Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
Yesterday’s announcement by AT&T offering a great site where you could watch online shows was just a tip of the iceberg. Here’s 25 Places to Watch the Fall TV Season Online
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
About 18 months ago, I asked Ralph de la Vega when I could control my AT&T U-verseSM TV with my iPhone. Well now, I can. Sort of. As long as you are away from home.
AT&T has a free application from the Apple App Store to make scheduling and managing recordings on their DVR even easier when you’re away from home.
The U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App for iPhone and iPod touch lets customers record their content from virtually anywhere and is another example of U-verse TV applications and DVR enhancements that have been rolled out to customers at no extra charge.
The app allows users to easily search U-verse TV program listings from the full program guide, view descriptions of selected programs, schedule program or series recordings, manage or edit scheduled recordings, and delete stored DVR content.
The Mobile Remote Access App is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.
The launch of the new U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App follows several DVR enhancements that are currently being rolled out to U-verse TV customers, including an exclusive new Total Home DVR feature that allows customers to schedule and delete recordings from any U-verse receiver in the home — all from a single DVR.
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
My $99 per month U-verse plan that gives me the whole enchilada of the U-verse 400 package, 6 MB of Internet and U-verse Voice is expiring in mid-June. TimeWarner in my market is offering something similar, but not quite as extensive at $99 per month. Plus TimeWarner will give me a $100 rebate to switch, minus the $40 installation fee, giving me a net rebate of $60 per month.
Having made several calls over the last week, I did manage to negotiate the following:
Everything stays the same, but with the following modifications.
They offered to keep the plan at $99 if I agreed to go to the U-200 plan. That meant losing Showtime, HBO and a few other movie channels. I can do without most of the movie channels, but I really do like HBO.
The friendly customer service person offered me HBO at $14.95 per month. I said no. He countered with $5.00 per month. I said yes.
My landline service still costs $25 per month, and I am still on the fence about it. That’s $300 per year for service I hardly use. I could use that money to buy a Kindle or just save it. I kept the land line, but am inclined to kill it.
For now, I have won a small victory. What was going to go back to costing me $179 per month, will now cost me $104 per month – minus of course a few movie channels I can live with out.
I have a video that I am making the tracks the conversations with AT&T which I will try to post this week.
I still believe that AT&T offers a better and more comprehensive service than TimeWarner does. I just was not prepared to pay a massive premium.
Stay tuned.
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
Over the last two years, I have been meeting periodically with San Antonio’s Ed Cross, whose vision of making the city’s urban core a great and fun place to live. Now with his Vistana ready for move in, Ed decided to go with U-verse that is pre-wired in the building. Here’s my interview and tour….
The Vistana – Urban Residential High Rise Apartments in San Antonio with AT&T U-verse from Alan Weinkrantz on Vimeo.
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
AT&T is once again disrupting the cable and satellite companies as they illustrate what IP communications can do. As my pal, Jeff Pulver, used to tell me, "on IP networks, video is just an application." Case in point is AT&T offering customers the chance to follow and participate in College Basketball Playoffs.
Here’s what you do: To set up your brackets for College Basketball from Yahoo! Sports, log in at att.net and click on "Sports" to pick the teams you think will advance. You can complete your bracket anytime between when the brackets are announced until the first game tips off. Once the tournament begins, U-verse TV customers can easily track the accuracy of their team picks by viewing their brackets on their U-verse TV screen. Correct picks will be highlighted in green and losing picks will be highlighted in red.
Any AT&T employee in San Antonio that does not have U-verse, and is a basketball fan, can email me: alan at weinkrantz dot com and you’ll get an invite to hang out with me during the playoffs. As long as you have a proper AT&T ID, reach out and touch someone (me) for some hoops of IPTV fun.
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
Even with financial markets imploding, there is some good news out there.
I just learned that AT&T now has more than HD Channels in every market they are in when compared to the old school cable company.
With recent expansions to the U-verse TV HD lineup, customers can now enjoy ABC Family HD, Disney Channel HD, Disney XD HD, ESPNews HD and ESPNU HD as part of their existing HD service subscription, depending on their programming package. With the additions, U-verse TV offers 100 or more HD channels in every U-verse TV market.
AT&T U-verse TV has two HD subscription options.
HD service is included with the U450 programming package and available for $10 a month with any other U-verse TV programming package. U-verse HD customers can get even more HD-exclusive channels with the HD Premium package for an additional $5 a month. All U-verse TV packages include HD-ready equipment, and most packages include an HD-ready Total Home DVR, which gives you the ability to record your HD programs from a single DVR and watch them on any connected TV.
For additional information on AT&T U-verse — or to find out if it’s available in your area — visit http://uverse.att.com. Customers can get more information about U-verse TV programming and television events by visiting http://uverse.att.com/uconnect.
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
As the phone company as we no longer know it reaches 1,000,000 home subscribers to U-verse, you would think that they would provide a Channel Guide within the Yahoo TV listing to include U-verse.
Anyone care to chime in? So why no channel guide for U-verse?
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
Here’s an example of a piece
I just submitted to an Telecommunications industry trade publication, XChange Magazine on my take about U-verse and the Experience retail stores.
Do you have something to say about AT&T and your U-verse experience?
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
For several months, I have had AT&T’s Internet Max service which gives me 10MB speed in the house.
Frankly, I don’t see a huge difference.
I am going back to the Elite service which gives me 6MB speed.
It costs $20.00 less per month.
That’s $240.00 per year in savings.
But wait, there’s more. The customer service rep then offered me one month of free HD (saving me $10) and $10 off of my U-verse Voice for the next six months which comes to $60.00. I did not ask for it. He just offered. If you don’t get an offer like this, ask!
Any one else doing this?
Let me know- alan at weinkrantz dot com
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
Attention WalMart (and Circuit City) customers….
AT&T today announced agreements with Circuit City and Wal-Mart to sell AT&T U-verseSM TV and AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet in more than 600 retail locations beginning this month.
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
At first glance, the just announced i.TV free programming guide for the
iPhone would be a really handy tool for checking out the latest programming on AT&T’s U-verse.
On small problem.
In my zip code of 78209, they offer TimeWarner, Grande, DirectTV and others, but I guess someone forgot to tell them to include AT&T.
Wouldn’t it stand to reason that if AT&T sold the iPhone, provided the voice service for the iPhone, that they would have worked with the nice people at i.TV to include U-verse programming?
Comments? alan at weinkrantz dot com
Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com
AT&T has announced that its AT&T U-verse TV ranks highest in customer satisfaction among residential television customers in all three regions where it was ranked, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Residential Television Service Provider Satisfaction Study.
In the annual study of television service, customers cited AT&T for exceptional performance and reliability, customer service, cost of service, billing, and offerings and promotions.
While all of these issues are important, I wonder why J.D. Power is not asking more in-depth questions about how and why users are switching to AT&T- and why.
I also think it would behoove J.D. Power to ask if users know and understand what an IP network is, what you can do with an IP network in your home, and how / why IP is a disruptive force.
Anyone out there care to chime in?
Email me: alan at weinkrantz dot com.
