New House Network Design - UVerse ISP

[jcwillia1]

I've posted here on this topic before but we're moving into a new house in a few weeks and I just found out yesterday that U-Verse (fiber to the premises) is available so we signed up for the whole kit and kaboodle.

So I know they are going to set me up with their uber shirtty modem (pardon my french) and the cable box. If I remember correctly the cable box has to connect directly to the television and that's where my problem is (I think)

hm not sure how to insert an image on here. The floorplan is attached. OK so in the basement (top third) ignore ALL that - none of that is there except where the red boxed ethernet plug is - that's all my electrical / ethernet / cable / etc. The middle box shows the TV on the wall where the ethernet is, the wifi router will be hung on the wall in the kitchen pantry 6' up (gotta keep those cereal boxes irradiated) and the bottom box (top floor) is going to have a wifi router/WAP hung on the wall of my son's closet 6' up (most central available point on the second floor)

so my question is how do I deal with this issue where I need ethernet for a router behind the TV (to connect XBox, TV, etc) and I need a separate ethernet for UVerse's box.

Or do I need a separate ethernet line for that?

There is also a coax cable behind the TV as well as ethernet.

Thank goodness for you guys because I could only imagine the stoned silence if I tried to call AT&T Support on this...

 

[stevech]

U-Verse.
My condolences.
If you can, and wish, change ISPs.

 

[jcwillia1]

U-Verse.
My condolences.
If you can, and wish, change ISPs.

well this may sound a bit weird but before yesterday I had nothing, no phone, no internet, no TV so at the moment I'm quite literally jumping up and down with excitement.

 

[RogerSC]

You might look into MoCA, which uses your cable TV wiring to carry ethernet. I'm using this between my cable modem and the entertainment center in the living room with TV, DVD player, Roku, etc. You need a MoCA adapter at your cable modem, and one at your cable outlet by your TV. This works really well for me, I'm using the Netgear MoCA adapter pair.

MoCA has the added benefit that if you need to have ethernet in other rooms, like a bedroom, you can just add a MoCA adapter there, and you're cool. I'm doing that in a bedroom here, so that the desktop in the bedroom can use our home network without having to use wireless.

Powerline networking is another possibility, but that can be a bit iffie, due to noise on the power lines, and depends on your house wiring. That's the same idea, you need an adapter on each end, and your power lines are used to carry ethernet traffic, then. A lot of people use that, since it does work most of the time, and you don't have to wire your house with ethernet cabling after the fact.

You can connect pretty much anything that needs ethernet to the MoCA adapter or powerline networking adapter. If you connect a router as an AP, then you get both wired ethernet and wireless available. Or you could connect a switch to it, and have multiple wired ethernet outlets. Ether of those would allow you to connect multiple devices to your ethernet, and your main router will supply routing, DHCP, etc.

 

[sfx2000]

U-Verse.
My condolences.
If you can, and wish, change ISPs.

uVerse can be ok, depends on whether you're getting fiber or DSL - I've got a friend who lives down in EastLake - he gets fiber, and it's fast and reliable.

Folks in my neighborhood - Ranch San Diego - we get the DSL variant, and from talks with neighbors who switched from CoxHSI (local cable op), the experience has been, erm, interesting... as both internet and IP-TV are over the same connection.

We're a fair distance away from both the La Mesa and El Cajon CO's - so I have to assume that the new ATT boxes installed here in the last year or so are super SLC's, as the distance is too far away to have the DSLAM's at the CO...

The other thing I saw is that the "wireless" TV boxes (secondary/tertiary) - they use WiFi back to the uVerse DSL modem/bridge thingy, which makes things a bit more challenging if you want to do anything beyond just basic home networking, as putting the uVerse box into Bridge mode may not be an option.

ATT has been doing a big push in this part of town - offering the triple play with Wireless as well, and they've been pricing it as loss-leader to take market share away from Cox.

For some areas though, uVerse might be the only broadband solution available, even here in San Diego county...

 

[stevech]

U-verse doesn't have DSL per se. In a small percentage of cases, there's fiber to the home. Mostly, it's your old crappy copper pair to the AT&T VRAD (refigerator-sized box at a distant curb). That copper is the weakest link, flaky in wet weather, etc. Cable modem service is 1000% better, from a technical performance viewpoint. Then there's the issue of AT&T's customer support practices.

 

[jcwillia1]

my service will be fiber to the premises which according to them is the best that they offer.

I haven't decided yet but I'm thinking about dedicating one of the ethernet wires in the kitchen to be a dedicated phone line for the base station - I still have the problem of how to hook up the TV and the router - it looks like maybe these boxes have a cable connector and maybe they could wire it that way instead of using the ethernet to the TV box? I don't know.

I only have one TV and frankly we don't watch it that much - it mostly gets used for movies and games. We just aren't big TV watchers so the remote wireless boxes isn't going to be an issue for us.


I also should clarify my earlier comment about having no internet/phone/tv - U-Verse is the only landline (non-dish) provider. Comcast either can't or won't run service to this neighborhood. I suspect that U-Verse signed an exclusivity deal with the land development company.

 

[stevech]

Ask them to give you a bridge and you will provide the WiFi router. Others report that the WiFi in the AT&T supplied UVerse system is awful. (the AT&T DSL modem/routers, 2-wire brand, are less than awful).

You can use inexpensive ethernet switch(es) to create as many ethernet connections as need, and have spares. They all go to the router and then to/from the internet.

AT&T will probably want to charge you $$$ to run cables inside your home. Try to negotiate this as free, before signing contract.

TV's ethernet port should take one of the cables as above. Some people use TV with WiFi built in, but that's always a compromise since streaming video on WiFi is glitchy.

Beware this too: A neighor of mine switched from cable modem/cable TV to AT&T U-verse. Simply because the deceptive 1st year cost was lower. AT&T came, wired the house for 2 days x 2 men. THEN they tried the AT&T network connection to the VRAD some 1,000' away. As the crow flies. But indeed, the cable run distance was like 3,000', underground. AT&T could not make this work. They abandoned the job. Left my elderly neighbor with nothing for TV/Phone/Internet. She had to pay Time Warner to reestablish service, undo much of AT&T's cabling, etc.

You may not face the above given fiber to the home, not fiber to the VRAD/curb. Be sure it IS fiber, not copper pairs, to the home. The sales guys outright lie about this. But you will face the rate hikes and unethical tactics of AT&T customer service and billing. Sorry, to go on, but from personal experience as I unplugged from AT&T some time back, I feel they are an evil empire.

 

[jcwillia1]

well I've already signed up for the service so it's a bit hard to "negotiate" anything now.

so I had my mom take a picture of the back of her box and she is getting signal to her TV box through a coax cable so that gives me hope that it is a possibility.

I'll give them a call on Friday and try to walk through all of this with them but I feel like it will likely be a gigantic waste of time because the people who answer the phone have probably never witnessed an installation in their lives.

Do they provide bridge modems for fiber installs? I got the impression from reading your comment that it's geared towards a DSL installation which this is definitely not.

I'm not concerned about the installation process not going well and I also have no intention of letting them run wires through my brand new house unless I approve it and am sure it will work. There is a box just off the back of my property that serves as some sort of staging device - all they have to do is run a wire to the house and we're good to go. This is a fiber to the premises installation so I would think all that crazy stuff about wires being too long would not apply to me. But I know what you are talking about because that did happen to me in my current house.

as far as AT&T being an evil empire - I don't think any of these companies are "evil" - I do think they hire people to do phone sales off the street and don't train them especially well on what to say and what not to say. I just got done yelling at Comcast for promising me a $150 gift card to switch to them from U-Verse and then they renegged on it yesterday, saying I needed to have signed a 1 year contract to get that. One person makes a mistake, the rest of the company has to bear the weight of that mistake.

 

[stevech]

After you've endured U-Verse for a year, and compared it to Cable Modem/TV service/cost, I'd bet you a dinner that you'll be saying, then, they are evil.

My brother lives where he can get Verizon's FIOS. His HOA negotiated a really huge discount and free bundles of channels, plus phone/internet. He's very happy. But the power of that big HOA was the magic. Still, I hear enough, and sorely wished I lived in an ex-GTE phone area (of the regulated era) so FIOS could come here. But, Time Warner does well in my phone/internet/TV service, if not in the prices of TV channel packages.

If your contract with AT&T has an option to get out at little/no penalty - you may want to carefully watch that deadline and see if you are happy.

 

[jcwillia1]

Steve thanks for sharing your experiences.

Unfortunately there are no other choices so even if I hate it, my alternative is to get nothing.

I know that cable is better but if its not there...

 

[stevech]

Steve thanks for sharing your experiences.

Unfortunately there are no other choices so even if I hate it, my alternative is to get nothing.

I know that cable is better but if its not there...

wow. No cable modem.
But living out of suburbia has great advantages!

 

[tipstir]

You can only use what's offered in your area. Even though Cable Modem is better you can get by with what you get from AT&T. With them you can get things for less. If you find the bill too high call them and say it just too high. What can you do to help reduce it. They will help.

 

[jcwillia1]

not sure if I let on that I am moving out of suburbia but we are in fact right in the middle of suburbia

We're moving from Schererville, IN to St. John, IN - both are outlying suburbs in the Chicago area to the southeast.

My hope is that we get through these first two years with U-Verse and then by that time all the construction is complete (naive thought, I know) and then Comcast realizes - holy crap we're missing out on a boatload of money here - and then I can have Comcast in two years.

Although Comcast sort of screwed me in my current go round with them. I signed up in May, full tilt installation - all the channels, best internet, unlimited phone, said hey I'm leaving U-Verse, they said great here's a $150 gift card. 3 months later I ask about the gift card and they go - oh you silly, you didn't sign a contract so you get no gift card... Now on the one hand I'm REALLY PISSED because I want my gift card. On the other hand, if I'd signed a contract I would have to break out of it since Comcast doesn't offer service in my new neighborhood, so net net... whatever

We go for our final inspection / walkthrough of the house today!!!

 

[jcwillia1]

in an UNBELIEVABLE stroke of good luck we ran into the AT&T guys while we had our walkthrough today. They were gameplanning how they were going to get us service because contrary to what the phone people said there are not AT&T wires ANYWHERE NEAR the premises currently.

But they reassured me that they are going to run service all the way down to me but they said it might not be ready until Thanksgiving.

Then we got to talking about the install inside the house and I started to explain to him how I wanted it and he gave me his business card so that we could hash all that out before they actually come inside. He also said that he was going to send one of his more experienced installers to do the job.

So I already feel way better about the situation - now I can send him the map that I attached to this thread and get on the same page with the installer before he ever walks in the door. As someone who works 40 miles from where he lives, that is HUGE.

 

[tipstir]

When you go with Comcast in May, be very careful of what they offer you like their triple play (aka most expensive deal). I have them since they had taken over from AT&T Broadband years ago un in New England. Now in South Florida it hasn't been easy to get them to do things cost of installation was overboard. I had fight them on so many things. I had all what they had offered. But you will soon learn better to use your cell phone as the main phone. Never use Digital Phone from Cable company. In time everything they said would be cheap will get so expensive.

Right now I just have the internet I had to reduce my 105mbps down and 10 up to 50 mbps down and 5 mbps up. Because they can't give me it 105mbps for $79.99 a month (aka $84 a month) So what they did is gave me $10 off plus additional $10 off which made it $94 a month (aka $104 a month) Now it's just $79.99 a month although last month was only $38 after going after them to give me back what I didn't use. Also I don't rent the Cable modem I own my I purchase it from Amazon to save on the continuous rental fees for it per month.

That's how Comcast operates..

 

[RogerSC]

Yeah, due to deregulation, or never being regulated, they just charge what they think that they can get away with without attracting enough attention to become regulated. I really dislike Comcast (and Verizon, for the same reason), but they don't have to care, they have a virtual monopoly in this area. They say that they're using the extra income to build more capacity, but I'm not seeing it. Been at 12 or 16Mbps for a long time now. That itself costs all I want to pay for using the internet at the moment.

 

[jcwillia1]

I think you may have misread my comments - I went to Comcast last May - there is no Comcast service in my new neighborhood and they have no plans to bring it there.

 

[stevech]

I think you may have misread my comments - I went to Comcast last May - there is no Comcast service in my new neighborhood and they have no plans to bring it there.

No cable TV service at all?

 

[jcwillia1]

No cable TV service at all?

Nope. Nearest terminal is a quarter mile to the south and they will not run a line to me.