So maybe I was wrong about ATT

So, in my post before this one, I was complaining about ATT and the problems.  I had been having problems with the service3 for about the last month or two with the service cutting out, as well which would cause the internet to go down as well as the T.V. and phone, because all the Uverse services run off of the one Gateway.  We have had two different home calls to our house to fix it, and the verdict- A kinked cable.  What was causing the problem on three T.V., one of which was a DVR, 6 phones, and the internet on 4 computers?  One kinked cable leading to the Gateway.  Thats it.  ATT, who was surprised when I figured out the problem on their Alpha stage Fiber Optic home internet, T.V. and phone service, said to me that since the service is so new, there is not real set of steps on how to trouble shoot any of the prodblems with the system.  None.  All they have to do, and this is in on instalation, is get the internet up first, and then they kinda gotta play the rest by ear.

Kinda odd for a 118 Billion dollar a year corporation, but I figure there are both idiots, and human all the way up to the top.

Microsoft IPTV Sucks sooooo much! And ATT does too.

Since January of this year, I have been using Microsoft IPTV based equipment by Motorola.  The service it runs on – AT&T Fiber Optic.  The download speed it absorbs per box – 6 Mb/s.  How good it works- not so priceless.  Don’t get me wrong, the Internet download speeds is very fast, but that is where the good qualities end.  The Internet is prone to constant crashing, and the T.V. is prone to constant freezing.  The weird thing is that neither or at the same time.  The boxes usually store a long enough cache of what is happening to get by with the Internet crashes, but the boxes just freeze.  Randomly and when we haven’t had an Internet down time in several hours.  I called them and asked them (Them being the AT&T U-Verse team) weather or not this was the box re caching what is happening.  They said no, the box re-caches on restart, and that it doesn’t even need the cache to run right, just as kind of an “anti-skip” like iPods have.

So I call them again.  They tell me now that there has been a red light on one of our boxes for several weeks, and that we were never contacted because they thought the red light was a false alarm (thanks AT&T for making sure).  They ask me if it is doing it on the rest of the T.V.s, which it is, and tell me that it must be some different problem, cause it would only happen on that one box.

What is the verdict?  Turns out that it was not A  box, my Internet, or anything like that, but all of them.  They said that Microsoft IPTV software (based on my least favorite thing, windows) is just kinda buggy, and will hopefully get fixed with updates down the road.

I’m sure there is a technical explanation to the boxes not working, other then a Mac user trying to give the panacea answer; Microsoft.  But in all actuality, not even the U-Verse team wanted to go further into the issue.