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"Telephony Magazine" Expands Story on How I Got AT&T To Reduce My Triple Play Phone Bill By Almost 50%

"Telephony Magazine" expands the story on how I got AT&T to reduce my triple play U-verse services reduced by almost 50%.

Read all about it here.

How To Save Money on Your U-verse Bill - I Just Saved $240 Per Year. And I Got a $70 Bonus Without Asking! Here's how

For several months, I have had AT&T's  Internet Max service which gives me 10MB speed in the house.

Frankly, I don't see a huge difference. 

I am going back to the Elite service which gives me 6MB speed. 

It costs $20.00 less per month.

That's $240.00 per year in savings.

But wait, there's more.  

The customer service rep then offered me one month of free HD (saving me $10) and $10 off of my U-verse Voice for the next six months which comes to $60.00.  I did not ask for it.  He just offered.  If you don't get an offer like this, ask!

Any one else doing this?

Let me know- alan at weinkrantz dot com

AT&T Launches Total Home DVR in San Antonio

While Total Home DVR has been released in other markets, it's being officially announced today in San Antonio, where I live.

I've had Total Home DVR for 4 days and works as advertised.

Today's edition of our local newspaper, the San Antonio Express News the story here.

Here's a demo shot last week at an AT&T store in San Antonio.  I have a broader opinion piece in the San Antonio Express-News which I will post tomorrow.  (Be sure to click the option to watch in higher quality video on the lower right hand side of the video).

“Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to show you something way cool.” AT&T introduces HomeManager-- a practical and stylish telephony and information management hardware platform for the home

Last month’s deployment of AT&T’s U-verse Voice in my home represented a fundamental shift in the way I look at my residential telephony service.  And now, with today’s introduction of its HomeManager™ product offering, the phone company as we no longer know it, is extending the value chain in helping me integrate and manage all of my IP services in the home.

Read AT&T Press Release here.

Here's my review, shot in my home, here:

Overview
The AT&T HomeManager consists of three devices:  the HomeManager Frame, HomeManager Handset, and HomeManager Base.

The HomeManager Frame is a cordless touch screen device with a vivid 7 inch color display that provides easy access to your address book, as well as your call logs, voice mail, Yellow Pages and White pages, weather, news, email calendar digital photos and videos – and it’s a speaker phone.  It has the look and feel of a scaled down tablet PC and could be a hint of form factors to come, especially in light of Intel’s recent announcement of its Urban Max prototype displayed last month.

The HomeManager Handset is what it is- a handset but with the feel of something more like a Cisco, Nortel or Avaya office IP phone you see in the enterprise. 

The HomeManager Base which hooks into the Residential Gate way serves as a means to connect to the Frame and Handset.

First Impressions:
It looks really cool. Especially the HomeManager Frame.

It was easy to install. 

I was up and going in about 10 minutes.  The directions are easy to read and follow.

The HomeManager Frame got me thinking about how I consume and apply information.  In the case of Yellow Pages, the HomeManager  Frame is a great application – and a better application than having Yellow Pages on U-verse TV.  Frankly, Yellow Pages on U-verse TV is slow and cumbersome.  But on the HomeManager Frame it’s fast and easy to use.  Oh- by the way, I still use the paper version of the Yellow Pages which sits on a shelf in the kitchen.

While you can get your email on the HomeManager Frame, it’s sort of clunky and not as elegant as checking or composing email or texts on my iPhone.  The HomeManager Frame also comes with a pen stylus for tapping text instead of using your fingers.

The address book is a good idea, but you are out of luck in trying to sync it if you have an iPhone.  If you are a subscriber to the AT&T Mobile Backup Service, you can set your address book to automatically sync with your AT&T mobile phone address book on select phones.  (If you have an iPhone, I highly recommend the MobileMe service which syncs your PC/iPhone/and your .Me account in the cloud).

One thing that the HomeManager Frame does display – and can be your screen saver, is the weather.  This is a case where this type of device lends itself best for a certain type of information that I want to have at my disposal.

The lesson here is that there is no one device or communications platform that can be all things to all consumers.  The other lesson is that slowly but surely, AT&T is helping me build out a small-scale enterprise network in my home with service options that can be deployed on a variety of hardware platforms.  At the end of the day, it can be my TV, my PC, my wireless device, or now my Frame. 

Pricing:
The basic HomeManager offering is on sale starting today for $299.  Additional handsets are available for $69 each.  I wonder why AT&T doesn’t offer a $100 rebate if you sign up for U-verse, or at the very least, let you put 10 non-interest payments of $29 per month on your phone bill.

Availability:

You may purchase your HomeManager today in the following major AT&T markets:  Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.  I assume others will follow as they roll the product out.

Highly Recommended

Here's The AT&T U-verse Channel Guide

Need the AT&T U-verse Channel Guide?

Click here.

photo by Alan Weinkrantz (c) 2008
 

AT&T U-verse Expands HD Channel Lineup to Include More HBO HD Networks

Good news, AT&T U-verseTV customers.  The phone company as we no longer know it, is expanding its range of HD programming on HBO with the addition of   HBO2 HD, HBO Comedy HD and HBO Family HD.

With these additions, U-verse TV customers who subscribe to the HD service option have access to a lineup of more than 40 HD channels. Customers receive HBO channels with a U400 subscription or the addition of an HBO or Movie Package.

$10 A Month More and Worth It

For the price of 3 or so cups of Starbucks coffee, you can have a whole month of this stuff.
HD service is available for $10 a month with any U-verse TV programming package. All U-verse TV packages include HD-ready equipment, and most include an HD-capable DVR.

Click here to learn more about HBO HD programming.

Visit these AT&T Sites to Learn More:

Customers who want additional information on AT&T U-verse TV — or to find out whether it's available in their area — can visit http://uverse.att.com. U-verse TV customers can get more information about U-verse TV programming and television events by visiting http://uverse.att.com/uconnect.

Couchville Now Lists AT&T U-verse Programming...

Good to see Couchville listing AT&T U-verse programming.

Just type in your zip code and your channel listing will appear.

My only critique to the folks at Couchville is that they are classifying U-verse at being a cable service, which it is not.  They need to create a new category: IPTV.

For Your Christmas Day View Pleasure...Here is My Favorite AT&T Video of 2007

And now for your Christmas Day viewing pleasure....here is my personal favorite AT&T video of 2007. 

It's Steve Colbert's analysis of how, thanks to America's anti-trust laws, AT&T was able to glue itself back together again.....roll the tape and enjoy your day!

A Very Good Cause.....Got A Spare Cell Phone? Bring It By Your AT&T Wireless Store Who Will Donate it to An American Solider in Iraq

If you want to make a difference this holiday season, donate your old or used wireless phone to an American soldier in Iraq.

AT&T's Cell Phones For Soldiers (CPFS) have announced a nationwide call to action for holiday mobile phone donations to help fund the purchase of prepaid phone cards for military personnel stationed in Iraq. AT&T and CPFS have set a goal of raising $1.4 million worth of prepaid cards in the first year of their relationship. This goal would enable every military member stationed in Iraq to make a free, 20-minute phone call home.

AT&T's 1,800 company-owned retail stores across the United States serve as donation sites for used mobile phones, and the company is contributing 30,000 additional prepaid phone cards for the holidays to CPFS — valued at more than $250,000 — to further help the effort. This brings AT&T's total commitment for the year to more than $500,000 in free phone cards for the charity and follow's AT&T's announced donation of 30,000 prepaid cards this past summer.

Over the past two years, AT&T has donated more than $4 million worth of prepaid phone cards to help support U.S. military members and their families. These donations include direct distributions to troops serving in Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, South Korea, Japan and Europe.

Individuals can also make financial contributions to CPFS as a gift for a family member or friend by going to www.att.com/holidayconnect. There, AT&T and CPFS are providing a secure link for making a donation and printing or e-mailing a free holiday card. The card can be used to notify someone that a donation has been made in his or her name to help support military families this holiday season.

CPFS was established by two Norwell, Mass., teenagers — Brittany Bergquist, 16, and her brother Robbie Bergquist, 15. The teens continue to collect and recycle used wireless phones and, with the proceeds, purchase prepaid phone cards for military families. Since the Bergquists founded the program in April 2004, they have raised more than $1 million and have sent more than 400,000 phone cards to troops.

Additional information on these and other initiatives, including a list of AT&T retail locations serving as drop-off sites for CPFS, is available at www.att.com/troopsupport.

Mainstream Media Continues to Review U-verse - Too Much Focus on "Just TV"

The L.A. Times' Jim Granelli has a fair and balanced review on AT&T's U-verse service.

My only real critique of Jim's review (and others that I see) is that they are too focused on the TV experience - and not on the whole enchilada: the notion of getting your TV / PC / Wireless service from one provider - and yes for those of you who think I am a pro-AT&T bigot, you can do likewise with Verizon.

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but if you are going to compare spec to spec and feature to feature on Cable vs. Satellite vs. IPTV, there will never be a best choice. 

One will always have something the other does not have. 

And as for price, I have found that you can drive yourself crazy on comparing pricing because much of it depends on your local market.

To me, this is not about TV, but rather having several things:

    1.  An alternative to cable and satellite.
    2.  The notion that you are disrupting the traditional way of getting TV
    3.  Getting HD over IP (way too cool)
    4.  Saving money on bundled service offerings
    5.  More competition