FattyAcid
join:2009-10-27
Houston, TX
| U-Verse Voice Common Problems and Limitations
I'm trying to create the definitive list of U-Verse Voice common problems and limitations compared to POTS/other VoIP providers.
Here is my list so far. I would appreciate feedback including corrections, disagreements, and additions.
1) Intermittent static. Their appears to be a flaw in a subset of the 2Wire Residential Gateway's (RG) analog telephone/POTS port causing the RG to generate intermittent static during a phone call. If you're persistant, AT&T is willing to replace RGs until they find one without this problem. The intermittent static is not heard by the remote party on the phone call, just locally by you.
2) Susceptible to AM radio and other RF interference. Another commonly reported problem is that 2Wire RG is subject to AM radio or other RF interference. Sometimes this can be eliminated by cleaning up the inside telephone wiring, addressing grounding issues, or by having AT&T install RF filters/chokes. AT&T is now providing their premise technicians a series of filters for both RJ-11, RJ-45 and coax that be installed on the RG to reduce interference. However not all AT&T premise tech garages have these filters yet and some premise technicians may be unaware of them. A picture of these filters is located at:
»i37.photobucket.com/albums/e61/t···4416.jpg
3) Caller ID / Call Waiting issues. The RG's Caller ID and Call Waiting implementation appears to be incompatible with some phones. Some people claim to have gotten AT&T to subsidize the purchase of new phones for their home upon discovering this problem.
4) Immediate Fast Busy on hang ups. Although common to other VoIP providers, when the other party hangs up the phone during a conversation, the "fast busy" dial tone is immediately generated by the RG. Normally, you wouldn't notice this problem as both parties hang up at roughly the same time, i.e. at the end of the conversation, or because you use the AT&T U-Verse voicemail system. However, if you use an answering machine instead of the AT&T voicemail, you'll have four "fast busy" tones at the end of every message left on your answering machine.
5) Echoing and dropouts. Although not uncommon to other VoIP providers, some users have occasionally complained of echoing or droups during a phone call.
6) High availability. U-Verse Voice is only as reliable and available as your 2Wire RG and neighborhood VRAD. For example, many people in Houston during Hurricane Ike never experienced an outage of their POTS landline (or their ADSL service). This was because a POTS landline typical runs all the way to an AT&T central office (CO) which have generators. With U-Verse Voice, your POTS/analog telephone service terminates at the RG where it is converted to VoIP. If you're getting U-Verse Voice as part of your installation, the AT&T premise tech will provide a small Belkin UPS to power the RG. It only lasts about X hours. Additionally, the VRAD (video ready access device--i.e. the VDSL DSLAM in your neigborhood) only has batteries that last about X-X days. So, even if you have your own generator or large UPS in your house, the VRAD's will only run for X-X days unless AT&T installs a generator. AT&T installed generators on a subset of VRADs during Hurricane Ike but some were stolen.
7) Lack of advanced integration with DVR/STB. Surprisingly, there is not a lot of intergration between U-Verse Voice and U-Verse TV. From any U-Verse DVR/STB/in your home, you see your call history and can initiate an outbound call by selecting a number from the call history (your phones will ring, and when you answer, it will immediately initiate an outbound call to the number you selected). Obvious integration features like on-screen Caller ID that other providers have had for years (e.g. DISH Network) are still not available. |
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nwrickert
sand groper
Premium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·AT&T Midwest
| I haven't experienced any of these problems.
We did have a power outage, but the Belin UPS held up (only around 30 minutes). There's always cell phone as a backup, unless the cell tower goes down. When on POTS, we did occasionally use dialup as a backup for DSL outages. With U-verse voice, that option is gone because if there is a U-verse outage, the phone would not work anyway.
I did try the video call history. It is usable to find who called after the fact. But it's not suitable for call screening use of callerid. On the otherhand, we are not glued to the TV, so we would not be using that for callerid anyway.
Overall, call quality for us is noticeably better than it was with POTS.
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AT&T Uverse; Zyxel NBG334W router (behind the 2wire gateway); openSuSE 11.0; firefox 3.0.14 |
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FattyAcid
join:2009-10-27
Houston, TX
| said by nwrickert  :I haven't experienced any of these problems. Right, I suspect lots of people haven't had many of these these problems. I wasn't so much looking for feedback on how many users have or have not had these problems, just if I'm missing a problem/limitation or describing them inaccurately.
Thanks for the run time info for the Belkin UPS battery during a power outage.
I've collected the problems based on my own experiences, from reading dslreports.com, uverseusers.com, and utalk.att.com.
I experienced #1 (solved by replacing RG), currently experience #4 (but I believe everyone does?), and experienced #6 during Hurricane Ike. |
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landrick
join:2008-02-03
Los Angeles, CA
| A couple more things I'll throw out there. Whatever the technical terms might be, I'll call them "call completion time" and "call quality."
Remember the rotary dial days? After you dialed the last digit, it took a few seconds for the call to go through and for the other end to start ringing. I always noted that as tone dialing was adopted the completion time improved to the point where the other phone was ringing practically before you could even release the last button press. U-verse seems to be a step back; even if I'm calling my neighbor (also on U-verse) it can take up to, I'd say, 5 seconds for the call to ring through. Not a catastrophic problem, but definitely not a selling point.
The other thing is call quality. The sound quality of calls had improved dramatically over the years, to the point that even cross-country calls were perfectly clear with zero background noise. Again, with U-verse, it seems like step back in quality; I get background noise (kind of a faint hiss) in every call. Every call sounds long distance (which, given the technology, i guess is actually true.) Again, not the end of the world, but not something that makes me say, "wow, this is cool..." |
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kshusker
join:2009-10-12 | reply to FattyAcid
Here's one to add.... problems with touch tones... anything that uses touch tones for navigation, such as automated voicemail systems ("press 1 to speak to a representative") may not work with U-Verse |
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nicklulli
join:2009-07-17
Jacksonville, FL | reply to landrick
Dial the area code, it will go through quicker |
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TomMac
Premium
join:2008-03-23
Dayton, OH
| said by nicklulli :Dial the area code, it will go through quicker Dialing the area code works for me. Calls complete much faster.
 |
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netboy34
join:2001-08-29
Kennesaw, GA
·AT&T U-Verse
| where I live you have to  3 different area codes can be a pain then another that is billed long distance when it is the same state. You might want to get used to dialing the area code anyway... |
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Keoway
Premium
join:2009-08-29
Seneca, SC
| reply to TomMac
I encountered an odd scenario when I was making a test call to see what callerid data was transmitted by U-Verse Voice.
I was attempting to make an intralata call* and intentionally suppressed the area code. However, I misdialed and the last digit of the exchange was incorrect. Apparently, I encountered an exchange that is invalid within my lata. [The call had been intended for my CDMA cell phone.]
My VOIP phone went "dead" for a couple minutes. The handset indicated that there was "no line." The 2Wire interface also indicated that there was no valid voice line. After a few minutes, the VOIP service finally restored itself.
[* I am in area code 864. I had thought that I was dialing 389-6nnn. I think my misguided fingers hit 386-6nnn.] |
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RN
@sbcglobal.net
| reply to FattyAcid
I too have problems with feedback on the u-verse phone system. after 2 days of having att back out trying to fix all of the mistakes the first installer made, I am told a 6.0 phone will always have feedback unless you have a phone that is says on it voip tech (I am going to look tonight) and ATT does not sell a phone like this on their site. This has been the worse experience ever. I will be calling and asking that they put everything back the way it was for my phone & internet or I will switch to some other company that will. So far I have been sold a package that I did not get (cost me more $) had wires pulled and set at the base board (that the second installer did fix) and now told its going to cost me more $ for a different phone. These are all problems I now find out that are common and they know the phone will feedback. I should have been made aware of this ahead of time and I would have told them to forget it! BAD SERVICE ALL AROUND..  |
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Medicguy
@sbcglobal.net
| reply to FattyAcid
We experienced the whole interference with our phone, but today the technician came out and installed a new RG and the problem went away.
They checked out lines outside our house and at the box to make sure everything was grounded. The tech mentioned if the RG or phones are around speakers, it would cause the interference issue.
Overall, I am glad they fixed the problem and we are happy with the service we have received from AT&T. A LOT better than the customer service our local comcast provides. |
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Keoway
Premium
join:2009-08-29
Seneca, SC
| reply to RN
With regards to audio quality, in general, my DECT 6.0 Vtech Model LS6125* has been crystal clear.
»www.vtechphones.com/vtechui/stor···mID=3808
On a lengthy 3-party call, intralata with 3 different CLECs represented, I did periodically (i.e. circa 10-15 minutes intervals) hear a very brief tone, of unknown origin, but it wasn't much of an irritant.
nota bene: I've only been on-line with U-Verse, since October 15th.
* I bought mine at Best Buy in July 2008 and got a price match rebate, since it was less expensive at Target. |
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nwrickert
sand groper
Premium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T Midwest
| reply to kshusker
said by kshusker :Here's one to add.... problems with touch tones... anything that uses touch tones for navigation, such as automated voicemail systems ("press 1 to speak to a representative") may not work with U-Verse I am not noticing that.
I just used U-verse voice from home to read my work voicemail box, which is not run by AT&T. There was no difficulty with using touch tones to navigate.
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AT&T Uverse; Zyxel NBG334W router (behind the 2wire gateway); openSuSE 11.0; firefox 3.0.15 |
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Keoway
Premium
join:2009-08-29
Seneca, SC | I have not noticed any loss of functionality, but it seems that the associated tone is not always audibly reported back to the operator of the handset. |
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nwrickert
sand groper
Premium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL | I did not notice that, either. Could that be a function of your phone itself, and not due to u-verse voice?
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AT&T Uverse; Zyxel NBG334W router (behind the 2wire gateway); openSuSE 11.0; firefox 3.0.15 |
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