AT&T activates 2HD / 2SD U-verse service in St. Louis, more cities to come?

by Darren Murph, posted May 1st 2008 at 1:19PM

Stop the presses: AT&T has just yanked a huge hurdle out of U-verse's way, and if St. Louis' luck is passed on throughout the country, its fiber-based HD service just got a whole lot more attractive. To be honest, many have scoffed at AT&T's U-verse service due to the inability to watch one high-def channel while recording another (even though you could record an SD channel while watching an HD telecast), but now a swarm of St. Louis, Missouri based customers are joining in celebration as 2HD / 2SD service has been activated. In short, this enables four total streams to be accessed at once, but unlike the previous 1HD / 3SD setup, users can now get their fingers on dual high-definition broadcasts. Unfortunately, we've heard nothing official about this rolling out elsewhere, but we can't imagine AT&T only letting STL have all the fun here.

[Thanks, Andrew]

Filed under: Industry, DVRs, Set-top boxes, Fiber

Tags: att, breaking news, BreakingNews, st. louis, St.Louis, u-verse, uverse

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Bluemanrule @ May 1st 2008 2:02PM

When the U-verse squad canvassed my neighborhood they informed me that this was on its way to Oklahoma City in 9-12 months. This was about 5 months ago. It's coming to everyone. Just give it time. I'll switch b/c Cox is killin' me.

Highly Ranked

Rodimus @ May 1st 2008 2:05PM

FINALLY!!!

Now where's WHDVR?!!

Neutral

andrewgreene @ May 1st 2008 3:26PM

Whole Home DVR and more HD programming.
Waiting on WHDVR is torturous, it's always "a couple of weeks away". And they're still saying 100 HD feeds by the end of 2008: http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/04/well_connected_atts_dan_york.php

Neutral

Frank Furter @ May 1st 2008 2:55PM

Yeah, I had AT&T out to fix my phone last week, he told me that he was told "this summer" for Wichita, KS. Bye-bye Cox. I hope.

Neutral

mnemonicj @ May 1st 2008 3:37PM

I was told by an AT&T rep that this should be happening to the Indianapolis area Uverse users by late summer.

Neutral

Andy @ May 1st 2008 3:38PM

So if there is a 2/2 now, can you watch a recorded HD show while recording 2 HD channels? This happens a lot in my house.

Neutral

kcmurphy88 @ May 1st 2008 5:04PM

Now only a decade obsolete.

Neutral

Andrew @ May 1st 2008 5:30PM

You were watching/recording on 2 HD streams 10 years ago?

Neutral

kcmurphy88 @ May 1st 2008 11:08PM

Well, I had DirecTV HD service in 2001 -- not a decade, no, but certainly two channels at a time. I would really like to see SBC, oops AT&T, offer a proper service, since I am stuck with them, but this still isn't it. They aren't going to get me to drop my DirecTV for this obsolete stuff. What part of FIBER TO THE DOOR did they not get? Verizon understands. Of course, I'm not in Verizon territory, so I'm SOL there.

Neutral

mnemonicj @ May 2nd 2008 10:34AM

AT&T service is Fiber to the Node. It is easier to roll out to more people, more quickly. That is the reason why Uverse is available in more areas and is growing more rapidly. Supposedly, Verizon FiOS HD channels are the worst in the industry, not for quality, but availability of channels in HD. I am sure that even if you had FiOS you would still be unhappy, because some people you just can't please.

Neutral

kcmurphy88 @ May 2nd 2008 11:32AM

FiOS has had an oddly obsolete analog TV system, limited to the same bandwidth as cable, which they are hurriedly replacing with a fully digital one. Once they do that, their available bandwidth will explode. Hopefully this will coincide with a better DVR.

AT&T is going to the node in order to keep using its ancient copper network as long as possible. But it imposes such bandwidth degradation on the last quarter mile that it is uncompetitive with satellite. Cable systems in my area have been fiber to the node for a few years already, and they're looking to more that point closer. AT&T is still playing catchup.

As for being unhappy with anything, I've been with DirecTV since 1994, so they've found some way to please me,at least a bit. Fiber should offer more than satellite can, but AT&T's stingy system doesn't even come close.

Neutral

Andrew @ May 1st 2008 5:30PM

Watching a recorded show isn't using any bandwidth, so i don't see why not.

Neutral

Tyson @ May 1st 2008 5:44PM

I go to school here in St. Louis, (at least for for another 2 weeks before I'm out of this dump) and St. Louis deserves it this place has nothing else going for it. Charter communications sucks. If my apartment wasn't prewired I would get it. I wish they had this when I was here.

Neutral

Jim Mallory @ May 1st 2008 5:57PM

Give me a total of 5 HD streams and a Media Center solution and I can start to think of replacing them with Cable.

Neutral

Tom E @ May 12th 2008 1:38PM

I'm in St. Louis and the 2 streams isn't here yet as of 5-12-08. I hope you are right because only having 1 hd channel to record at once sucks. I think Charter is better until AT&T gets this.

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