ladytonya's profile

Teacher

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30 Messages

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011 3:37 AM

Installation tomorrow

I have my installation appointment tomorrow and have read all the documents on getting ready for installation and am still wondering what to expect. I live in an apartment and called the building manager on Friday, she told me that she had never been asked about getting U-verse installed and that she knew several people in the complex have that service. I had read somewhere that I had to have permission from the apartment to get the installation.

 

I am also wondering about the jacks in the walls and if they will just use those or if they'll have to install new jacks of some kind. Currently, I have Charter Cable with HD and DVR. The only other jacks in the apartment are telephone but they've not been used in the year we've been here because we don't have a land line telephone. So, does the U-verse service run through regular cable connections or through telephone jacks? I've read here and it gives all the technical names for the jacks or cable, not sure which, but I have no clue what that all means. If I am understadning correctly, one is ethernet cable, one is cable tv cable, and one is telephone cable.

 

One other questions I just thought of. Everything I read said not to disconnect your old service provider until the U-verse is installed and working, but how does that work if it is the cable connection that they are using for the U-verse services? The more I read, the more confused I am getting! While I am fairly proficient on a computer and have even set up my own WiFi network in three different living situation, I don't know the names of all the different cables and connections. Any explanation for what typically happens with internet and TV installation in an apartment would be greatly helpful! Thanks!

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Mentor

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27 Messages

13 years ago

Let me see if I can make this simpler. Ok for terms, you have the following. Phone line, coax which is your normal cable that screws into the back of your current dvr's, Ethernet, residential gateway which is the modem with built in wifi.

In most cases they will use coax to do the hook up. Think of the hook up like pipes. Ok so you have the pipe to your house, and you have 2 possible pipes that can be connected to your house. Charter, and att. Right now the att pipe is just sitting there without anything connected to it. Basically the tech is going to unscrew the pipe your connected to, charter, and connect it to att.

Ok now say you live in an old old old building, if you have bad wiring they may switch it out, so you can get the best possible speed for your Internet. Meaning say you have 40 your old wiring, it may not be up to par to support 24mb download, and hd service. Chances are it can but who knows. So they will probably just shorten the wire and cut it and put on a new connector so that you can without any problems. When it comes to the hd service and picture quality I depends on the channel I find really. Some stations I watch are outstanding, while others may not be that great but by no means horrible.

Now once they do their task outside, they will come in and hook up the residential gateway, and the DVR. That's it. Once the residential gateway is hooked up you just have to plug the Ethernet into your. All of the info to get inside the RG will be on the side of it and they will write everything down for you also

New Member

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25.7K Messages

13 years ago

Basically when the tech gets there, before you even see them, they will check the outside premise & have I&R set up everything outside, so that they can do what they need inside your apartment.

If you are keeping a landline or POTS, they will wire the U-Verse RG on the other pair, and from there, they will use the inside Coax that you currently have, to wire up the DVR & Set top if you are having a second tv set wired. They will change out the splitter & cox ends for newer ones.

Just make sure that they do not have to move or unhook anything, so they can work as efficient. Ask questions also, which means that you are interested in how they are doing it, and when they get done, act like you have never had a dvr before, or any type of cable tv service.

The one screen that you should ask them to show, is the following: Menu > Options > System Options > System Information > System Resources. Also ask the about: Menu > Recordings > Recording Space.

If you are getting Internet also, and you have a Windows computer, go to http://www.uverserealtime.com and download the program. One of the regulars on here created it, and it is a very useful tool. I use it to watch the bandwidth when we watch Nettflix, and the useage, to see how much we use. I also use it to see what channel my son is watching on his set top. We use about 40 to 45 gig a month, which is pretty much watching Netflix in the highest profile, which allows for HD movie watching.

Do not hesitate to ask questions regarding the service. I have been satisfied with it, compared to when we had Comcast. Even my wife's grandmother & my wife's best friend's mom is very satisfied with the service. Some people are really picky about HD, especially with Sports, but if you tweak your tv, especially if you have a HD set, with something like the THX Optimizer on something like the Star Wars DVD's, and set the Sharpness down, it does help, and the picture quality is not bad.  I am watching right now Star Wars Return of the Jedi on Spike,  and UverseRealtime says that it is 5.7 meg bitrate, and without action, it is decent quality, not as good as Netflix, but it is good and sharp.  You can see some artifacting during the fast action scenes like the speedbike race in the forest, but it is nothing to loose sleep over or call the system bad.

Mentor

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27 Messages

13 years ago

Well they ideally will probably use the regular CATV cable that you use for your HD Cable service. I think they say you have to get permission just incase you have to do something that requires them to install something on the complex itself. Not sure. I have had my service for about 2 months now and love it.

 

What they did when they did my install was they came in and tested the line, and went to check the hookups downstairs to make sure the line was good. Came back up, shortened the cable, cut it installed new cable (same line type), and started hooking it up. 

 

The longest part was changing the hook up downstairs from the Time Warner I had to the AT&T line.

 

WIth AT&T you can get 3 different serives, DSL which is through the phone line, which ideally you do not want. Then you have the broadband that is via CATV, either through Coax cable, or Ethernet. They basically swtich the line downstairs (in my case) to point to AT&T. WIth Coax cable (your regular cable tv line) depending on the quality it will effect what speed you can support internet wise from my understanding. Like If you have very old bad wiring they will probably switch it out so you can support higher speeds. Where as ethernet is ideal because those issues shouldnt effect you. 

 

So once they switch everything over, the line is still active just points to AT&T. From there depending on how you have everything wired will determine how you get hooked up. 

 

In my case they hooked up the residental gateway in the office with Coax. Actually everything was hooked up via coax cable. All except the dvr is the office, that is plugged into the residental gateway via ethernet.

Teacher

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30 Messages

13 years ago

Now I am even more confused! Ack! I currently have Charter cable and internet. I am switching to U-verse TV and internet. I do not understand what a lot of the terms you guys are using mean. Currently, I have two TVs, both HD, on cable boxes with crappy (meaning really really small) DVRs. The picture quality, however, is excellent! I didn't' realize that I might be degrading my picture quality without a lot of adjustment. I don't know how to adjust my TV, it has always just worked as is. About all we watch is baseball and I love the quality of the picture. If that quality is degraded with U-verse, that might be a deal breaker!

Our living room and office are next to each other. The cable connection (I'm assuming that's what you are calling coax?) is actually in the same wall, back to back. That is what the Charter boxes are connected to by the round cable with the twist connectors on the end. Like I said in my first post, I know absolutely nothing about all these technical terms for the wiring and cords they use.

We do not have a land line at all, never have. We have never had telephone service in this apartment. There is a big wall phone jack in the kitchen. The jack in the living room is on the total opposite side of the room than my TV so using that is not even an option. If there is a TV jack in the office, I don't know where it is. I moved everything from around the jacks that are near the TVs in the two rooms, there are no telephone jacks in either place.

I think maybe I am just reading too much and trying too much to understand all this stuff to make sure the installation going quickly and I ask all the right questions. It would make sense to me that ethernet connections would be better than cable, but can they run that different cable with there not being a telephone jack on the same wall as my TV? Also, in the office, the desktop computer is connected by ethernet cable to the current wireless cable modem. Our laptops, PS3, Wii, M-Cell, and printer are all connected to the WiFi. I set that up all myself, with the security I wanted to use.

Okay, I keep thinking or more and more stuff, I might need to reconsider this whole thing because I am finding that I just don't know as much about this as I thought! Ack! What software will I need to install on our computers? I am VERY picky about what I put on our computers, I never install unknown third party programs and wouldn't' let the Charter tech put any of his security crap on my computer when he did the install. Nobody touches my computers but me! I guess anything that would have to be installed would be on the desktop that is hard wired to the router and not to one of our laptops? Nothing is going on my MacBook Pro as again, I do not install superfluous software on this laptop! My husband's laptop will not be here when the installation is done because he will have it at work with him. At this point, do I need to just cancel this appointment until I can understand all this stuff? My internet connection is extremely important for work and school and I cannot afford to had any service interruptions or any problems with getting this WiFi up and running with my laptop and printer. I don't know what to do!

New Member

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25.7K Messages

13 years ago

Nothing confusing about it. You call Charter after the switch. What ATT does, is they get the okay from your building management that they are going to be doing some work in one of the apartments, and from there, the tech shows up, knocks on your door, and goes to where the Coax splitter is in your unit, and unhooks the line from from the outside box that Charter feeds the apartments with their service. When they unhook the Charter feed, they take the coax that feeds the various rooms in your apartment, and change the ends to new coax fittings, place the proper splitter for U-verse in that ATT service will work.

Once they do the work where the splitter is, they place the RG in a location, that they are able to have a phone line to feed the U-verse service from the V-Rad to the RG or gateway, which feeds the STB & DVR. If it happens, that there is a coax & telephone line right where your tv set is in your living room, it will be real easy for the work. If you are only having a DVR installed, they will use a Cat-5e Jumper to connect the DVR to the RG, and will connect the RG to the telephone jack. If you have a HD set, and already have a HDMI cable or Component cables hooked up to your charter box, they will just disconnect those, and plug those into the DVr or Set top if not getting the DVR.

After hooked up, they will make sure that they have good signal levels from the V-rad, even though they checked before entering your apartment, and show you how to run the new U-Verse equipment. If you are getting Internet, they will walk you through setting up your ATT account at http://uverse.att.com and you will use that login to access your email through http://my.yahoo.com if you wish to use yahoo for email.

If you are also getting phone with U-Verse as the "Triple Play", they will hook up a phone to the RG, or will use the second pair in your apartment jack to wire the phone jacks, so that you can hook a phone up in another room that will connect to the RG. Basically incoming from the V-Rad to the apartment will be on one telephone pair, and inside the apartment, they will use the other pair.

Over all, it should take no more than an hour to complete. My wife's grandmother's took about two hours to complete, because they had to hunt down a junction point for the telephone wiring in the hallway drop ceiling, because her building uses landlines to buzz in people at the entry doors, so she has both a landline and U-verse just for Internet & TV.

 

And as for DVR's having small drives, keep in mind, that with Charter & ATT, you are leasing the equipment, not owning it, even though with Charter, you can use a Tivo-3 with cable cards to allow for your own dvr with a large hard drive space.  Providers intend the DVR's to be used to allow recording of programs to watch later, not to archive programming, which I know a lot of people do with home brew dvr's and like the tivo-3, that you can have terra-bytes of programming.

 

The whole concept of companies like Charter, Comcast, ATT, etc, is that they are allowing you to time shift and record now, watch later stuff, that is why you see drives no larger on a lot of units of around 160 gb, some dvrs have like 320gb, which started to become the norm due to people want to record the majority of HD programming.  My DVR says something like 274.9gb, which is about 300 hours for SD, and about 110 hours of HD.  Right now, we have used about 13% of the space on our DVR, which is all HD programs.  We will delete after watching, due to pretty much everything gets repeated on TV, or we can catch on Netflix, Amazon, Crackle, Qriocity.com even on our Blu-Ray.  There are just too many ways to catch stuff now days, so saving forever is no longer the norm really.

New Member

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25.7K Messages

13 years ago

Now, if they can not get to the phone plates, or coax plates, or even worst, the splitter either in the closet in your apartment, or utility closet, depending on where it is in your apartment, they may not be able to complete the installation. They need unhindered access to everything needed to complete their job, and if there is stuff in the way, or rooms are unaccessible or full of stuff, it makes their day longer, and creates a level of frustration for everyone, which that includes you the customer.

Teacher

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30 Messages

13 years ago

I appreciate the attempt but you mught as eell be talking greek.with coax splitter rg stp vrad stuff Can someone answer my questions in plain English? This us the first I am reading about a phine jack being involved in this whole process! I thiught everything would ckme throught the cable connections just like my current setup? Half of what you typed in that last message does nothing to answer my questions as it is either greek or not what I asked about! You have ti excuse my terrible typing as I am on my Nook Color and typing on this thing is a PIT@! Thanks.

Mentor

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27 Messages

13 years ago

No phone line. It should be using coax. Also you do not need to install anything on your pc. That is more of just a tool for information for I would say power users. You do not need to install anything

Teacher

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30 Messages

13 years ago

Now that I re-read your post, I don't think you read mine! I am getting TV and internet, no phone and we do not phone service at all in the apartment, don't want or need it. Both TVs have cable connections right by them, the cable boxes are currently connected to tbem. No phone jack nearbg but that shouldn't matter because we're not getting phone service, right?

Teacher

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30 Messages

13 years ago

Thanks Sammie! So, I do not have to use phone jacks at all? One is in the kitchen and one on the opposite side of the living room as my tv znd entertainment center which was placed where it is because that' s where the cable jacks were. The other person answeriing here , sorry can't remember your name, sajd something about accessing something possib,y in my closet? What? Nowhere in any of ny reading did i see anything about accessing closets! I made my husband clean uo his office and he basically threw everything inside the closet un that room! I can't imagine anything would be in master bedroom closet as that' s tge opposite side of yhe apartment! I am now so stressed out abiut this whole thing! I researched and thiught we.were prepared. Out,r main reason for switching is I'm sick of my husband complaining about lack of space on Charter DVR, i just hope I don't hate it because of slow internet speeds or bad HD picture! Again sorry for the typing, Nook is very hard to type coherently on!
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