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.
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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 of 2010, U-verse had nearly 3 million customers (100% year over year increase since 2008). It was available to 27 million living units in 22 states.[1]
U-verse TV is delivered via IPTV from the head-end to the consumer's Total Home DVR or standard set-top box.[2] 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.
Internet service is provided to computers connected to the on-premises Ethernet cabling or a HomePNA residential gateway or DSL modem. The rates offered were:
| Tier | Technology | Downstream peak rate | Upstream peak rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | ADSL2+ | 768 kbps | 384 kbps |
| Express | ADSL2+ | 1.5 Mbps | 384 kbps |
| Pro | VDSL | 3 Mbps | 1 Mbps |
| ADSL2+ | 512 kbps | ||
| Elite | VDSL | 6 Mbps | 1 Mbps |
| ADSL2+ | 768 Kbps | ||
| Max | VDSL | 12 Mbps | 1.5 Mbps |
| ADSL2+ | 1 Mbps | ||
| Max Plus | VDSL | 18 Mbps | 1.5 Mbps |
| ADSL2+ | 1 Mbps | ||
| Max Turbo | VDSL | 24 Mbps | 3 Mbps |
The Max service was announced in 2008,[3] and Max Turbo was announced in December 2009.[4] 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.
AT&T U-verse Voice is a voice communication service delivered over AT&T's IP network. Customers subscribing to both AT&T U-verse TV and Voice are provided features such as call history and Click to Call, which displays missed and answered calls on the customer's TV if subscribed to U-verse TV. The Voice service was announced in January 2008 to be available in Detroit.[5]
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