What to expect when uverse gets installed on Monday?

February 8, 2014 2:33 PM

I live in a two story house and am having uverse tv and internet installed on Monday. First question the location of the phone line box outside the house has around knee/waist high snow. Will that cause a problem? Also my desktop pc that needs wired internet is on the opposite end and a floor above my home theatre area. Do they just set up the RG where it's most convenient for them and leave the logistics up to you to get a wire where you need it? And finally if they do in fact run ethernet to my tv location can I use a gigabit switch to feed my ps3/ps4 as well? Thanks in advance guys
posted by mamamia88 to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

They will wire up your house, basically. They put in 3 jacks for me, installs run pretty long but they do a decent job (better than cable companies in my experience).

You can share the network jack between your TV box and other internet devices, yes. Inside your house its all just IP traffic and there are no special lines for the DVR boxes (there is some quality-of-service stuff going on with the packets for the TV service vs internet I believe, but that isn't something you have to worry about).

I've since redone my setup, but basically think of it like this:

You have a U-Verse DSL modem/router/WiFi access point in your house. That also has some wired net ports in it. Those wired ports can be used for game consoles, computers, DVR boxes, additional WiFi points, whatever. You can put as many switches in the path as you want

(My living room TV, for example, is connected like this: Modem -> Master Switch -> Living Room Switch -> DVR, and off the LR switch I have 4 game consoles and some other stuff).

I strongly recommend asking them to use a wired connection for your DVR boxes! Relying on WiFi for HD video isn't something I'd want to do (and I've spent over 10 years working on Internet video stuff, including UVerse).
posted by wildcrdj at 2:40 PM on February 8, 2014

One additional point: if you ever add another router (like if you wanted to use an existing WiFi router behind the DSL modem), make sure you enable multicast traffic! By default many routers disallow incoming multicast traffic, but U-Verse uses multicast so your TV will suddenly stop working.

(If you have no idea what the above sentence is saying, I recommend just using the modem/router they give you :) )
posted by wildcrdj at 2:46 PM on February 8, 2014

Response by poster: yeah i have a few routers lying around but I only plan on using one in AP only mode in the basement.
posted by mamamia88 at 3:01 PM on February 8, 2014