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Uverse vs Direc Tv

5K views 34 replies 16 participants last post by  slice1900 
#1 ·
Called AT&T to look into lowering my uverse prices and was surprised they wanted to switch me from wired uverse to direc tv, They tried to tell me that direc tv doesn't go out in the rain anymore. Does anyone with a new install know if this is true or not? While the direc Tv dvr seems way better then the uverse one I have concerns about the service going out in bad weather. I had direc tv back in 2009 and it went out quite a bit during storms so wonder if this is still the case or if they have improved the signal.
 
#2 ·
Yes rain fade will still occur. In fact it really doesn't even need to be raining right at your house, if there are clouds with a lot of water moisture between your dish and the sat will also cause an outage. If we're talking light to moderate rain you'll be fine with a properly aimed dish. I know any outage I've had is been a lot shorter then when cable would go out and they'd need to dispatch someone to fix the line that was between me and the headend.
 
#3 ·
DirecTV is Much better than U-verse TV. No comparison
It WORKS 99% of the time !! Has a Perfect, Clear Picture, easy to use, etc.
and does NOT run thru a 100 + year old 1 pair copper phone line
from a Hub down the street that needs to be CLOSE to your house.
Why did AT&T buy DirecTV,? AT&T wanted a product that works.
Who told you it does NOT go out in a HEAVY RAIN STORM ?
If you drive thru a tunnel will your Sirius radio work ? NO !! It also comes from a satellite
That only lasts a short time, rarely. Big deal.
NO they did not improve the signal. Has Nothing to do with something "BLOCKING" the signal.
 
#4 ·
ragweed10 said:
DirecTV is Much better than U-verse TV. No comparison
It WORKS 99% of the time !! Has a Perfect, Clear Picture, easy to use, etc.
and does NOT run thru a 100 + year old 1 pair copper phone line
from a Hub down the street that needs to be CLOSE to your house.
Why did AT&T buy DirecTV,? AT&T wanted a product that works.
Who told you it does NOT go out in a HEAVY RAIN STORM ?
If you drive thru a tunnel will your Sirius radio work ? NO !! It also comes from a satellite
That only lasts a short time, rarely. Big deal.
NO they did not improve the signal. Has Nothing to do with something "BLOCKING" the signal.
AT&T customer service told me they have two new sats that improve the signal so it doesn't go out in rain storms anymore. I kind of those she was telling a story. I never had any issues with the picture on uverse but is it noticeably better on direc tv? The distance to the uverse hub isn't an issue for me although my guess is the bandwidth will be should I ever go to 4k tv (which I think is the reason AT&T bought direc TV) ... I remember when i had driec tv 6 years ago it went out quite often during rain storms. I notice they have this 72 hour rewind but does that use recording off the sats or the internet to work? Btw not trying to troll here just want to be sure on this decision since I watch a fair share on tv. Thanks to you both for the quick replies.
 
#8 ·
thxultra said:
AT&T customer service told me they have two new sats that improve the signal so it doesn't go out in rain storms anymore. I kind of those she was telling a story. I never had any issues with the picture on uverse but is it noticeably better on direc tv? The distance to the uverse hub isn't an issue for me although my guess is the bandwidth will be should I ever go to 4k tv (which I think is the reason AT&T bought direc TV) ... I remember when i had driec tv 6 years ago it went out quite often during rain storms. I notice they have this 72 hour rewind but does that use recording off the sats or the internet to work? Btw not trying to troll here just want to be sure on this decision since I watch a fair share on tv. Thanks to you both for the quick replies.
New satellites to eliminate rain fade?

Ah ... no ... just silly CSR hype to win you over as a subscriber or she is clueless one.

She's referring to the newest satellites to join the fleet D14 and D15, but they do not improve, much less eliminate rain fade. That's simply laws of physics and nature affecting the signal.

The new birds do give DIRECTV more bandwidth for HD and possibly 4K programming. Particularly for the new Reverse Band xpndr payloads they carry.

Sent from my SGH-M819N using Tapatalk
 
#10 ·
HoTat2 said:
New satellites to eliminate rain fade?

Ah ... no ... just silly CSR hype to win you over as a subscriber or she is clueless one.

She's referring to the newest satellites to join the fleet D14 and D15, but they do not improve, much less eliminate rain fade. That's simply laws of physics and nature affecting the signal.

The new birds do give DIRECTV more bandwidth for HD and possibly 4K programming. Particularly for the new Reverse Band xpndr payloads they carry.

Sent from my SGH-M819N using Tapatalk
Ya that is what i figured just a sales pitch. I am fine with her saying they launched two new sats for more channels or 4k but to tell them they were to eliminate signal outages I figured was not true. thinking AT&T is trying to phase out uverse though now... figure they know it will not handle 4k unless they can deploy gigabit which is costly and something they have been trickling out. Appreciate the posts. Thinking I will stick with the uverse for now since I can get a 1 year contract with promotions and if I get the direc tv I get a two year contract with only one year at the promo rate... Direc tv dvr looks much better though and is tempting.
 
#12 ·
I can kind of see how a CSR could end up telling people that. One of the benefits of D14 and D15's additional bandwidth is that Directv has more ability to shuffle things around if part of their satellite fleet has problems. When D10 briefly went out of commission a while back the only reason it didn't have a bigger and longer lasting impact on Directv customers is that they were able to bring up some transponders on D14 right away even though it was still in a testing phase.

So if a CSR reads or is told that D14/D15 will limit outages they might think in terms of 'rain fade' type outages rather than 'one satellite quits working' type outages. Good example of why companies always try to make CSRs "stick to the script".
 
#14 ·
thxultra said:
AT&T customer service told me they have two new sats that improve the signal so it doesn't go out in rain storms anymore. I kind of those she was telling a story. I never had any issues with the picture on uverse but is it noticeably better on direc tv? The distance to the uverse hub isn't an issue for me although my guess is the bandwidth will be should I ever go to 4k tv (which I think is the reason AT&T bought direc TV) ... I remember when i had driec tv 6 years ago it went out quite often during rain storms. I notice they have this 72 hour rewind but does that use recording off the sats or the internet to work? Btw not trying to troll here just want to be sure on this decision since I watch a fair share on tv. Thanks to you both for the quick replies.
Where are you located? If you're someplace where heavy weather cells are the norm, you're gonna seem some rain fade, but it has gotten noticeably better over the years, at least here in Central NJ.

Rich
 
#15 ·
inkahauts said:
The new satelites do nothing any different than the others when it comes to rain fade. That's a line of horse puckey.
The thing I don't like is how HD stay out longer with rain fade then SD does. I was hoping the new satellites would fix that and they would put all the HD channels on them. I guess only new HD channels and 4k will go on those? Weren't some people in this forum saying they could move the current HD channels to the 101 and move the SD ones to I guess the 99 and 103 and that would help with rain fade?

Also their is a rumor about using IPTV or maybe that new DTV streaming service that Stephenson was hinting at as a rain fade back up sometime in 2016 could that be what the CSR was talking about?
 
#16 ·
thxultra said:
Ya that is what i figured just a sales pitch. I am fine with her saying they launched two new sats for more channels or 4k but to tell them they were to eliminate signal outages I figured was not true. thinking AT&T is trying to phase out uverse though now... figure they know it will not handle 4k unless they can deploy gigabit which is costly and something they have been trickling out. Appreciate the posts. Thinking I will stick with the uverse for now since I can get a 1 year contract with promotions and if I get the direc tv I get a two year contract with only one year at the promo rate... Direc tv dvr looks much better though and is tempting.
I don't remember ever reading a post where the poster said that Uverse had a better picture than D*'s.

Rich
 
#17 ·
CraigerM said:
The thing I don't like is how HD stay out longer with rain fade then SD does. I was hoping the new satellites would fix that and they would put all the HD channels on them. I guess only new HD channels and 4k will go on those? Weren't some people in this forum saying they could move the current HD channels to the 101 and move the SD ones to I guess the 99 and 103 and that would help with rain fade?
They have moved some HD channels on the new satellites, but that doesn't help with rain fade because they are also broadcasting on Ka band and they output at a similar power level.

They could move the HD channels to 101 and that would help with rain fade since 101 uses Ku band, but they can't do that for years - not until MPEG2 SD is retired. SD equipment can't see the satellites at 99/103 so they can't just decide to swap everything around.

Even if/when they do that it would only have a limited benefit. At least where I'm located SD typically goes out a few seconds after HD does, it isn't even worth switching channels. Dish uses Ku band for their HD and they still have rain fade so if you're hoping for a big difference you'll be disappointed. Maybe in some places where the storms aren't very strong it is common for SD to stay up the whole time that HD is out, but that's not going to be the case for most of the country.
 
#18 ·
Rich said:
Where are you located? If you're someplace where heavy weather cells are the norm, you're gonna seem some rain fade, but it has gotten noticeably better over the years, at least here in Central NJ.

Rich
I'm in Chicago so we get some pretty heavy weather from time to time. I had D* back in 2009 and the picture was great but rain fade was a issue for me. That and my bad luck that it always seemed we had a bad storm during one of my favorite shows :)
 
#19 ·
I have had both UVERSE and DirecTV. DirecTV is better in almost every way. DirecTV picture quality is significantly better, DVR is infinitely better, channel organization, etc. Sure there are times when heavy storm clouds cause DirecTv outages but they are rare. I had UVERSE outages also.

No doubt in my mind - I'd choose DirecTV any day.
 
#20 ·
thxultra said:
I'm in Chicago so we get some pretty heavy weather from time to time. I had D* back in 2009 and the picture was great but rain fade was a issue for me. That and my bad luck that it always seemed we had a bad storm during one of my favorite shows :)
I lived in that area for about a year and a half. I can see why you're worried about rain fade now.

Rich
 
#22 ·
thxultra said:
Lol you were lucky to have escaped haha :) Uverse has been solid for me in the 7 years I have had it so it is a question of better picture and features of direc tv vs reliability of uverse.
I liked the area. I've been back a few times and it's just gotten better.

Rich
 
#25 ·
Thanks for all the input guys. Decided to switch to direc tv. After reading the posts here and talking to the CSR I figure in the rare instance it goes out I can do the rewind and pull the show off the net or watch it on demand. The commercials aren't that big of a deal for the few times it goes out. Also requested a HR54 after reading posts here. Looking forward to the better DVR and better hd picture.
 
#26 ·
thxultra said:
Thanks for all the input guys. Decided to switch to direc tv. After reading the posts here and talking to the CSR I figure in the rare instance it goes out I can do the rewind and pull the show off the net or watch it on demand. The commercials aren't that big of a deal for the few times it goes out. Also requested a HR54 after reading posts here. Looking forward to the better DVR and better hd picture.
Wise choice.

Rich
 
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