Origins Of My U-Verse, Part 2: Eligible, Yet Completely Ineligible

Though I previously bemoaned the barrage of AT&T utility cabinets in every nook and cranny of Appleton, I found myself this morning praying for more. 

As you may already be able to tell, this is, sadly, the last of what I had hoped to be a longer series of columns about my experiences with AT&T U-Verse.

When we last left our hero... I was going to try to change my installation date to a weekend slot.  I will admit that part was very easy.  I called their customer service number, and within about a minute or so, I was talking to an associate who was able to secure not only a weekend installation for me, but one sooner than I previously had.  Instead of Tuesday, September 2nd from 10am to noon, I was able to get my date changed to Saturday, August 30th from 8am to 10am.

Anyone who worries that they'll forget about their installation appointment with AT&T can rest easy.  If you're like me, you will see a steady stream of reminders in your e-mail box, your postal mail and your voicemail.  Besides the e-mail correspondance, you get a card in the mail prepping you for your date with all you need to do before your tech arrives.  I also received two scary robot calls reminding me that my installation was scheduled for this Saturday.

Anxious as I was to get this brand spanking new service for my very own apartment, I admittedly started to have cold feet in the days leading up to the appointment.  After endless perusal of my soon-to-be new crop of channels, I found a few key omissions that made me worry about what I was getting myself into.  Depending on which channel listing you look at, you may or may not see AMC, IFC, WeTV and Fuse listed.  If they are, they have an asterisk next to them indicating that they are not available in all areas.  Apparently, Wisconsin is not an area that has them.  This concerned me because I enjoy AMC and was trying to get into their hit series Mad Men after hearing so many rave reviews about it.  I also wished for IFC, because they are going to be airing a favorite series of mine from England in September called The IT Crowd.  Those channels are owned by Rainbow Media, a subsidiary of Cablevision, and from what I've been able to gleen from online forums, they are not everywhere in the U.S. because of some sort of contractual issues.

Worries aside, I was giddy this morning in anticipation of my technician arriving to install my equipment.  I gleefully removed my Time Warner cable box and Road Runner modem while waiting for him to arrive.  I had debated whether to return the equipment and terminate my cable service last night, but since I was paid up through September 6th, I opted to wait.  I also waited because I wanted to see the season premiere of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO.  In retrospect, not cancelling my existing service prior to my installation date was the best possible thing I could have done, and I would strongly recommend you do the same.  Don't worry, I'm getting to the why.

My technician called around 9:30 to make sure I was home and to inform me he would arrive in about 30 minutes.  Later we would find that technicians may not even leave home base until 8:30 if they have a meeting that day.  If your salesperson tells you that your two-hour "installation window" is the only time you actually need to be in the residence because everything else happens outside of your place, don't you believe them.  I was told that, but the window is an area of time when they will first arrive.  Apparently, some salespersons in this area have been known to overpromise to make a sale, and it creates headaches aplenty for the techs.  He also said some salespersons have even promised people deals like free TVs apparently, which evidently aren't legit.  If you go for U-Verse or any new service -- cable or satellite included -- and you're promised a deal, get that sucker in writing.

When the tech did arrive, he was courteous and easy to get along with, and went to work right away.  He gave me a "terms of service" paper to sign and began to locate my existing outlets.  In my apartment, I have two phone jacks and two cable jacks.  I have a phone jack behind my bed in the bedroom, and five feet up the wall between my kitchen and living room.  Neither were in a fantastic position for installation but he proceeded to address the bedroom outlet.  Though their print materials stated the tech was not allowed to move any furniture, he went ahead and moved my bedside table to get into position to rewire the phone jack.

I proceeded to play a game of Monopoly on my laptop as my girlfriend read her book, while our technician went about his work.  He tested my bedroom outlet as well as my dining room outlet, and it became apparent that there was trouble brewing.  I guided him to the laundry room in the basement of my apartment building so he could work on the wiring at the point-of-entry into my building.  A little later, he reentered my apartment and asked if we were sure that those were the only two outlets in the apartment.  As I had diligently perused my walls in advance of his arrival, I asked if he meant the weird, unexplained phone-looking jack in the ceiling of my dining room closet.  That was exactly what he was looking for, as apparently there was a tremendous disparity between the measurements he took in the basement and those in the apartment.

He tooled around in the closet for a few minutes and the general ere of failure was becoming more evident as he worked.  He mentioned that we were likely too far away from our nearest cross-connect box.  That box is on Mason Street, and my apartment building is about 4 or 5 blocks away and over from there.  He said the wiring that existed in my building was also problematic, and the combination of the distance from the box and the quality of the wiring were possibly going to preclude me from getting the service.  Were we closer to a box, this might not have been an issue.  Ultimately, after all his work, his last-ditch option would be to call someone -- another tech or a supervisor, I'm not sure -- and see if there was anything that could be done.  The call was made, and he informed us there was nothing he could do.  My hopes of luxurious new TV service dashed, we thanked him for his time.  He put back everything as it was and left.

I have known this to happen in other areas, as U-Verse is very much a service in extreme infancy, especially in Northeast Wisconsin.  My tech thought that, someday, should a new box come into my immediate neighborhood, there may be a chance I could still get the service.  I'm somewhat less optimistic, however, as it appears they are focusing on building out to areas where service does not yet exist, like the Darboy area.  Who knows.

Later in the day, I made a trip to the grocery store.  A couple buildings down from mine, AT&T was camped out again, selling services to the apartment dwellers nearby.  I was going to stop back on my way home and ask them if they were aware of anyone in my area that has actually been able to get a working installation, but as quickly as I noticed them there, they were gone.  I guess even though customer service and the AT&T website says you're eligible for U-Verse, don't count on actually being able to get it.  Through this episode, I've gotten more and more cynical about AT&T's approach to delivering such a rich suite of TV services by cutting corners in the "fiber to the node" method, versus the "fiber to the premises" other telecoms like Verizon employ.  Existing copper, or existing in-wall phone wire, doesn't seem to be robust enough to ensure everyone can get it.  Granted, bad coaxial cable wiring can produce similar results for other providers, but if technicians are not permitted to pull new wire as mine wasn't, there are bound to be more disappointed people out there like me.

As I am also ineligible for a satellite service like DISH Network or DirecTV, it appears that Time Warner Cable remains my only feasible option.  That means trying to find a workable over-the-air antenna may be my only cost-effective option for television.