Tag Archive for: AT&T

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Uverse to Block 20 Cardinals Games Again This Season

You would think that the two sides, Uverse and Fox Sports Midwest, would have come to some sort of agreement in the offseason. Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong.

For the second season in a row, Uverse subscribers will not be able to watch 20 games, including tonight’s versus the Reds. In fact, 7 of the 20 that are blacked out are games against division rivals like the Reds, Brewers, and Cubs.

Here’s the list of games being blacked out by Uverse.

DATE OPPONENT TIME
April 9 at Reds 6:10 p.m.
April 10 at Reds 6:10 p.m.
April 15 vs. Cubs 1:15 p.m.
April 17 vs. Reds 7:15 p.m.
April 23 at Cubs 7:05 p.m.
April 27 vs. Brewers 7:15 p.m.
May 2 vs. Pirates 7:15 p.m.
May 3 vs. Pirates 12:45 p.m.
May 11 vs. Braves 7:15 p.m.
May 16 at Giants 9:15 p.m.
May 17 at Giants 2:45 p.m.
June 13 vs. White Sox 7:15 p.m.
June 14 vs. White Sox 7:15 p.m.
June 19 at Tigers 6:05 p.m.
June 20 at Tigers 6:05 p.m.
June 25 at Marlins 6:10 p.m.
July 24 vs, Dodgers 7:15 p.m.
July 25 vs, Dodgers 7:15 p.m.
Aug. 3 vs. Brewers 7:15 p.m.
Aug. 10 at Phillies 6:05 p.m.

If you’re going to stay with Uverse, call 1-800-288-2020 and ask for customer retention. Tell them you’re unhappy about the situation and demand a discount. If they are going to screw over their subscribers, hit ’em where it hurts… in their bottom line. Of course, it would be better if you cancel completely (not an option for a lot of people, I know).

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Uverse Vs Fox Sports Midwest: They Fight, Fans Lose

Starting this season, Fox Sports Midwest will carry all of the Cardinals baseball games. In the past, local channels would carry some of the games (KPLR, then KSDK). Because Fox Sports Midwest decided to carry all the games this year, they thought they could jack up the price for the channel (or for the rights to show those additional 20 games). Some companies did not agree. Most of the companies in dispute were small-time cable companies in rural areas. The major providers, such as the satellite providers as well as Charter Cable, agreed to the new fees. AT&T’s Uverse did not. They had months and months to come to terms, but they just figured it’s only 20 games, who cares.

Well, AT&T, one of your biggest Uverse markets is also the best baseball town in America. We want to watch EVERY game. We are some of the most loyal fans in all of baseball. By not showing those games you will be losing a lot of money from customers you’ve pissed off, either by giving them discounts on their bill or by watching them leave completely. Is it really worth it? I’ve already had one of your sales people offer me $25 off a month for the next 6 months and promise (and yes, I verified with him what he was actually promising) that the dispute would be resolved by today. Nothing like telling a lie to keep a customer, right?

As for me? Even with the discount offered, I think it’s time to say goodbye. I have been a Uverse customer for over 2 years and have watched them move the sports channels to higher tiers, increased fees for services, and now, take away games promised to air. I can take my business somewhere else where I will be sure to have access to every game.

UPDATE: In case you’re sticking with Uverse and want the discount (we’re missing games, time to hit AT&T where it hurts), call 1-800-288-2020 and ask for customer retention. Tell them you’re unhappy about the situation and demand a discount. I’ve seen some people get offered $15 off a month for 6 months, but they gave me $25 off a month. I wouldn’t go any lower than that.

Downgrading Uverse

I recently decided to downgrade my AT&T Uverse services. Before I downgraded, I had the top tier TV package (with all channels, HD, and all movie channels) and the top tier internet package (18mb). I decided that with Hulu, iTunes rentals, and Netflix (along with other modes of obtaining content), I no longer needed the top tier TV package.

Most of the shows I watch are currently on regular network channels or basic cable channels such as TBS, TNT, and USA. I do watch some shows on the movie channels so I will need to either wait for those to appear on Netflix or arrange for other ways to watch them. I dropped two levels on the TV plan and saved myself about $45 a month. For the internet, I decided to only drop down one level sine I enjoy Netflix streaming. I went from 18mb to 12. That saved me $10 a month. It will be nice not to have to pay $170+ a month for those two services anymore. Would have I liked to keep all my movie channels? Yes, for the simplicity of not having to find additional means to watch those shows (I rarely watch movies on the movie channels), but that alone could not justify the additional cost.

It is pretty ridiculous how much TV and internet costs these days. Uverse was the cheapest TV and internet combo I could find. Charter might have been cheaper for what I wanted but 1. I hate Charter with a passion. 2. Charter has bandwidth caps. Uverse, as of now, does not. Going with a dish service was an option, but then I’d be paying a higher internet fee to get internet through another source (which would most likely be Charter). With prices the way they are it’s easy to see why customers are clamoring for a la carte TV options and services like Hulu Plus, Netflix, and iTunes TV Rentals. When will the cable and satellite companies learn? My guess is never. They will hold on to their outdated business models for years and years, just like the RIAA has.

Thoughts on iPhone OS 3.0

Unless you were living under a rock the past couple days, you probably know that OS 3.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch came out yesterday. There are many new features including copy/cut/paste, MMS (unless you are on AT&T), tethering (again, unless you are on AT&T), voice recording, push notifications, CalDAV support, among others.

After I installed the update and my phone rebooted I was excited to start testing out the new features. There was only one problem. After the update my iPhone was running slow. Very slow. Safari would freeze, applications would crash, and it took forever to find my AT&T signal. After about 15 minutes and multiple restarts, it started behaving again, and in some cases sped things up.

Copy and paste was something that I thought I would never use or if I did use it, it would be on rare occasions. I probably used copy and paste more than anything else yesterday. It is great with the Tweetdeck iPhone app. I wanted to copy a url and paste it in for a tweet and it worked perfectly. The part where it came in handy the most was setting up my Google Calendars.

With OS 3.0, you can finally add Google Calendars using CalDAV. I can’t use Google’s Exchange sync because I have my work’s Exchange account on my phone and you’re only allowed to add one Exchange account. I added my first Google calendar filling out the normal credentials, but it only syncs the main calendar on your Google account. If you have multiple calendars, what do you do? This is where the group calendar comes into play thanks to great instructions here. You add the calendars the same way, but when you are finished you go into advanced options and replace your email address with the randomly generated email address that Google creates. If you have ever seen this email address, it is quite long. Luckily, I could copy the address on my desktop and email it to myself, then open up the mail app and copy it from the email and paste it into the calendar settings. Cross app copy and paste ftw! Also with copy and paste you can also finally email multiple pictures instead of sending a separate email for each image. Awesome.

OS 3.0 is a solid release that brought a lot of long-awaited features. It will be even better once AT&T get their act together. The only thing that I really want to use right now but can’t is MMS. AT&T really dropped the ball on this one. They are trying to hide the fact that their network is not all that great. How can they not be ready for iPhone picture or video messaging when every other phone on their network has the capability to do so already? The only answer is their network can’t handle it. That has to be the same reason tethering isn’t available yet. I’m glad that Apple make the snarky remarks during the WWCD singling out AT&T. This must be a PR nightmare for them. There are a lot of angry customers.