AT&T U-verse

AT&T U-verse is a registered service mark under which AT&T offers Internet access, television, and telephone services in various parts of the United States. It began in 2008 to serve mostly residences and small businesses in urban and suburban areas.

Services

U-verse uses a Fiber to the Node (FTTN) or Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) communications network. This means Fiber-optic communication is used to boxes either within a neighborhood or at each premises. A high-speed variant of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line technology called ADSL2+ or Very-high-bitrate digital subscriber line (VDSL) are used on the telephone lines to the customers' premises.

At the end of 2011, U-verse had 3.8 million customers. It was available to more than 30 million living units in 22 states.

Television

Main article: List of AT&T U-verse channels

AT&T U-verse's electronic program guide

U-verse TV is delivered via IPTV from the head-end to the consumer's Total Home DVR or standard set-top box. U-verse uses H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) encoding which compresses video more efficiently than the traditional MPEG-2 codec. Broadcast channels are distributed via IP multicast, allowing a single stream (channel) to be sent to any number of recipients. The system is also designed for individual unicasts for video on demand, central time shifting, start-over services and other programs desired by only one home at that particular time. The set-top box does not have a conventional tuner, but is an IP multicast client which requests the stream desired. In the IP multicast model, only the streams the customer uses are sent. The customer's connection need not have the capacity to carry all available channels simultaneously. U-Verse TV supports up to 4 active streams at once. All tvs require a provided set-top-box.

Internet

Internet service is provided to computers connected to the on-premises Ethernet cabling or wifi from the included residential gateway or DSL modem. The rates offered were:

Tier	Technology	Downstream peak rate	Upstream peak rate
Basic	ADSL2+	768 kbps	384 kbit/s
Express	ADSL2+	1.5 Mbps	384 kbit/s
Pro	VDSL	3 Mbit/s	1 Mbit/s
	ADSL2+		512 kbit/s
Elite	VDSL	6 Mbit/s	1 Mbit/s
	ADSL2+		768 kbit/s
Max	VDSL	12 Mbit/s	1.5 Mbit/s
	ADSL2+		1 Mbit/s
Max Plus	VDSL	18 Mbit/s	1.5 Mbit/s
	ADSL2+		1 Mbit/s
Max Turbo	VDSL	24 Mbit/s	3 Mbit/s

The Max service was announced in 2008, and Max Turbo was announced in December 2009. If ordering U-verse Internet access, the Basic, Express, Elite, Pro and Max packages can be self-installed. Max Plus and above packages require a technician visit.^{[citation needed]}

Voice

Call history on U-verse TV

AT&T U-verse Voice is a voice communication service delivered over AT&T's IP network (VoIP). This phone service is digital and has a voice mail service found by dialing *98 from the home number. Customers subscribing to both AT&T U-verse TV and Voice are provided features such as call history and Click to Call, which displays the last 100 missed and answered calls on the customer's TV if subscribed to U-verse TV. The Call history feature is found on channel 9900. U-verse voice service includes many features like Caller Id, Call Blocking,and Call Forwarding. The Voice service was announced in January 2008 to be available in Detroit.

See also

• Verizon FiOS
• Fiber-optic communication
• Optik TV
• Vonage
• Bell Fibe TV
• Voice over IP

External links

• Official website — TV, Internet, Phone
• AT&T U-verse Community
• ATT Uverse Authorized Retailer