We are finally rolling with U-verse here at UverseUsers headquarters...and we are loving it. Our installation was scheduled for Thursday between 8 and 10am. They said to expect the installation to take anywhere from 5-8 hours. I got a call on Tuesday and Wednesday confirming the appointment, and then the installer called me on Thursday morning around 9:00. He said that he was going to head out to the VRAD first and get things set up there, and he would be to my house in 20 or 30 minutes. Continue reading for the full story and my recommendations for your own install.

He showed up right on time, about 9:30. The first thing he did was check out the location of my TVs and asked how I wanted things set up. I told him about the problems several people have had with pixilation due to the house wiring, and asked him if he would run cat-5 to both of my TVs. He was happy to do so. He started by installing a new phone box on the side of my house and running a cat-5 cable to my upstairs office into the 2wire Residential Gateway. Another cat5 was run from the gateway back outside, around to the front of the house, and in through the wall to my TV. Hopefully avoiding coax will cut out a lot of the problems some have experienced. I would definitely recommend that you request your installer do the same if at all possible, although if what I've been hearing is true, the Motorola boxes will be wireless and this will be a moot point.

Once the wiring was run it was time to register my gateway. They were having some problems with the registration process, so he had to call and force it through. After a few minutes, we were up and running. He had me create my account and password and then we started setting up the TVs. Since the Tatung boxes only allow one stream at a time, I wanted to hook up two to my main TV. I had a cheap 10Mbit Linksys 4-port hub laying around the house and I asked him if he thought we could just stick that in between the TV and the new ethernet jack in the wall. He said he had never tried it, but it was worth a shot. We hooked it all up and fired up the boxes, and sure enough everything worked just fine. If you are looking for an easy way to add two boxes on one TV, you can pick these hubs up on eBay for less than $10.

The entire installation took about 4 1/2 hours from start to finish and it was pretty painless. The installer was very professional and was able to answer any questions I threw at him. He was also very willing to go the extra mile and run the cat-5. Just about the time he was finishing up, a guy from GeekSquad showed up. AT&T has contracted with them (as well as a couple other companies) to visit new customers and make sure they know how everything works...a nice touch. He was definitely the most knowledgeable person I have talked to about U-verse. He has been doing these setups since February, and said that he actually went by Ed Whitacre's house (the CEO of AT&T) when he first got set up to walk him through things.

The first day we did have some pixilation problems. Nothing major, but it was noticeable every once in a while. The other problem we were having is that although I had signed up for the Elite internet package, we were only getting about a 2Mbit connection. I called Customer Care on Friday morning around 11:00 and they had a tech at my house by 1:00. He did a couple of speed tests and got the same results I did. After a few minutes of playing around with stuff, we tried the speed test again and got 5.5Mbits down and 1Mbit up...right where it should be. We weren't really sure why, but I was happy it was working. About 20 minutes after he left I got a call from AT&T to see how my TV was working. The caller said that they had just done some hardware updates in my area about 30 minutes earlier to fix some pixilation problems that customers in my neighborhood had reported. I guess this update also fixed my internet speeds. Since that phone call, I haven't seen any pixilation at all, and my internet speeds have been consistently where they should be. I even got a 2nd call this evening from another rep just to make sure that things were still working well.

My first impressions using the service are really great. Seeing a demo in a controlled environment is one thing, but actually seeing the service in your house is really impressive. Channel changing is instantaneous, picture quality is great, and the channel lineup rivals anything offered by the other providers. There are some minor issues that should be resolved with the new Motorola boxes (ie. HD content, multiple streams per box, universal remote, etc.), but it looks like AT&T is definitely in position to offer the best product available at a very competitive price.

Well, I'm heading back to watch some more TV. Be sure to check back later in the weekend for pictures and an exclusive story I am currently working on...I won't give too much away now, but I will say that it will enable you to record up to 3 streams at once without having to wait for the Motorola box. I know, I know. You can hardly wait.

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