[martieg]

I feel in love with AT&T U-Verse when I was living in NorCal a while back, and I have been faithful even when we moved to the Houston area.

AT&T U-Verse got me with their nice features - mainly being able to record more than one program at a time (4, or 2 HD), and more recently being able to watch from anyone of our 3 tvs. On top of that, NO contract. Internet speed was never as fast as our previous Comcast cable internet though.

However reliability in our Texas home is unacceptable - is breaks too often now, and they have not been able to fix it. I've had it - they gotta go, but who should I bring in?

Comcast - no way - they do not offer whole home DVR. DirecTV and Dish both offer this now? How many channels can you record at the same time? How about internet speed? Channel selection? I need Formula One and Soccer (SpeedHD, ESPNHD, GolTVHD, etc)

Please share your experiences, good or bad, with either service provider - i need to take a decision soon.

[Peanuto]

DON'T DO COMCAST!!!!!!!!!!!!! In Baltimore city we have very few options, all of which are shitty. I don't want to deal with having a dish so my only option is Comcast. They run their company like shit. They don't come out to their service appointments on time, sometimes not at all. They end up magically being more expensive than they should be. If you have a problem and ask to speak to a supervisor, they do not let you. Instead they inform you to leave your information and a supervisor will call you back in 7-10 business days. The installers always do a terrible job. They leave shit all over your house. In addition, when I got the phone service, they only made it so 1 jack, the one that held the base unit, worked. My alarm guy had to fix this when he came so my alarm would operate properly, he guessed immediately that it was Comcast. It is a terrible company run by assholes.

[martieg]

^^^
Thanks! Good to know
I also learned that DirecTV does not offer internet - they do it through a partner, which is AT&T in my area, so back to square one.

[Maestro]

The Problem with AT&T their entire system is base on Microsoft windows CE and Servers. As they add more and more users it requires more and more servers to support. Just like any window systems it is buggy and the more users they add the worse it gets.

Comcast does have whole home DVRs, problem is they do not offer it everywhere, Verizon also offer whole home DVR's, both Comcast and VZ systems are the same made by Motorola and some Cisco. The down side to both these companies is their customer service sucks, if you never have a problem their service is great, but if you do, your head will explode. Also, VZ whole home units only have 160GB HDD so you going to be erasing lost of content to keep recording. They are suppose to increase that this summer. Also, they will offer the ability to add external storage in the future.

Dish, offers multi-room DVR but my understand it requires them to rewire your house, they do not use the existing coax cables they need to run their own. Also, I heard if you do not have it done when they do the initial install you are hosed since they will charge you lots to come back and do it later.

I am not sure Directv has any whole home DVRs, I have not looked lately but the last I checked they did not. I personally had Directv for over 10 yrs, and I always felt their quality and service was the best. Hands down their video quality was years ahead of anyone else, I would say VZ caught up but I do not like their UI on the STB, directv is a bit easier to use. I know people complain that bad storms knock it out, but I lost less time on Directv than I have loss on my comcast internet, that has been down for hour at a time, very the 5 or 10 minutes while a storm blows through.

Also, Directv offer a 1TB HDD in their most recent systems and already support external storage for achieving old content, they record in MPG4 so you can get twice the content on a drive and either comcast or VZ.

[Peanuto]

I think a lot of it has to do with how rural you are. I am in the middle of the city, so we never have problems with electricity/cable going out. If I do, it is a problem with my line not the company. They are a bitch to get to come out though. I wanted to get FIOS, but they won't put it in the city for now, so I am stuck with this.

[Feyd]

I have Dish network because it was all that was available in my high-rise. I'm sure someone somewhere is getting fat off of the contract.

Aside from my initial setup fiasco (because the sales person on the phone was a compelete dumb-ass) it has been really great. I can record two HD shows while watching another with no issues.... survived some big stomes here in chicago with uninterrupted service, etc.

Unfortunatly, no one has been able to replicated the usability of the TIVO interface, but dish has come the closest of anyone to that... so no complaints. I had TWC in Los angeles and their DVR's sucked donkey cock... so the Dish DVRs with their interfaces are light-years above them.

Not sure if you can get internet through them or not. I'm stuck using ATT DSL, again because its all I can get in my building. and yes... it is 1999 slow. *bleh*

[Couch]

Comcast sucks! Period.

[martieg]

Thanks, you all, for the tips

I'm probably staying with U-Verse. They apparently have fixed the problem.

Did you know that the Xbox will be able to act as a Uverse box in a near future software upgrade?

[JayKay335i]

I liked Comcast when I had it. FIOS is buggy back where I live.

[SantaPimp27]

Directv is the best tv provider. Sports heaven lol

[CollinsE90]

Originally Posted by SantaPimp27

Directv is the best tv provider. Sports heaven lol

until one rain drop, and its back to reading newspapers and picking vegetables

[Seminole]

Comcast blows. I'm forced to use them because the complex I live in includes basic cable in my rent and I can't opt out. So I added HD and digital cable on top of the basic cable and just pay the difference to Comcast. Over the past 2 years the price has gone up 50% and never with any explanation or anything from them about why. I have noticed them adding more channels to HD (which is pointless to me since I only watch the same 5 channels) but still, a nice little letter about how/what they've added and the price increase would be nice.

[BTM]

DirecTV user here for many years, no complaints except that the new DVR with Tivo interface isn't out yet