After taking a break from cable TV service for a few months to save up for the house, on Friday we had AT&T U-Verse installed at our new address. U-Verse is a fairly new service that can provide voice, TV, and Internet access over the same line. Technically, it runs over a fiber optic network to your neighborhood and then over the phone line the rest of the way. The technician installs a small box on the exterior of your house and runs an ethernet cable through the wall to an interior outlet, which he plugs into the U-Verse “hub” inside your house. The hub serves as a wireless router with decent speed and range. It also passes the TV signal along to a separate receiver.

The installation was pain-free, about 2 hours in length, with no digging in my yard like I think you’d get with Verizon FIOS. We’re getting TV and Internet but not voice. For the first couple of days I had a few problems with the Internet connection. Service was spotty, and I kept having to log into my own network every time I put my laptop to sleep. I also had a couple of minor issues with the TV service. But now, a few days later, both are working very well. It seems like all the widgets had to learn how to play nicely together. I just have one minor problem with my mail software, so I might call later this week.

For similar programming, U-Verse seems to be a bit more expensive, but you also get more. I went with U-Verse mainly for two reasons: 1) More HD channels than Time Warner. 2) The ability to program my DVR remotely via phone or computer. It also adds some other nice features such as PIP preview, instant channel changing (instead of the delay I got from TW), free access to thousands of AT&T hotspots around the country, and interactive weather. The main thing I dislike about the TV service is the digital music. It offers some nice channels but is missing a “spa music” channel I liked on TW, and I prefer TW’s on-screen trivia for the current song. But overall I like it. Actually, I’m just happy to have TV again. We’re happily recording episodes of The Simpsons and NCIS, watching the Stanley Cup playoffs and HGTV in beautiful high definition, and cranking up the subwoofer on everything from BB King to Taylor Swift. I’m seeing a Super Bowl party in our future…

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UPDATE 12/31/09: We canceled U-Verse TV after several months. Although we enjoyed the service, it was costing us about $80 a month, more than comparable service with Time Warner Cable. We bought an HD antenna instead. Sure, we miss the channels and music we lost, but we love getting to keep the money. We still use U-Verse internet, which I do NOT like. The provided (required!) router drops the connection probably once per hour, taking about 20 seconds to re-establish it. The speed is variable, sometimes close to the advertised speed, sometimes much slower. I’m supposedly running 3.0 mbps but Skype teleconference is really rough and jerky. I would switch to TW cable internet, but we don’t have any cable outlets or a cable modem and I don’t want to pay for them. Eventually, though, I’ll probably make the switch because this is ridiculous.