AT&T U-verse: A Consumer Report

After months of continuing issues with AT&T U-Verse and dealing with hundreds of their employees at all different levels of the organization, I wouldn't classify the door-to-door agent who sold me on the system as a "snake oil" salesman, but they like so many others in the organization are not provided with all the details on features and limitations which would allow them to communicate them effectively to customers.

For example, their sales personnel, technicians, and customer service reps were unaware of the fact that AT&T had not signed an agreement with Major League Baseball which would allow them to broadcast games. I found this out only after finally getting through to their corporate legal group when the sports package I signed up for had every baseball game in the country blacked out, yet my neighbor with DirecTV was able to view all of them. Similar ignorance exists with their networking equipment, since few of their employees know the connectivity limitations that exist with their gateway router. In order to get most network scanners, IP cameras, or network storage devices to work you need to disable the router on the gateway and use one of your own. I haven't experience any issues with the wireless speed that others have mentioned, but that may be due to the fact that I use my own wireless router when I disabled the router function on the U-Verse gateway.

My bigger concerns with AT&T have been related to their customer service. The annoying and inefficient automated prompts result in every call taking much longer than they should and create aggravation above and beyond the original reason for the call. When you finally do reach a live person, they far too frequently are unable to resolve the issue due to AT&T not providing them with adequate knowledge and resources (see earlier comment). Not one month has gone by where I didn't have to call to get something corrected on my statement, and many corrections (such as getting the previously mentioned sports package removed)take repeated calls. Their technical support is even worse, especially with their network. Present them with any issue beyond a very limited skill set and they want to transfer you to some third-party pay-for-support company who won't talk to you without providing a credit card. Supervisors will offer to credit your account for the cost of the third-party support, but you still have to pay for it up front in order to prove to AT&T that the problems are on their end and not yours.

I had DirecTV for 12 years, and we just moved to an apartment complex that doesn't allow satellite dishes, so we were left to choose between AT&T Uverse, or Comcast. After a lot of research, we decided to go with AT&T Uverse. I called the sales agent to sign up over a week before we were scheduled to move in, and she promised everything would be ready to go on move in day. It was not. We still did not have service a week and a half after we moved in, almost 3 weeks after sign up. So we called AT&T corporate, they stated that we were not even scheduled for installation. They set it up, and the soonest date was 3 more weeks later! I had explained that my husband had a heart attack and needed to work from home. His income was our only income, and he now has had no internet/phone for over a month! Their response shocked me, they stated that we could always cancel and go with Comcast. We should have, but didn't. We waited, only to rearrange our schedules AGAIN for the new install date only to be stood up with no call. I called asked for a manager, and waited on hold for over 45 min only to be told the manager refuses to speak with me. First time in my LIFE a manager has REFUSED to even talk to me!!! Rep said manager stated she couldn't do anything to help me, and then rep transferred me to a tech support who I waited another 45 min for. He answers, I explain situation, and he states sarcastically " Well now that Ive been sitting here on the phone for like 10 whole minutes just listening to you, I think I know the whole story already". I had been on MY cell using MY min. cause God knows I had no home phone, for 2 hours, and he complains for 10 min! Unbelievable! He tells me it's a wire problem and it will be 3 more weeks until install date, and I can cancel if I don't want to wait. We really didn't want to wait, especially after that horrible customer service, but Comcast was more money,less product.So we waited, and install date comes AGAIN, and once again, we are no showed. Called to speak with manager - DENIED AGAIN! They stated no install date was in the system at all this time, so I cancelled. I called Comcast, until I can get my beloved DirecTV back. AT&T has the WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER!!!! If they treat their NEW customers this way, I can only imagine how bad it will get later on. I think they got too big too fast.