The Cupertino Courier

News

AT&T cable launch gets good, bad reception in Cupertino

By Cody Kraatz

AT&T is expanding its new cable TV service called U-verse in the Monta Vista neighborhood of Cupertino. Many residents have passed, but some are plugged in.

Some residents have experienced persistent service glitches.

"The Internet is fine, I have no complaints about that. It's the same as Comcast. But the digital is worse than regular cable; it's worse than Comcast," said Monte Court resident Karen Patti.

"It looks like it's raining. The image goes out of focus, and then you can see the pixels rearranging themselves. My husband was trying to watch March Madness and it was terrible," she said.

The picture quality has been poor ever since they switched to AT&T on Feb. 25. Her husband, Andrew, called AT&T but was brushed off at first, she said. He called twice more, and eventually AT&T became more responsive and the Pattis were given a $60 refund on their March bill.

"Now they keep calling me to see if it's getting better, but it's not," said Patti.

However, another Monta Vista resident likes the service and is eager to show off its features.

"I got the bundled service with the Internet and cable TV. I've only had it for five minutes," said Mann Road resident Kathleen Elliot. She is saving $15 per month and has more channels and more features than with Comcast.

One of the perks she likes is the digital video recording feature, or DVR. She can record four programs at once and even do this remotely with an AT&T Yahoo Internet account, an exclusive offering, according to AT&T spokesman Ted Carr.

"It looks like it's going to be easy to navigate. I was very impressed with the user-friendliness of the system," said Elliot, who also likes the video clips with step-by-step directions on each feature.

One drawback is that the picture sometimes freezes, but a technician showed her how to fix it by resetting the cable box.

Garden View Lane resident Eugene Stein might consider U-verse if it is cheaper than Comcast.

"If it's a commodity thing and the price is better, then why not? If it's reliable, then I'd get it," said Stein, for whom price was the crucial difference between one provider and the next.

The Cupertino City Council unanimously agreed in December to let AT&T start installing and offering U-verse, as long as the company gets a state franchise license within a year. In return, AT&T paid the city $25,000 and started paying franchise fees.

At the time, AT&T said it wanted to serve 50 percent of Cupertino residents within the first two years.

U-verse exemplifies the new Internet protocol TV technology. It runs on new Microsoft Corp. software using a combination of fiberoptic cable and copper DSL lines. Customers can bundle high-speed Internet, digital cable and phone service, as they can with Comcast and other providers.

"AT&T is committed to the highest standard of performance. Therefore, AT&T continues to focus on refining and improving the customer experience," said Carr. "We are working with customers directly to address specific issues they may have encountered."

Carr would not say exactly where service is available or how many homes AT&T plans to serve in Cupertino, but said U-verse now has more than 10,000 customers nationwide.

However, since service was announced in December, major glitches in the software have delayed rollout in parts of Cupertino, San Ramon, Danville, Saratoga, Foster City, East Palo Alto and San Jose.

The cable TV market in the city, previously dominated by Comcast, is open to competition since a state law passed in September took away cities' power to control their franchise agreements. AT&T lobbied intensely for the bill, which allows cable providers to negotiate with the state rather than with individual cities.

Cupertino gets 5 percent of the revenue a cable provider earns in the city. According to the new law, cities still get the same fees but the money goes through the state first, said David Woo, Cupertino's finance director.

Cupertino took in less than $400,000 in cable franchise fees last year, about 1.5 percent of the $2.35 million the city collected for garbage and other contracts, said Woo.

"The good news is that there will be competition to Comcast," said Cupertino City Councilman Richard Lowenthal. "The bad news is that there is some loss of local control."

The state franchise agreement, unlike a city agreement, does not require that the company service the entire city.

Also, the city's public access channel 26 could be threatened without city control, said Lowenthal.

To find out if service is available at your residence or to learn more, go to uverse.att.com or call 1.800.288.2020.