AT&T U-Verse: Now Available-ish

If you’ve been looking for a new “cable” provider and are shy about going the satellite route, AT&T’s got a new solution for you in their U-Verse service.

We first heard the words “U-Verse” and “Fayetteville” strung together many, many months ago. It was all over the news and was discussed around the watercooler by many tv-loving locals. But, the hype soon died down and news on the U-Verse front went dead. There were no articles, no rumors and AT&T even went silent on the subject. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, U-Verse was back and available to the citizens of Fayetteville… sorta.

You see, you can now sign up for the service, but only if it’s available in your neck of the Fayetteville woods. From what I can tell, there’s no map that indicates where service is available, you just have to call and find out or run a quick search on their site. After running my address through their site, I found that it was available at my house… but then again, they had my address listed in a different zip code. So… maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. Weird.

In addition to the confusion surrounding where U-Verse is available in Fayetteville, there appears to be some trouble brewing between the city government and AT&T. Part of the agreement between AT&T and the city, which is similiar to the Cox Communications agreement, was that U-Verse would host the public education and government channels on their lowest tier. However, at the time of launch, the channels were not available on U-Verse and don’t appear to be on the way any time soon. Hopefully this gets resolved sooner than later.

Despite the confusion and possible problem with the city, if you’re looking to move away from Cox or satellite, it sounds like U-Verse offers some great things. First off, they boast almost 300 channels including 75 HD channels. A quick call to a local U-Verse retailer confirmed that they also offer local HD channels, which is a must for all of us here at the Flyer. Can’t live without DVR? Don’t worry, you won’t have to. In fact, you’ll be able to take you DVR’ing up a notch or two by recording up to four shows simultaneously. Oh yeah! You can also broadcast, from one DVR mind you, to multiple tv’s in your house. Awesome? Yes. Guess what? It gets even better. You can control your DVR from anywhere with an internet connection. Yes, that includes your iPhone. Suh-weet!

I’ll be looking into this in more detail. If it really is as great as it seems, Cox might have a real competitor on their hands, which bodes well for your checkbook if you’re gonna stick with Cox.

Want to find out more about AT&T’s U-Verse? Click here.