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Comment by 6thSigma | Hacker News Reader

Now AT&T is announcing that they are building a 1Gbps fiber service in Austin as well.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/att-1gbps-fiber-internet-...

I've heard a lot of things from AT&T customers, and "satisfied" is never one of them. This is too little too late, and I'm pretty sure that most of their current customers can't wait to jump ship -- regardless of whatever carrots that they bring out at the last minute.

Uverse has been solid for me. I've had them for 4 years now and they've had very limited downtime (a lot less then I had with TimeWarner). I'll happily move to Google Fiber, but Uverse has treated me just fine. While I wish their upload speeds were faster, but I haven't really had any options that were faster.

What issues have you had with them exactly?

I've never used them -- but my friends constantly complain of disconnects, slow speeds, shotty tech support, high rates, etc. While I'm sure these types of problems are often localized, I've heard the same complaints from geographically diverse friends.

My only problem is that they're a monopoly slowly reconstituting itself like the T-1000 from Terminator[1].

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-1000

Maybe you're referring to Internet access only, but the over-compressed picture quality on Uverse is horrible, especially compared to easily-obtained OTA in the Austin area.

Hm. I don't live in Austin, but Uverse here in Oklahoma City has fine quality (about equivalent to OTA). (It's night and day with the other TV provider here, Cox, whose picture quality is terrible at best.) Also concur with GP that their internet service is pretty decent (although a bit overpriced for my liking).

I had Uverse in my apartment (in 78723). It was solid for the first year and then went to absolute sh*t. Perhaps something about how it's set up for apartment (shared connection at some point)? I've since switched to Time Warner and I'm happy.

Once they have you they tend to aggressively hike their rates

My Uverse internet only service has been great. They messed up my bill 3 months (not so great), but it only took 5 minutes on the phone to fix. When I called to get my iPhone activation fee waived, they told me it hadn't hit yet, so they'd call me back on my billing date. They did (surprised!) they said they automatically credited the activation fee (super surprised!).

Not sure I've been this excited about utility/telco service in a while.

AT&T and existing telcos need to announce these kinds of initiatives before their crappy service invites competitors, not after.

Actually, they don't "need" to because they don't have any competition. Why invest (which is always a risk) when you can continue to rake in profits by doing nothing?

Because now they are getting more competitors—from Google, from municipal broadband, from Gigabit Seattle (http://gigabitseattle.com). Political types have realized that fast Internet connections are a real economic advantage.

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