Uverse Internet.. Fiber to home

[zCypher]

As someone who works for a large ISP, I can tell you that it has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Whether it is fiber to the house or fiber to the node is utterly and completely irrelevant. People get so hung up on this, it is hilarious.

I frequently see average ping times of 10ms on old crusty ATM/DMT2 network infrastructure from the ISP network to the customer's modem. This means that barring any broken outside/inside wire (which fiber is not magically impervious to), there is absolutely zero difference to the end user, unless subscribed to a plan that takes advantage of the higher theoretical throughput of fiber vs whatever.

ISPs are offering up to 100mbps even over copper. VDSL can deliver 4-5ms average ping times. So any "ping issues" you're having would not be due to the last mile physical topology. Unless it is physically broken in some way.

Fiber has its advantages, which is why most of everything from the node away from the customer is already all fiber and has been for a long time. Your existing cable and DSL services have already been running off a fiber optic network for a long time.

Can fiber to the house deliver even better throughput and even better ping times? Sure it can. Ping times under 1ms can be observed from network to modem, but the difference is irrelevant to the end user in terms of any real world effect. If your ping times are poor enough to disrupt your gaming experience, it has nothing whatsoever to do with your last mile being a particular tech.

If you require download/upload speeds that would otherwise be impossible, then you care about changing to fiber. For ping times alone? Nah.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

where i live its pretty straightforward: att is much slower, more expensive and requires a contract and special equipment from uverse while xfinity is faster, cheaper, no contract and u can use any cable modem. why are peeps considering moving from comcast to att

 

[BUTCH1]

all signs point to ATT being trouble.

Comcast didn't even seem to care that I called and asked how the proration for cancelling worked, and what equipment I had to return. I hoped they might put me to a retention department.

That sucks about the HD compression.

Do they ever charge for data over 250GB/month? I thought I never hit that.. for some reason I went over and around that for the past couple of months. maybe too much VPN with work stuff. I see the terms about 250GB/mo on the contract. although they said something that I was getting business class modem, etc. again.. might be a total BS sales move.

It's LOL how all the ISP's operate, we were with Bright house, (TWC) for many years and I called and asked if they could throw me a bone, a promo rate for awhile because other ISP's were running specials and I was thinking about switching. I was told, "we don't price-match"..OK I said, I might as well think about getting disconnected, "I can take care of that for you right now". Wow, I was shocked to see no effort into retention so a week later we dumped them. Now they are sending us crap in the mail on a regular basis for guess what, promo rates!, morons, that's all I wanted in the 1st place. Their HDTV quality was better than what U-verse is providing now and I never had any issues with Youtube refusing to work either. I do like the whole-house wireless technology offered by U-verse but I can't help but think that involes a tradeoff in quality.

 

[Wreckem]

I have had zero problems with Uverse Gigapower 100/100. I could go to 1000/1000 but I don't even saturate 100/100.

Uverse has better PQ than TWC by far. When I moved I originally went with TWC but two dozen service calls later, multiple complaints to the FCC, and Gigapower rolling out to my area I decided to switch back to AT&T. I also got all 4 months of bills refunded to me.

At my old place I wasn't really happy with regular Uverse because all I could get was their 18Mbps service and yeah there were issues with PQ at times and slowness of the internet at others.

 

[drbrock]

I would be with comcast if the TV part of comcast wasn't so horrible. ATT has far better DVR and guide functions.

However, I do miss Comcast internet. It was so much better. It infuriates me when youtube on Xbox One buffers randomly. Xbox does not even support the high resolution content yet. Def not my router. Replaced my old one with a brand new Apple Time Capsule.

 

[Phoenix86]

I switched to U-verse last November and am having 2nd thoughts, 1st off is their compression methods for HD leave a LOT to be desired, vrey noticable artifacts even with a 2008 vintage LCD panel.

This is my only real complaint with u-verse.

 

[BUTCH1]

This is my only real complaint with u-verse.

It's bad enough that I will sometimes watch something on my '32 SDTV in the bedroom, it actually looks clearer. Then when the installer was hooking everything up I told him the "32 set had a S-VHS input to which he replied, "oh no, the RF works much better"..huh, by using S-VHS connector your skipping the entire tuner section and feeding the video signal directly to the processing board, how could the RF on channel 3 work better?. After he left I dug around and got an S-VHS cable out and hooked it up that way, picture and sound were both dramatically improved, I guess he was too lazy to go back to his van and look around for an S-VHS cable.

 

[spacelord]

Uverse guarantees that my speed will be 18mbps, and no less than 2% less than the quoted speed. I know that doesn't guarantee that I can get 18mbps straight from YouTube when I want.
I have no saturation issues on my cable modem. A friend has Charter or something in another state and he says that his cable modem saturates in the evenings.. especially when they had a couple of snow days and everyone was presumably sitting home watching Netflix, etc.

 

[PlanetJosh]

I have Uverse for the net (tv and phone too) but there's no ATT fiber yet in this area of San Diego, California. So I'll just wait and keep using their top plan with the 3MB/sec down.

 

[CZroe]

It's bad enough that I will sometimes watch something on my '32 SDTV in the bedroom, it actually looks clearer. Then when the installer was hooking everything up I told him the "32 set had a S-VHS input to which he replied, "oh no, the RF works much better"..huh, by using S-VHS connector your skipping the entire tuner section and feeding the video signal directly to the processing board, how could the RF on channel 3 work better?. After he left I dug around and got an S-VHS cable out and hooked it up that way, picture and sound were both dramatically improved, I guess he was too lazy to go back to his van and look around for an S-VHS cable.

My understanding is that RF actually can be better as long as it is modulated from the RGB source before it becomes composite or S-Video. After all, it's full NTSC specification.

 

[BUTCH1]

My understanding is that RF actually can be better as long as it is modulated from the RGB source before it becomes composite or S-Video. After all, it's full NTSC specification.

No, there is no way it can be better, your taking the same source and putting it through a complete modulation/demodulation cycle, there will be a hit on quality, also the S-VHS is already full NTSC spec or the TV would not play it.

 

[CZroe]

No, there is no way it can be better, your taking the same source and putting it through a complete modulation/demodulation cycle, there will be a hit on quality, also the S-VHS is already full NTSC spec or the TV would not play it.

Newsflash: "The source" is not S-Video chroma and luma. S-Video takes a hit from the source too. NTSC broadcasts are full NTSC specification and bandwidth. I don't know that S-Video is capable of reproducing it exactly.

 

[Fritzo]

I have the 18 mb plan through uverse and have no problems watching Youtube videos. In the past for a couple weeks at a time there have been issues, but nothing in the past 6 months.

Are you watching between 6-11pm? This is a well documented issue. Check out DSLReports.

 

[Fritzo]

As someone who works for a large ISP, I can tell you that it has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Whether it is fiber to the house or fiber to the node is utterly and completely irrelevant. People get so hung up on this, it is hilarious.

I frequently see average ping times of 10ms on old crusty ATM/DMT2 network infrastructure from the ISP network to the customer's modem. This means that barring any broken outside/inside wire (which fiber is not magically impervious to), there is absolutely zero difference to the end user, unless subscribed to a plan that takes advantage of the higher theoretical throughput of fiber vs whatever.

ISPs are offering up to 100mbps even over copper. VDSL can deliver 4-5ms average ping times. So any "ping issues" you're having would not be due to the last mile physical topology. Unless it is physically broken in some way.

Fiber has its advantages, which is why most of everything from the node away from the customer is already all fiber and has been for a long time. Your existing cable and DSL services have already been running off a fiber optic network for a long time.

Can fiber to the house deliver even better throughput and even better ping times? Sure it can. Ping times under 1ms can be observed from network to modem, but the difference is irrelevant to the end user in terms of any real world effect. If your ping times are poor enough to disrupt your gaming experience, it has nothing whatsoever to do with your last mile being a particular tech.

If you require download/upload speeds that would otherwise be impossible, then you care about changing to fiber. For ping times alone? Nah.

Uverse is permanently set to Interleave to make sure the service can be delivered, so ping times are frequently around the 50ms range.

 

[Phoenix86]

Uverse is permanently set to Interleave to make sure the service can be delivered, so ping times are frequently around the 50ms range.

It's not that bad, I have at&t fiber at work (to the router) and get 5-8ms pings to google. At home with fiber to the node I get between 10-20.

Everything after the first hop (or two?) is the same network in my area.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Are you watching between 6-11pm? This is a well documented issue. Check out DSLReports.

It's 9:27 pm et here and I have the Uverse 18Mbps plan.

And just for shits and giggles, I watched a 5:00 long video on YouTube with NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER.

And that was all while these actions were taking place at the same time:

* one of the TVs in the house tuned to an HD channel
* SiriusXM internet radio streaming on my HP Stream 7 tablet
* web surfing here and elsewhere on my desktop PC

So I'm not sure what "documented issues" you are referring to but they are obviously not entirely true for everyone.

 

[spacelord]

Does TV take some of the allotted bandwidth with Uverse?

 

[Fritzo]

It's 9:27 pm et here and I have the Uverse 18Mbps plan.

And just for shits and giggles, I watched a 5:00 long video on YouTube with NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER.

And that was all while these actions were taking place at the same time:

* one of the TVs in the house tuned to an HD channel
* SiriusXM internet radio streaming on my HP Stream 7 tablet
* web surfing here and elsewhere on my desktop PC

So I'm not sure what "documented issues" you are referring to but they are obviously not entirely true for everyone.

My company used to resell Uverse. There's a lot of stuff not to like, which is why we don't sell it anymore.

 

[BUTCH1]

Newsflash: "The source" is not S-Video chroma and luma. S-Video takes a hit from the source too. NTSC broadcasts are full NTSC specification and bandwidth. I don't know that S-Video is capable of reproducing it exactly.

Yea, it does, it was created as a means to avoid using RF. I can attest to this fact because the picture and sound quality went up dramatically after switching to the S-VHS cable. The "source" in this case is the U-verse box on top of the TV so it's the same signal, and there is no such thing as "S-Video chroma and luma", it's croma, "color information" and luma, " brightness information". Using S-VHS is a means of avoiding having to use RF and stay on channel 3, it was one of the earliest methods of doing so followed by component output (were the RGB signals are separated) Bypassing an RF section is always better, if it wasn't then every DVD player or cable box would not feature anything BUT RF out.

 

[Phoenix86]

Does TV take some of the allotted bandwidth with Uverse?

Not to my understanding, it's separated. We have 2 HD channels going, 1 HD recording going, and I just loaded a 1080P youtube video. It switch to 1080 about 3 seconds after I selected it and after 20 seconds I could jump to 2:30 w/o loading.

The at&t network is really fast. Whatever speeds you're paying for you get. There was a time where youtube/netflix was shit but most providers were throttling back then. Now it's fine, like I suspect it is with most providers.

 

[chimaxi83]

Does TV take some of the allotted bandwidth with Uverse?

Yes it does, which is why your line is running at a higher speed than your internet speed, for a little bit of buffer. That's called your line profile. If you have 45m internet, your profile is 55m. If you have 24m internet, your profile is at 32m (this is the most common profile). If you have four HD streams going, no way around that. 45m internet maxes out around 20m with four simultaneously playing HD streams. So the Comcast commercials pointing that out are accurate.

 

[Hugh Jass]

My company used to resell Uverse. There's a lot of stuff not to like, which is why we don't sell it anymore.

OK...so I point out your major incorrectness and you come back with a statement full of nothing substantial in the way of rebuttal...excellent debate technique.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Not to my understanding, it's separated.

Actually your understanding is incorrect. In fact, the TV service gets priority over the internet service if the two have to compete for bandwith.

I'm not going to repost what chimaxi posted but read his post and you'll understand the nature of your incorrectness.

 

[CZroe]

Yea, it does, it was created as a means to avoid using RF. I can attest to this fact because the picture and sound quality went up dramatically after switching to the S-VHS cable. The "source" in this case is the U-verse box on top of the TV so it's the same signal, and there is no such thing as "S-Video chroma and luma", it's croma, "color information" and luma, " brightness information". Using S-VHS is a means of avoiding having to use RF and stay on channel 3, it was one of the earliest methods of doing so followed by component output (were the RGB signals are separated) Bypassing an RF section is always better, if it wasn't then every DVD player or cable box would not feature anything BUT RF out.

LOL at describing S-Video exactly the same way I did while thinking you were contradicting me!

You didn't seem to understand anything else I said either. I didn't say that the RF output from a Uverse box was superior to S-Video from a Uverse box. I said that THEORETICALLY, RF can be higher quality than S-Video considering the source it was modulated from and obviously taking steps to ensure a clean signal without other RF interference. An Nintendo 64 RF modulator that takes a composite source certainly isn't going to be better than an N64 S-Video cable, but one that is properly engineered into the source device could use RGB+Sync or VGA or other "better than S-Video" sources and, theoretically, maintain more of the original quality than a similar conversion to S-Video.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

uh why is peeps paying $60a mumf for 18mb uverse win they cood git 50 mb for 40 from comcast