GigaOM: AT&T U-Verse upgrade "underwhelms"

AT&T Underwhelms With U-Verse Upgrade [GigaOM]

The reviews are in on AT&T's recent announcement of an upgrade for it's combination broadband/multichannel video product U-Verse, and according to GigaOM, the upgrade "underwhelms." The upgrade that AT&T plans to perform to its U-Verse product is called pair bonding. Currently, U-Verse customers must be located within 3,000 feet of a piece of field equipment called a video-ready access device or VRAD. Much further away, and the copper twisted pair that carries the U-Verse DSL and video will have too much signal loss to be effective. With pair bonding, AT&T hopes to reduce some of that signal loss to extend U-Verse's range from the VRAD. 

What won't pair bonding accomplish? First of all, it won't increase U-Verse broadband speeds or the amount of channels that U-Verse can carry. It won't increase the number of televisions that can watch HD channels in each U-Verse household - which is currently limited. It merely increases the distance from the VRAD that U-Verse service can travel.

For customers looking for faster broadband speeds, more HD and other product upgrades, pair bonding won't be an upgrade.

Comments

[Chris Buechler]

That's funny, my UVerse Internet is twice as fast upstream and 20% faster downstream than my Insight 20.0 (in actual performance, both of which get advertised speeds). Maybe Insight will catch up at some point with the long-promised 30.0.

[Shane Laake]

At least you get Insight 20.0. In Columbus we (Insight Customers) are stuck with RoadRunner and no ESPN3. Insight doesn't seem to care. Maybe I can get AT&T now.