So, where were we? Let’s recap in small detail as to what happened so far, shall we?
- There was a bad thunderstorm last Monday, causing the Uverse main box to crap out, therefore having no service in the house; no TV, no internet, and no phone.
- After many attempts at troubleshooting, a phone call was made to tech support who had me do the same troubleshooting, determined the box was bad.
- A new box had to be shipped out and it would take between 2-3 days.
- A friend who works at Uverse was contacted and he let me meet him to pick a box up the next day, which was on Tuesday.
- I plugged the box in I picked up Tuesday and everything was working except for the phone. After a call to another Uverse tech was made, he said I needed to wait for the other box to get here for the phone to work. When the box arrives, it may take an additional 1-2 days for the phone to work AFTER the box is received.
- Because of this nonsense of waiting around and the service still not working, even after getting another box, I decided this was it and ordered Comcast online.
- A Comcast man showed up Wednesday at around 6PM and got everything hooked up, only to realize, in the end… the TV box he brought over was not a DVR.
- The bitch-fest volcano erupted in the house and that’s where I was left with in Part 1….
- Reliability If you want to go with something more reliable with more options and such, I would probably go with Comcast from now on, coming from having Uverse for around 4 years. Maybe I would change my tone if Uverse offered the hubs to get at their store but that’s not the case. Sure, they can send a tech out (even though they DID NOT offer me that option, causing my service to be down for 4 days!) but it will still be the next day or day after for a tech to show up. That’s just the hub too. What about the TV DVR boxes? What if that crapped out? Another 3 days or so to watch TV again? With Comcast, if you need a box, you can buy it yourself at an electronics store or order it online or pick one up to lease from a Comcast store. Electronics stores are open from 10am-9pm which is enough time to buy one (except the DVR boxes, don’t think you can buy one of those) or lease one at a Comcast store which is open from 10am-6pm or thereabouts. Until Uverse can offer that option, I can’t trust them for my in home business anymore nor for continued and uninterrupted TV service in the house. Sorry, not going to happen.
- Internet Speed Comcast is the winner here too, hands down. The numbers, obviously, don’t lie when it comes to the speed of their internet service.
- Pricing It turns out, the pricing is very competitive. However, you do get more bang for your buck with Comcast.
- Simplicity Although I don’t watch TV to really give my opinion on here, they both have some good features. I do think Uverse has the better guide where you can see the guide towards the bottom of the screen while you are watching the video above. You can also see previews of the video as you are looking in the guide. I haven’t really seem this with Comcast unless I just don’t know what the heck I’m doing. Ha! One cool and simple thing Comcast has with their DVR boxes now is the ability to talk to the remote and have the box do what you want. Say, “record Knight Rider” and it will pop it up on the screen and all you have to do is hit “OK” on the remote. You can also say, “watch Knight Rider” and it will turn to it and you can start watching it. So, instead of going through the guide or pressing the record button when you want to record a show, you can talk to the remote and the box will do the rest. That, is pretty, pretty, pretty neat.