Tech here to do U-verse install... Networking ?

[mrsilv04]

He's wanting to network my desktop into the system by using the adapters that uses the electrical wiring as link between the gateway and the computer, instead of running an ethernet cable.

Is this reliable, and is there any noticeable loss of speed or performance?

 

[greenaccord02]

I wouldn't allow them to get away with that. I'm not sure about the speed, but I can't see getting cat5-6 speed out of Romex. Seems like corner cutting to me.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Electrical wiring for networks is much slower than using standard cabling. Make him do it right the first time.

 

[EricF]

the installer probably has 3 jobs to do for the day and yours will take him longer. I love the u-verse system and nothing compares to it!
when I had mine installed it took the installer almost 9 hours because my condo isn't exactly cable friendly, and he had equipment problems AND I had low attenuation on my phone line. So it made for a very long day for him, and he was happy to leave too! I had to talk to his supervisor to get him to back off because of the time he was taking. he left my place at 5:45 and his supervisor made him goto another job across town. That wasn't cool.
You could always use the wireless setup, it's got the wpa2 encryption, and is pretty speedy for wi-fie.

 

[mrsilv04]

Thanks for the feedback. I always appreciate it.

I went ahead and let him install it using the electrical wiring as a network connection. Mainly out of curiosity about how it works.

I just ran 5 tests of the network speed on each computer. There is very little degradation of the download speed using the adapters... about one tenth of one megabit less as compared to my laptop on the wireless connection. Latency and upload are comparable.

If I decide later that I'm not happy with it, it will take me all of 15 minutes to run a Ethernet cable through the crawlspace. What will take me 15 minutes would have took him much longer to complete.

 

[tom slick]

I think you made the right decision. On that kind of stuff I'd rather install it myself then have someone in a hurry kludge it together so he can move on.

I know it's common in my area for a phone or cable installer to drill a hole all the way through the wall, run the cable on the exterior then drill all the way through the wall again and back into the house. No thanks, I'll crawl in the crawl space and make it a clean install.

I had to remove my dish last year to rebuild my roof. When they installed it they just ran lag screws through the shingles into the sheathing. I moved it to a proper location that didn't damage the roof materials. Called the tech out for a $50 service call to aim it. It took him 10 mins with a $20 tool to dial it in. Next time I'll just buy the tool.

 

[mrsilv04]

I'm now at the 24 hour mark with AT&T U-verse.

I've been randomly testing the speed on the internet, and it keeps coming back really close (within one tenth of a mbps) to the advertised speeds, which I am happy to see. Still not seeing any noticeable speed degradation on the desktop which is connected via ethernet over power adapters.

As far as the TV, the image is a lot better than what I've been experiencing with my Dish Network Dish Pro 301. What I'm seeing now looks a lot closer to HD quality than I've ever seen on my 13 year old TV.

I have the U200 package, which is simply WAAAYYY too many channels for me. I honestly can't watch that much TV. I think I'll eventually slim it back to the U100 package, which will still give me all of the channels that I'm used to watching.

I called last night to cancel my DN service, learned that I had been a customer for 3 days short of 11 years. I bet they regret seeing a customer like that say "good bye", but it happens.

I'm also breaking in the built in DVR. I've never had one before, and can see why so many VCR's got scrapped over this. It is very nice. One button recording for one show, or for the entire series.

No regrets yet. I thought I had an issue last night, but the problem stemmed from having the gateway box too close to a TV, and was getting interference through the audio (a tapping sound). Moving the gateway a few inches farther away was the simple fix.

In the next few nights, I want to take my laptop to the neighbor's house, and see if I can still pick up my wireless signal.

 

[EricF]

U-Verse runs fiber optic, which has a ginormous bandwidth to work with, so you get the lightning fast internet speeds, the 2mb upload speed, and TRUE 1080 HD picture, whereas coax can only broadcast to 720. the u-verse tv guide will tell you what is being broadcast in 1080 vs 720. Of course your TV must be able to broadcast up to 1080.
And yes, you will notice a difference in picture quality!

If you are running coax between the u-verse main box and a remote box, take the time and run at minimum cat-5, the picture quality will be even better with cat-5/5e/6.
Also make sure you're using HDMI cables if at all possible!

I should be a salesman for u-verse, I've converted so many friends/neighbors it's ridiculous. I enjoy watching the comcast people go silent when I ask about broadcasting in 1080. Yeah.. they can't.. of course: yet.

 

[mrsilv04]

While he was doing the install, the tech ran a test on my line, and I'm right at 1000' from the closest VRAD, which is on fiber.

He said the upper limit of the U-Verse system is between 3300 and 3500 feet to the closest VRAD. So I'm well within an acceptable range.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: EricF

I should be a salesman for u-verse, I've converted so many friends/neighbors it's ridiculous. I enjoy watching the comcast people go silent when I ask about broadcasting in 1080. Yeah.. they can't.. of course: yet.


What are you talking about? I've watched 1080i broadcasts through Comcast...without a cable box, using the QAM tuner in my TV. (To tbe best of my knowledge 1080i broadcasts have been available on Comcast for as long as they've offered HD).


Now, if u-verse offered 1080p broadcasts, that would be noteworthy, but a cursory Google search suggests that they do not.

Quote:
If you are running coax between the u-verse main box and a remote box, take the time and run at minimum cat-5, the picture quality will be even better with cat-5/5e/6.


Do they ever look at you funny when you ask for cat-5 coax?

 

[ThirdeYe]

I have mixed feelings about U-Verse. My DVR is glitchy and shows sometimes refuse to play until I do a hard reset of the DVR, and even then they sometimes don't work. The quality for the standard definition is grainy/pixelated and my internet has a mind of its own. Sometimes it's fine, other times it's slow and dies for no reason. The TV sometimes has problems with sound glitching on certain stations or picture freezing. I've had techs come out only to tell me that it's nothing on their end... -shrug- It was fine for the first 6 months or so, then it started getting bad.

 

[Buffman]

have you checked out the stats on the RG to make sure you don't have absurd line noise or something?