Had some problems with cable and when the guy came out, he mentioned that I had the coax they installed when they built the house and that it might not react well when the company goes full digital. He suggested I consider rewiring the house. Any idea as to a general cost for a two story and basement with around 9 drops?
$500?
It would likely cost more than a single-story with 2 drops, and less than a five-story with 20 drops.
The cost will depend on the labor, and the labor will depend on the structure itself (age, construction, ease-of-access, fireblocks, attic, finished basement, etc. et alia, und so weiter).
In my consulting, my main client, insisted I ether net wire their computer to the modem. I had wired TV similarly years ago but now old and less nimble I paid Comcast to do it since it was a business expense. They worked for $20 an hour, supplying their own cable so it only cost me $20. Prior to that when I got high speed internet I had strung an ether net cable through the house and cable alone cost more than that.
So you might consider using your cable supplier. Another option with Comcast is when you need work done you call them before hand and get the in house insurance for a few bucks a month, get the work done and drop it. I did this 2 months ago when a DTA supply went bad. Otherwise it would have been spending an hour back and forth to their office, crawling around to install it and then calling them to do installation at their part. My wife got the insurance when she called them to get the service and dropped it the day after the work was done. Ended up with zero cost.
Cable companies are not fighting competition from much less costly services like Amazon prime or Netflix and are becoming more accommodating.
If you do it yourself, be sure you install quad-shield.
Don.
IDK what exactly they mean by all digital there, but here, I evolved to all digital with 30 year old coax, no problems. I'm running TV and cable modem. Seems to me they'd have one hell of a lot of pissed off customers if everyone has to upgrade. I think I'd wait and see, try it and decide later. Maybe they figure they can pocket extra revenue by doing your home upgrade?
In fairness to the cable company (Brighthouse) they don't offer the service and would give me the names of 2-3 people to call. So it isn't likely to be in their self interest to have me do it.
When we upgraded to digital, the tech changed a few cables, mainly the ones from cable modem to the set-top boxes and carrier owned splitters. There was a definite "visual upgrade" in the connectors on the cable and the cable itself was beefier. This was done at no charge.
The tech also looked at some of the cables and splitters that I had used to run cable to other parts of the house and gave me some suggestions on upgrades that I could do fairly cheaply to ensure the best reception. (I have 7 (or is it 8?) TV's with basic cable runs to them, as well as a few other unused connection points.)
Unless there is some sort of reciprocal agreement in place between the companies.
The bandwidth and isolation characteristics of RG59U aren't really suitable for a run of any distance, so RG6/U is preferred.
$976,259.99 plus tax
You can use the existing cable to pull in new cables.
I don't know the cost but I'd wait and see how it looks when the company is full digital. Maybe it will look great and there will be no point to new cable.
What is the code for the cable in use now, what would they use instead, and why is the newer better, and how much better?
If this were an appliance, people wold say one made in the 80's was better than one made now. Is cable not the same?
I'd also worry about damage the installer might do.
Running new coax cable is not rocket surgery yet most DIYers f*ck it up.
Most people buy the cheapest coax cable, splitters, wall plates, use romex staples to fasten cable to floor joists, crush the cable jacket and exceed minimum bend radius. Then they call the cable company and complain that their video is pixellating and the audio is dropping out.
This is a job probably best left to the cable guy.
What I meant was, What are the little numbers and letters on the old cable? And for that matter is it good quality, like Sam points out. I can read letters and numbers and it might give a brand name? Doesn't good quality cable have a brand name? Maybe some cheap stuff does too, so check out the brand's reputation.
I believe it.
For cable, iirc I used mostly cable I found in a dumpster outside an office building being remodeled near downtown Brooklyn. It was in good condition, bright white, few bends, none sharp, and the opposite of flimsy. But for splitters, I probably bought cheap.
For two wall plates, I ran the cable into a switch box and drilled a hole in the existing wall plate, put a rubber grommet in the hole, and attached the F-connector after I ran the cable through the hole.
For one, plate I bought a new blank plate and did the same thing.
And it's been 25 years since i've seen the kitchen's and I can't remember what I did.
15 or 20 years later I regretted not running speaker wires and it would be much harder now because the holes are filled with cable, and I don't want to drill more holes. I would have been willing to have bigger holes. But now I have enough wireless speakers to make me happy.I didn't use staples at all, I didn't crush anything, and I didn't bend anythign sharply. What is a typical minimum bend radius?
I didn't have any problems. I did find that after every 2 splitters, I needed a signal amplifier, but high quality splitters wouldn't have changed that, would they have? I have two famous-brand amps, one or both with a built-splitter and they've been running 24/7 for 32 years with no problems. Pretty impressive, I think.
After 25 years, the TV 8 feet from me now went through a period when the picture was terrible (but I checked and it wasn't the amp), and fidding with the wires that show did'nt help. There's an A-B switch and a set-top digital to analog converter, in case I don't want to watch what's being recorded in the other room. I think I used to have a splitter used as a combiner, but when the trouble started, I changed to the switch, but it didnt' help. next step was to look at the wire into the attic, but it seems to have gotten better without that.
I rarely go in the attic anymore. I got so fat I couldn't squeeze between the ladder and the wall above the door to the closet. So I decided to lose weight so I could go into the attic. Well that didn't work, so I removed the clothes bar from the closet and cut slots in the shelf so the ladder legs could go 3 or 4 inches into the shelf, and now there is room for me, and the ladder is far less likely to fall over (as it did once when I was in the attic. I had to jump down, onto the ladder lying on the floor. Lucky I didn't break my ankle. I put a wired phone in the attic and started leaving the front door unlocked when I go up there. )
Probably, but people economize on that too, and that's one reason I mentioned damage. And even the best people do damage once in a while.
But what would be a distance? Because I don't use homeruns, the longest run is about 30 feet.
That's over 100,000 a drop. I'm sure he can do better.
Really hard to say, of course, without knowing the house layout, whether there are open sheetrock walls, etc.
But, for whatever it's worth, I once had someone wire a 2-story small office building for Internet for $400. I think I paid for the wire and the junction boxes etc. -- not sure. And, I think it was bout 12 drops altogether. But, the building has open sheetrock walls and dropped ceilings on each floor, so running the wires and the drops was not too difficult.
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