Freeze-Ups & Screen Savers

We were one of the first customers to get Uverse in our area (fall 2007) and when we first got it, it was snappy and responsive. As time has progressed, we've experienced more and more freeze-ups and general slowness (sometimes waiting several seconds between pushing a button on the remote and getting a response, though that particular problem hasn't been as apparent lately). My best guess is that the hardware at the neighborhood connection point has not been budgeted properly for the load it's experiencing as more and more people get the service. This could be a problem with the technical requirements estimate, or a cost saving measure, but AT&T will lose customers if they don't address it.

There have been some really nice things about having Uverse (the addition of whole-house access to the recorded shows was a great convenience, for instance) and I'm not disenchanted enough yet to switch back to my cable provider, but more frequent and/or serious performance issues could easily change my mind. I expected this when I first signed up (and, ironically, didn't get it) but the service is mature enough now that things should be running smoothly.

As a big caveat: I have not contacted Uverse support about these issues yet (I usually have to be on the verge of switching services before I dedicate that much time out of my day to a problem). Also, to be fair, the problems recently have not been as severe as before, so there may have been enough complaints to kick AT&T into action already. But I still get momentary freezes often enough to be considered inconvenient.

Incidentally, in the most recent software load I have noticed that the screen saver has become more aggressive, coming on at times that it wouldn't before (I prefer this new behavior). You might re-check your system options if you're still having a problem getting one at all.