Something rather curious has been taking place at one of the AT&T old POTS (plain old telephone service) box resting on a major street sidewalk.  AT&T trucks have been parked on the street just next to this box working on it for over two months (currently not finished as of June 18, 2012).  I stopped by and asked what was going on.  It seems that the U-verse system might be suffering from bad cabling from the old POTS system, that is the old twisted wire running from this huge interconnection box to our homes.  Two problems were identified.  First, there are cable runs that are just bad and need to be replaced.  This really shows up when it rains.  Second, the old system of wiring used bridged taps which now has bit AT&T in the pocket book.  A bridge tap was a means for each home to be “seen’ at a number of terminal locations down a long street, for example.  This might be convenient for the installer but having those wires running out past your home and not dedicated just to your home causes some pretty dire consequences when broad band signals run down the wires.  Simply put, signals that are this sophisticated need to ONLY run directly to you home.  DSL signals really go dysfunctional due to signal reflections running down dead end wires (past your home) and reflecting back.   The new U-verse system must go nuts with this antiquated legacy wiring.    (posted June 18, 2012).