AT&T to push U-verse services at Circuit City and Walmart

AT&T's not messing around with spreading the good word on its U-verse services, as it has just nailed down an agreement to sell the aforementioned products in two of America's largest retail outlets. Beginning this month, U-verse kiosks will emerge in over 600 Circuit City and Walmart locations, which will give unsuspecting consumers the chance to ditch their current cable / satellite / fiber provider and sign up for AT&T's own programming / high-speed internet / digital phone suite. The move comes in the midst of its nationwide Total Home DVR rollout, which enables any connected TV in the crib to watch a recorded SD or HD show. Of course, U-verse still serves a comparatively small amount of the country at present time, but with an initiative like this, we feel pretty good about future expansion.

[Colonel Panic @ Oct 13th 2008 1:35PM]

No kidding U-Verse serves a small part of the country! I cannot even get Charter where I live so I surf the web using mobile broadband and watch TV on Dish Network :(

[who? @ Oct 13th 2008 1:38PM]

Any chance I'll be seeing this in Minnesota? Didn't think so.

[Jamus @ Oct 13th 2008 1:53PM]

They need to bulk up their distribution regions FAST. Direct and Dish are taking a beating compared to cables "bundles".

[Todd @ Oct 13th 2008 1:53PM]

Shouldn't the Death Star make U-verse available to more than the tiny handful of households currently eligible to justify kiosks in 600+ retail outlets?

Also, U-verse NOT available to people in apartments - ever. FYI.

[sundayflowers @ Oct 13th 2008 10:44PM]

thats not true, i am a u-verse technician and we do plenty of apt installations.

[Timothy Jared Brice @ Oct 13th 2008 2:17PM]

U-verse is in apartments in houston. I live there and 3 friends that I know in 3 different apt complexes all have u-verse. Not that I have it but anyway..... I am considering switching to them but their recent annoncement about HD compression makes me very nervous ( I have a 60 in screen )

[Moises @ Oct 13th 2008 2:36PM]

I live in an apartment, just got uverse this past weekend, loving the DVR

[ericdano @ Oct 13th 2008 2:43PM]

Sort of true. Back in December AT&T blotched an install of U-Verse that they said I could install just the TV part and keep the DSL I already had (static IP). That was not true. Even though I was going to install the TV on one phone line, and the DSL was on another, they couldn't do it do to some issue. The result was 3 weeks of no DSL due to U-Verse mucking up the whole system. Terrible.

On the plus side, I got DirecTV, and it has been amazing. Way better than U-Verse was for the week I had it.

[Rico @ Oct 13th 2008 5:45PM]

My girlfriend has U-Verse in her Milwaukee apt.

[anon @ Oct 13th 2008 6:25PM]

@Todd, totally false. As of now, U-verse is distributed one of 3 ways. Fiber to the premise (or house, whatever) which is pretty self explanatory, fiber to the node, which has fiber to the dslam/vrad and uses the existing copper to go to the house, and fiber to the curb, which is sort of a hybrid of the two. Fiber is run to what's called an MDU ONT (multiple dwelling unit optical network terminal), which is near an apartment, and from there, copper supplies each unit with U-verse. Maybe at one time that was true when it was first coming out, but not anymore.

@ericdano, the problem you were most likely having is that you can only have DSL or U-verse at an address if they both are being supplied by AT&T. U-verse is sort of the flagship product from AT&T, so if you order U-verse and already have DSL from AT&T, it automatically cancels your DSL service. Did you look into internet service via U-verse at all? Would have solved that problem. Anyone you talked to should have known this. I'm still in training and I already know that.

[Elux Troxl @ Oct 13th 2008 1:54PM]

Somebody might mention to AT&T that Circuit City will be going out of business soon. Just saying...

[kal326 @ Oct 13th 2008 1:58PM]

Trust me, you will know when it gets to your area, you will be beating AT&T off with a stick. It was brought online in my town about a month and a half ago. So far I have gotten 3 or 4 mailings about it, several phone calls, and even somebody going door to door to let you know its available.

Probably is that they are still doing a mix of over copper and supposedly fiber to premises in some areas according to their installation overview. The over copper installs for some people in the area are not working so well. Also I see AT&T vans at all hours and days working at the boxes at the top of the street. I think I will let this get past its growing pains before I jump on board.

[SweetSauce @ Oct 13th 2008 3:18PM]

"...you will be beating AT&T off with a stick"

I refuse to be told who, what, and how I will be beating off.

[dave @ Oct 13th 2008 2:10PM]

I live in an apartment and it works for me. The guy came out to set it up and it did take 4 hours to get it all set up throughout the apartment but it's set up and it works. There are limited areas that have the service in place but it's in my area, it's cheaper and I get way more channels/features than with Comcast for the price. Plus I got to dump my monthly fees from Tivo so it worked for me.

[Valicore @ Oct 13th 2008 2:59PM]

Same here - Total Home DVR I love because I can program it and control everything over the web, including on my laptop while at home lol. It's super useful.

[Starvine @ Oct 13th 2008 2:12PM]

God knows AT&T has its issues, but I'll be damned if Total House DVR hasn't been been great for our family.

[LinksAwakener @ Oct 13th 2008 2:18PM]

Does anyone else find the words "Circuit City" and "Largest retail" in the same sentence pushing reality? I mean, they're at 40 cents a share after all...

[kilgary @ Oct 13th 2008 2:22PM]

I've had U-verse service in Los Angeles since June. The HD is highly compressed and Video On Demand is limited to SD content for the time being. I'm waiting for my last rebate check to arrive (had to call and dispute my rebate 5 times!) before I cancel and go back to Time Warner Cable. What they don't tell you is, unlike Verizon's Fios that brings fiber optic cable all the way to your house, U-verse uses copper phone lines for the last quarter mile. That means they have a maximum bandwidth of around 25mbps for U-verse (for internet & television combined). My father has Fios in Orange County - the HD Channels look A LOT better. Until Fios is available in my area, I'm going to stick with Time Warner.

[alexandersupertramp @ Oct 13th 2008 3:15PM]

i'll second the sentiment. i got rid of mine already. the HD channels were horrible. VOD was extremely limited. And for me, internet connectivity had very bad latency issues. The techs coming out to investigate were very professional but I had them out every weekend I had the service. And, I get their reps at my door every weekend...

[bob sakamano @ Oct 13th 2008 2:29PM]

these people seem to have more money than to be sitting on the floor

[poppadot @ Oct 13th 2008 2:49PM]

how does att justify this when they can't even serve all households in the same county as the capitol and major city of Tennessee? I guess you are just not important if you live more than x feet away from the rich neighborhood, let alone if you live in the boondocks. I don't like comcast but they serve everyone in a community with equal hit or miss service.

[Valicore @ Oct 13th 2008 3:03PM]

It's a matter of physical limitation, it takes time to lay new fiber and install VRADs (those boxes on the street) and test everything. At least my service works - not to mention I don't have broadband caps or the guilt of supporting the devil incarnate, which we all know is Comcast!

[Chris @ Oct 13th 2008 2:50PM]

Expect a big Uverse promotion at CC on Black Friday. Not as good as the old BB $400 deal a few years ago, but still nice...

http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com

[bluezurich @ Oct 13th 2008 3:03PM]

WHAT I FOUND RICOCKULOUS WAS WHEN MY PARENTS HAD IT INSTALLED IT WOULD NOT ALLOW ...sorry about caps......was the Windoze authorization cop. How is the connect issue via wifi with a used Mac? Does it find a name different than on the ATT account and deny you wifi? My brother bought my parents WIN XP as a gift and cannot use the wifi since his name is on the software and theirs is on the uverse.

[Valicore @ Oct 13th 2008 3:05PM]

Wait... say what?

[grifmx @ Oct 13th 2008 3:26PM]

tried U-Verse when it was new. They never got it without internet time-outs. canceled it after two weeks and still they tried to charge me forever until I spoke to a higher up.

Too bad I can't get Fios instead of U-verse!!!!!! Until they run fiber-optics into the house, it'll never be much better than cable.

Plus the U-verse sales people come to my house like every other day. Obnoxious and they all say different things...

[bluezurich @ Oct 13th 2008 3:27PM]

UVERSE scans your registry upon attempting a wifi connection and denies you service if your name on the ATT account doesn't match the Windows registry. So the real question is what will it find when you attempt a Mac wifi connection. Will it even work? Will it care? Seems like there's a deal with Redmond here that I couldn't see happening with Apple as well since there isn't a separate hardware/software issue with Mac's. TRUE, My folks can only get online with UVerse with an ethernet connection. Sucks.

[Starvine @ Oct 13th 2008 3:42PM]

What? I have Windows and Mac machines both working via Wifi. For that matter, so is my Wii. Last I checked, THAT didn't have a Windows registry to scan...

[z0phi3l @ Oct 13th 2008 5:30PM]

I've connected to my Mom's U-verse wireless while in Linux of all things, stop spreading falsehoods.

[Rico-San @ Oct 13th 2008 5:46PM]

What the fook are you talking about? I can connect just fine to my GF's WiFI on U-Verse, using the AT&T-supplied modem/wireless router. I put in the WEP/WPA key (can't forget what kind it is) in my PowerBook G4 (running Leopard) and it works. No registry, no hassle. And it's pretty fast too.

[RB @ Oct 13th 2008 3:36PM]

There is some wrong info in the posts above.. the 25 mb is not the upper limit, it's more like 30. It depends on the infrastructure in your area also. Some homes are getting fiber, when it makes $ense to AT&T. Most get fiber to the neighborhood and copper from there. So if your lines have issues, like they've been cut or scraped by the other utilities pushing water pipe around, then you might find them once you try pushing an HD stream down them.

As far as rollout goes, it's constant. It takes a lot of infrastructure to provide video services over something that was originally intended to be voice only (and I live in the sticks, so I know about constant line noise, water damage, old splices and we finally got DSL 2 years ago ourselves). Plus, if you watch MS's IPTV offering, you'll see that it constantly changes and upgrades. Minor stuff gets rolled in, major stuff like whole house DVR requires new versions across the board so you have to slow down new roll outs to bring existing ones up to speed.

As far as quality goes, if you trust JD Power rankings then AT&T still blows away cable in pretty much every market for satisfaction.

But if you hate digital artifacts as much as I do, then you have probably also tossed the cable and dish a long time ago (4 years for me) and went to OTA broadcast. Hell of a lot nicer video, it's free, and the networks are doing a great job with their programming (OK, the new night rider really sucks, but otherwise...) Plus with snapstream and a little creativity, I can get to my video from anywhere and control my dvr from my phone...

Also, I wouldn't expect UVerse kiosks to show up in areas that don't have it. But using big chains to help push your product seems like a pretty sound marketing decision, especially if you can try it out at the store.

[bluezurich @ Oct 13th 2008 4:17PM]

I've seen the screen denying them service and it's obviously an attempt to stop piracy.

[bluezurich @ Oct 13th 2008 6:30PM]

You guys are POOR listeners. Do you have a setup as I described? Until you try a wifi connection with the variables I listed above, keep the naysayers crap to yourselves. What would I have to gain from making up something that isn't even sold in MY market? I troubleshooted this for them while in their state (CA) and the call center person told me that the account and registered copy of Windows owners must match.

[anon @ Oct 13th 2008 6:43PM]

The gateway does no registry scan when connecting via wifi. Configured with the correct SSID and passkey, it should just connect like any other wireless router. The person you talked to most likely had no idea what the real problem was and they just made something up to get off the phone. There is nothing in any AT&T documentation that says it looks at the registry at all because it just doesn't happen. Call back and ask for 2nd tier support right away, then you'll get some real answers. It could also just be a bad gateway, have them look into that.

And BTW, the gateway is made by 2-Wire, IPTV technology that AT&T uses is by MS. So MS has nothing to do with the wireless not working, so no conspiracy to make a Mac not connect wirelessly (which they can just fine).

[Salsa Shark @ Oct 13th 2008 8:06PM]

You're getting more ridiculous with each post.

Stop digging that hole deeper and move on, bunky.

[r1ps @ Oct 14th 2008 8:07AM]

Someone got hit with the stupid stick...

[decypher44 @ Oct 13th 2008 7:34PM]

We're getting our U-Verse installed/set up on Nov 1st. ONly reason for doing so, however, is to save about30 buc ks a month. Currently have Dish (which U-Verse is using) and cable internet (same speed as my U-Verse package). The one bonus aside from saving each month is we are picking up Showtime.

[Steve @ Oct 13th 2008 10:04PM]

I got it in SoCal. Pretty nice especially the fact that we can now DVR from any room.

I just wish it would read the network and play shared music files and videos from my WHS :/ maybe some day.

[ian9outof10 @ Oct 14th 2008 4:56AM]

What this family need is no U-Verse but a couch and some chairs.