheesy, by the way > and then immediately decided that I wanted the regular "10,000 BC" because it was full-screen HD instead of letter-boxed HD. I quit watching the first one within about twenty seconds, and then selected the second one. Sure enough - I got billed twice.

- E : Goofy customer service for "D:". I called uVerse today and asked if I could be credited the charge for one of the 10,000 BC movie rentals. The nice uVerse lady brought up my account, and then after typing on her keyboard an amount that sounded like she was writing her thesis, said that she "couldn't see any pay-per-view charges." I told her the exact section detail that my movies were listed in ( the "IPVideo" section ) on both my paper bill I received and the online one. She saw the same bill total that I saw, but she couldn't see the section with the itemized breakdown - nor even a summary of any "IPVideo" charges. I offered her my online account login info. so she could see herself, but she declined. She said that someone else would call me back within a maximum of two hours and help me to resolve this issue. Of course, it's been over eight hours and still no phone call.

- F : No DVR recording of National Geographic HD channel. What? NGHD was the number one channel I wanted to get. Dish TV has it only in their upper-bracket packages, while uVerse has it with their lower ones. This was the main factor that helped me to decide to ditch Dish TV and go with uVerse. So, if I want to watch a NGHD show that is on when I'm not directly plopped in front of the TV  - say, by being distracted by that job thing or sleeping thing - I can't record a show and watch it when I want to. This may be a deal breaker for me, at least for the uVerse TV part. We'll see if uVerse and NG relax their policies and lighten up. Are they afraid someone is going to record a show on the mating habits of tropical poison arrow dart frogs, crack the DVR open, copy, hack and decrypt the show, and then put it on YouTube? You'd think that at least NG magazine subscribers would get a break with this policy. Nope.

- G : Auto software updates to DVR nuke custom settings. My DVR auto-updated 'something' recently and my custom TV configuration was set back to default, from the 1080i and related I had setup.

- H : Occasionally interrupted broadcast streams. While watching NGHD once in real-time ( since I can't record it ), I would get a pause in the signal stream of about 3 to 5 seconds, every 20-60 seconds. This happened about a dozen or fifteen times during a show about elephants. It reminded me exactly of how Dish TV would start to behave as soon as the weather started turning - the beginning of a snowstorm or heavy rain storm ( which we get in Reno about twice a year.) It was annoying, but to be expected as it is simply another form of IP traffic.

Overall Summary :
- Installation and technical performance - way above normal expectations for a newly created and introduced service.
- Equipment - uVerse gateway device - excellent. DVR - Excellent. DVR software - average. DVR remote - ouch.
- Customer support : The biggest problem is the huge divide between the POTS part of AT&T ( formerly SBC, formerly Nevada Bell, formerly AT&T ) and the Uverse side. It's like they're two separate companies. My POTS problem and resolution give an example of this. If they were much more aware of each other and integrated, then unnecessary support difficulties would go away, most likely.
- Technical Support - Again, for the AT&T side, about normal and average. The uVerse side, much better.
- Base Pricing - lower than what would be expected, and lower than or competitive to everyone else.
- On demand pricing - Kind of high. Most movies are $4 ( and don't forget available for exactly 24 hours! ) with some weird independent movies priced at $10 ( what? ) I haven't perused the adult selections - no interest there.

Balun! Thanks for the Scrabble word. I cannot see a red light on my RG from where I am couched when watching TV. It's only happened once, but I will look next time I bog down. And I will contact technical unsupport to see if the NGHD recording denied problem can go away! That would be so sweet. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks for the writeup.  I've been considering trying out uVerse, but I'm currently contracted to DirecTV. I'm really happy with them at the moment, but if ATT can put together a really attractive package, and come out with a new remote, I may be tempted to switch next year.