AT&T U-verse service now available in Manors

AT&T's U-verse service is now being rolled out to residents of the Manors.  They have begun to use "pair bonding" to extend the reach of their service from their existing VRAD equipment, which is used to connect to the high-speed fiber optic network.  The U-verse "pair bonding" installation also requires an "intelligent Network Interface Device" (iNID) to be mounted on the exterior of your Unit near the existing land line telephone junction box.

Previously, U-verse was only available to customers located less than about 3,000 feet from the nearest VRAD equipment.  Unfortunately, the Units at the Manors were outside that range, since they are all located between 3,000 and 5,000 feet from the VRAD on 22 Mile Road.  Since "pair bonding" extends the U-verse service envelope to a distance of about 5,000 feet, all Units in the Manors should now be able to subscribe and get a signal with decent bandwidth.

Click here to check the current U-verse availability status for your street address. If it comes back with a "Service Not Available", follow the instructions to "research your address" or check back again in a few weeks as they seem to be continually adding more blocks of addresses to the "Service is Available" category as they do a phased roll-out.

The iNID is housed in an enclosure that is approximately 12" x 12" x 4" in size. Since the iNID must be permanently attached to the exterior of the Unit, the customer must submit an Alteration/Modification Request for approval by the Board of Directors.  All future iNID enclosures at the Manors must be directly mounted to the brick wall at a location directly above the electric meter that supplies the customer's Unit.

Click here to download and print an MS Word file that contains a partially-completed Alteration/ Modification Request form for the iNID installation.  Finish completing the form and follow the included mail/fax instructions to submit the request.

AT&T U-verse Update

As I mentioned late last summer, AT&T technicians were prepping the hardware in our rear yards in advance of making their AT&T U-verse service available to residents of the Manors.

Several weeks ago their salespeople were here in the Manors going door-to-door offering introductory pricing to those who signed up for U-verse. A co-owner tells me that she signed up for the U-verse service and when the technician came out to begin the installation, he discovered that there was insufficient signal strength at the connection point in the rear yard. He said that the only way he could make a satisfactory installation would be to mount an amplifier on the exterior of the building and therefore the co-owner declined to have the service installed. She did not want to take a chance on getting a marginal signal plus she didn't want to have to prepare and submit an Alteration Modification Request for the amplifier installation.

I just now entered my address in the "Can I get U-verse?" box on this page and got the following answer (click to enlarge):

AT&T U-verse

You may have noticed the presence of several AT&T workers in and around the Manors over the past few days. I spoke with one of them today and he says that they are making minor changes in the telephone wiring terminal boxes in our rear yards that are needed to support the expansion of their U-verse Cable and Internet service to our area. U-verse uses the Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) architecture to provide high-speed Internet access and high-definition television signals to their residential customers. Their network uses fiber optic cables that terminate at large digital multiplexer boxes that must be installed within 3,000 to 5,000 feet of the customers each box will serve. AT&T's existing telephone service copper wires are the final link in the network they use to deliver the U-verse programming to their subscriber's homes. The AT&T worker I spoke with indicated that they plan to very soon install a digital multiplexer box that will be close enough to serve the units at the Manors.