AM I nuts for being an ATT customer?

So what, exactly, is going on?

Picture freezes and pixelates, skips, loses service (issues with internet as well) since beginning of May intermittently (sometimes it just a pause and others it happens so often watching tv is impossible) an

d it appears ATT has no interest in finding a solution. An independent electrician said its common with ATT and is caused by not being properly grounded, but when I passed that on it was dismissed as the tests don't show anything wrong (no clue whether it is or not)

If the issue is that your line is not properly grounded, you should be able to see that it is at least connected to ground at the NID.

What do your Gateway statistics look like?

Tbh I havent a clue what youre asking, they have told me that they've run tests and its not the issue (but I have had someone say that and then someone else runs a test and says they can see all kinds of issues). Making an assumption I think the electrician was saying that the ground wire should be grounded to a stake by the box rather than a ground wire that is grounded to a beam in the basement?? Im stuck on the idea if everything else hasn't resolved anything, why wouldn't they try it? The electician sounded pretty confident that was the issue and its common with homes that use ATT and that all new construction is done that way to avoid low voltage feedback (no clue if that's correct but he sounded confident, and it seems plausible since nothing that has been tried has resolved the issues)

Go to http://192.168.1.254/ , click on the Broadband tab, look for the blocks showing Sync Rate, Noise Margin, Attenuation, error counts, etc.  That will show us what measurable effects may be happening.

The primary purpose of the grounding at the NID is for arresting lightning spikes.  Though if the drop is shielded, the shield could also be sunk to the ground.  Which could affect RF if there's a lot around you.

OTOH, you could be creating RF inside your house being picked up by the run from the NID to your Gateway, or just by the electronics in your Gateway (via the power cord, even).  The wiring inside the house is UTP... the U means Unshielded.

If Im following you correctly, going to that page there doesn't seem to be anything that stands out as being "wrong" but it is a lot of blah,blah, blah to me. If Im following your explanation....gateway has been replaced 7 times (full disclosure someone suggested that I replace the power cord as quite often the unit is simply unplugged and the power cord is reused but I don't have another powercord and during service visits they have never even looked at that as a possibility. HDMI cable and ethernet cables were both replaced by me with new as well as trying diff tv, plugged into socket directly, (no surge protector). The reason the electrician was here was he was inspecting all the electrical in the house and only found a loose "hotbox" which he repaired/replaced (the issue happened prior to any electrical issues and continues after electrician gave the house wiring a clean bill of health, The only other possibility was the PS3 was interfering somehow....but that was removed some time ago and eliminated as possible source. They replaced the wall outlet? for the connection, the drop line to the house, the run in the basement to the "outlet", but racking my brain I don't think the power cord to the DVR was ever swapped out...I didn't when I got 1st one via mail, but am thinking every time a tech replaced the DVR (upgraded then downgraded I seem to remember them unplugging the DVR and using same powercord) could it be something as simple as the powercord???

Please take a screenshot of those tables and post them in a reply so that we can explain what the numbers mean.

RF interference can come from all sorts of things.  A nearby radio station (especially AM).  A streetlight.  A treadmill.  The HVAC system.  The power supply for a laptop.  There are protections against RFI built into the system, but they are not foolproof.

trying to figure out how to do that (I'm not very computer savy)....all of it or is there a certain portion?? seems like id need to take 3 screenshots to get everything from that page

Turns out not as difficult as I expected

Thanks, the only relevant piece of data not there (because it's on a whole different page) is the uptime, so I can tell how long you've been running to collect this data.

You have a dual pair line, the two pair are each running at about half capacity and you're getting no hard errors.  I cannot evaluate the impact of the soft errors due to not knowing the uptime (it's on the page Device > System Information as Time Since last Reboot.

Given how high the attenuation is, your line looks like it's performing great.  So I can sort of understand why the technicians are looking at you sideways.  Yes, I understand these numbers don't mean you don't get pixilation, etc.  It just means the cause isn't here.  So we need to look elsewhere.

We are here to help get your U-verse service back up to par, @chefdavid657.

Thank you to the ace for the useful information.

Here is more information on how to troubleshoot the pixilation on your TV.

This is some of the basic troubleshooting, but it usually fixes the pixilation and freezing on the TV.

Also, we have some questions for clarification.

• Is your AT&T equipment plugged into a surge protector or an outlet? The surge protector can cause loss of service or speeds, intermittent service, and freezing and pixilation.

Let us know if this helps.

Marc, AT&T Community Specialist

@chefdavid657 

Are your settop boxes connected to gateway via Ethernet ?  
I agree the provided screenshots look fine to me as well.   

FWIW, 50Mbit service isn’t that much anymore  and if you have other things going on with internet usage it can impact performance of U-verse TV. And since you’re already on bonded pairs, that’s the best speed they can squeeze out of the old telephone wires.  
Have you tried simplifying your home network as a test to just the DVR and seeing if the issue still happens?

internet usage it can impact performance of U-verse TV.

This should not be the case.  The Gateway does have limited QoS in terms of it prioritizes AT&T Phone VOIP traffic over AT&T U-verse IPTV traffic over Internet traffic.  Sometimes using more bandwidth (from the combined traffic) causes more frequencies to be used, which causes errors, which can affect IPTV.  But as long as there are no errors, Internet traffic should not impact U-verse IPTV.

@JefferMC 

I’ve seen it happen several times.  It is a thing.  

I’ve seen it happen several times.  It is a thing.  

All I can say is that I never have, and it is not supposed to (again, assuming that the Internet usage isn't causing line errors).  While the Gateway imposes no QoS on Internet traffic, it does impose it on VOIP, IPTV and Internet as a whole and prioritizes it in that order (and the upstream network should be doing the same).

Now, if your local network and IPTV traffic is running over the same Ethernet, then you may have some issues in your home network.

The WAP and DVR are running on their own dedicated Ethernet ports on the gateway.