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AT&T U-verse TV - Yet another VOIP topic

Started by GusHerb, July 24, 2011, 08:21:48 PM

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GusHerb

#15
OK new internet and TV is here! Everything went fairly decent. Installer insisted that the new modem be put behind the TV (in the old recession where the tube TV used to be) and I wasn't having it. That's a terrible location for home wired networking purposes and wireless reception. He argued that he is to make the decision on where it's best blah blah blah and if you don't do what he says there will be a 55 dollar fee for a "custom" installation... I knew right away this was the pressure from AT&T talking, not the installer being an asshole (quite a nice guy actually)

Installer used Cat5 to connect the modem to the cable box. We (after lots of arguing and my dad turning blue in the face about to kill this guy) came to the agreement to use the home run he already ran from the NID to the cable box, use the existing home run cable from the NID to the modem (also cat5) and use two of the spare pairs on it for TV and make the splice into the TV run in the box. (could have just ran straight from the modem to the TV but this guy was dead set on putting the modem behind the TV when he ran the cable)

Used a DSL splitter that fits on the NID (Balun as he called it) since we kept both phone lines.
Internet is so far working as it's supposed to, TV is working fine. Extremely happy with the upgraded speed.

He gave us some tips on dealing with the big evil faceless AT&T... Talking to him really confirms just how terrible they treat everyone including there own service people.. I hate big evil faceless corporate monsters. Been reading the Rape Of Ma Bell lately (read it when I was alot younger and couldn't really follow it like I do now haha) and all the pieces just go together. Makes me wish even more that the original AT&T/Ma Bell were still around...

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1428846810.png
Jonathan

old_stuff_hound

Seems like with just about everything, people have a script or pattern they follow, and to get then to vary from that pattern is tremendously difficult. I know with my cell provider, when you call, the agents have a script they follow and they WILL NOT go off script. It's not until about three layers up that you can actually discuss something with someone, rather than just answer questions off a flow chart.

Glad you got it installed (mostly) the way you wanted! I like those bandwidth numbers! ;-)

As for the old Ma Bell, remember Ernestine? "We're the phone company. We don't care, we don't have to."

Shovelhead

Guess I'll be the guinea pig here. I ordered two DialGizmos on the strength of the e-mail received the other night. Justin Vietz said that they will work with U-verse and has sold many in the states. I gambled on two  of them

Now the fun with the installation. First, the installer left the box open to the elements. It rained early this morning, but it still works. I closed the box tonight. Surprised that my wife's puppy did not snag the wires from it.  Outside cabling is sloppy, I'm going to make an issue of it as it will make for a PITA to mow or weed whip as the cable is diagonal from the interface to the underground cable path. A neater installation would to go horizontal to the downtube leading to the basaement.

Second, I think the polarity to the phone side is reversed. While the rotaries will not work, the Touch Tone in the master bedroom. a 1969 Trimline would not break dialtone. Reversed the tip and ring, works now. During the installation, the tech needed access to the wireless transmitter for the cordless GE. He didn't say why, but I suspect he reversed the polarity at the block instead of at the interface.

As soon as I get some time from work to schedule a tech visit

GusHerb

#18
Quote from: Shovelhead on August 18, 2011, 09:36:50 PM
Guess I'll be the guinea pig here. I ordered two DialGizmos on the strength of the e-mail received the other night. Justin Vietz said that they will work with U-verse and has sold many in the states. I gambled on two  of them

Now the fun with the installation. First, the installer left the box open to the elements. It rained early this morning, but it still works. I closed the box tonight. Surprised that my wife's puppy did not snag the wires from it.  Outside cabling is sloppy, I'm going to make an issue of it as it will make for a PITA to mow or weed whip as the cable is diagonal from the interface to the underground cable path. A neater installation would to go horizontal to the downtube leading to the basaement.

Second, I think the polarity to the phone side is reversed. While the rotaries will not work, the Touch Tone in the master bedroom. a 1969 Trimline would not break dialtone. Reversed the tip and ring, works now. During the installation, the tech needed access to the wireless transmitter for the cordless GE. He didn't say why, but I suspect he reversed the polarity at the block instead of at the interface.

As soon as I get some time from work to schedule a tech visit

I'll be interested to hear how those dialgizmo's work. We almost got Uverse phone but I decided NO since then I wouldn't be able to just plug a rotary phone in and dial without something in between it and the modem to convert pulse to tone. My other concern was reliability, I'm skeptical of VOIP and for good reason. Two friends of the family that live not even a half mile away both have Uverse and they both have trouble with it all too often. Just this past week one of them had no phone service for 4 days, the other one I couldn't get through to there house no matter how many time's I tried there number, and most all of that one day.
My other reason for not getting it is i HATE any kind of wait for a call to go through from the time when you finish dialing the number. calling there VOIP lines takes a few seconds. Dialing land line to land line takes all of 1 second to go through, and two seconds long dialing another land line long distance.

Our installer was fairly neat and orderly in his installation, he mainly copied how I routed my wiring that i ran for the phone jacks. Although a couple days later my OCD kicked in and I was re routing that cat 5 he ran for the TV and adding many additional staples. I also found myself making the wiring in the NID look absolutely neat and perfect.
Jonathan

Shovelhead

 The tech is supposed to be out on Sunday evening(!) to fix my concerns. The Dialgizmos did not show up yet so that will be updated later in the week.  BDM and I spoke the other night about a a dial tone issue with my 233G since the changeover.

GusHerb

Well, I think the decision has been made to turn one of our lines into VOIP in the name of money saving. It will be the business line, the one that we mostly don't use and I don't use my old phones on. Vonage offers 11.99 for 300 minutes, Uverse offers 25 dollars for 250 minutes. Does anyone have any reason at all to use Uverse voice instead of Vonage? (call quality, reliability etc) I don't care about the fact that with Uverse voice I can just use our existing modem.

Also, does anyone with Vonage have an ATA/modem that accepts pulse dialing? I heard things in the past about that, but don't know where I heard that from.
Jonathan

AE_Collector

I recently had a problem with a customer using Vonage. Their security system wouldn't reliably communicate over Vonage with the monitoring station. Format was SIA. A change to the 800 number for the monitoring statIon seems to have fixed it. Presumably getting the call off of VOIP and onto PSTN sooner is why the 800 number fixed the problem.

Terry

Shovelhead

Still waiting for the Dialgizmos to show up.  They said that it may take up to fifteen days to arrive in the states.

Update on the tip and ring reversal. The tech was out Sunday and verified that the wiring was correct. We discussed phone design and polarity issues with early touch tones. He stated that there would be no problems with reversing the tip and ring wires.

And as a P.S. I caused confusion to the call center when I said that there was a problem with the tip and ring wire polarity. They had no clue to what I was referring to.

Shovelhead

DialGizmo's arrived today. Installed them, THEY WORK! At least on my 102 and 302. My three slot, well I have some work to do on the dial per my conversations with BDM last week.

I only did a regular dial out, still have to learn all the new features the Gizmos add to the mix.

GusHerb

Quote from: Shovelhead on August 26, 2011, 11:27:48 PM
DialGizmo's arrived today. Installed them, THEY WORK! At least on my 102 and 302. My three slot, well I have some work to do on the dial per my conversations with BDM last week.

I only did a regular dial out, still have to learn all the new features the Gizmos add to the mix.

Glad to hear they work! If we ever get forced into a service that doesn't accept pulse I could use those then.

Only problem is if I have to have one per phone, it could get costly. I have a rotary phone in almost every room, and in the family room two of them on each end of the room. Then the kitchen and library have touchtone Trimlines, so I was quickly scouring the website to see if it was ok to use a touchtone phone with a dialgizmo connected. (if I did have one dialgizmo connected as a whole house device)
Nothing says if it will effect touchtone dialing or not.
Jonathan

old_stuff_hound

Quote from: GusHerb on August 27, 2011, 03:24:54 AM
...I was quickly scouring the website to see if it was ok to use a touchtone phone with a dialgizmo connected. (if I did have one dialgizmo connected as a whole house device)
Nothing says if it will effect touchtone dialing or not.

I would imagine it would be fine -- the DTMF should just be audio content just like voice to the Dialgizmo and the Dialgizmo should just pass it through untouched. Of course that's just conjecture on my part.... ;-)

rtp129495

So I had DSL for many many years since it first came out. Mainly because i despised COX communications and thier premium charges and forcing people to bundle for cheaper prices. so after waiting for AT&T's sloth approuch to running Uverse lines finally this month i was able to order Uverse internet to replace the older DSL after waiting six years or so.

So they send me the modem and self setup instructions etc. When I had ordered u-verse Internet I never requested to turn off POTS. So when my appointment time came, the phone line died and the uverse modem wouldn't connect. So using my cellphone as of course the phone line is dead and I can't dial 611 I call AT&T uverse support. They tell me that Uverse is fine and that after reviewing my order someone "Forgot" to note that I was keeping the POTS part of the line. So they set it up wrong! Now I get to wait two days with NO internet and NO POTS! What great service!!! I can't Imagine in the days of MA Bell that customer service/ordering dept was this bad! I think AT&T got worse or maybe it was SBC that originally set it up. either way they came from same company! I hope once this is resolved it just works for many years like my DSL did!!!

Shovelhead

Once you get all the speed bumps smoothed out you will love Uverse. Switched from DISH and I don't miss their Customer "Service" a bit. AT&T has been a joy to deal with so far. At least they didn't hang up on me like DISH did once during a tech assistance call. Intentionally by their C/S rep because after almost two hours  on the phone I told him that I wanted someone to come out to fix the problem. He told me that I was uncooperative and he was done with me. Unfortunately for him he gave me his name and a tech case number at the start of the call and I wrote it down. ;D Bet he got a tuneup later that day from a supervisor due to my callback ;D

We had a few things to iron out, one being that our WE Touch-Tones (circa 1969) would not break dial tone. Switched polarity via tip and ring, viola, it works. A couple of Dialgizmos installed and the 102, the 302 and the 233G all work again.

GG



As a generalization I'd suggest that folks here not mess with "bundles" of any kind unless they're prepared to undergo various forms of lawful torture to keep their old phones working and maintain reliable service. 

Very often these "new" types of service don't operate with rotary phones.  Very often they use VOIP transmission which means no modems either (don't laugh, there are still viable uses for modems: I use dialup to connect to PBXs for remote programming).  VOIP, depending on how it's implemented, can also result in a decrease in transmission quality, sometimes as bad as a cellphone (G.729 compression). 

Usually these services depend on ATAs that in turn depend on grid power and have a backup battery that might be good for a couple of hours of standby: not a good thing in natural disasters that knock out the grid power. 

Keep the POTS line if you have one.  Only way to be certain that things continue to work as they always have.  And it's reassuring to know the phone will keep working during power failures. 

rtp129495

Well its friday!! and i STILL HAVE NO INTERNET OR POTS!!! my patience with AT&T is running short. I will call them when i get home and ask what the holdup is!!! I can't understand why it would take a week to login to a server and update my account and turn POTS back on. I just don't get what takes so long!!! I hope u-verse internet blows away DSL Speeds I had for the last 6 years!!!