AT&T - UVerse Service Review

I've had AT&T for my phone line for years, but always used Charter for cable.  Then a UVerse sales manager knocked on my door, offered me (what seemed like) a great deal, and I decided to switch to UVerse.

Theoretical Pros:

bundling can save money

watch DVR'd shows from any TV

faster internet speed

Here's the reality:

The installation was a nightmare.  They didn't tell me that you have to rent a cable box for each TV--with Charter, they only make you rent one.  (Plus, rent is 2 bucks more for ATT.)  So much for saving money with the bundle--I have to rent 3 more cable boxes to get the same service I had with Charter.

The person who took my installation order messed up a bunch of numbers and specifics--they tried to install the whole thing on my office phone, a number I never gave them, and then the system wouldn't recognize the cable boxes.  It took almost 2 weeks for all of the TVs to be functional; my phone and internet were out for a day, and all have stopped working sometimes since then.

The major flaw?  The whole system is rigged up to a single router.  If your internet access goes down, so does everything else.  When your internet needs to routinely reset for a moment, everything resets.  And sometimes, this makes the cable boxes unhappy.

Also, they upgraded their system software just before my installation.  This apparently makes all of the installs for the next 2-4 weeks a mess, because different components aren't compatible anymore.

Their customer service is a joke.  Automated machines, agents who (for the most part) don't speak English.  You can't get a technician out anytime soon, and half the time they're late.  Their website systematically refuses to acknowledge your account ID/password.

As for the perks?  The internet shut down every day for the first 3 weeks of UVerse; since it's kept working, I don't see a difference in speed vs. Charter.  The TV picture is a little better, but they don't have a convenient channel ladder--if I want to add one soccer channel--which was a simple add-on for Charter--I have to pay 35 bucks more to get a huge channel package.

All in all, the perks are okay, but nothing near worth the hassle--not to mention the time I've spent waiting for techs to show up, waiting for techs to repair things, waiting on hold with customer service, trying to get customer service to understand a basic issue...

Terrible experience.  Incredibly unreliable.  Regret ever leaving Charter.