Newby with Comcast installation question.

[TopperHarley]

Hey all, did a bit of searching so I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here but I have a Comcast installation question and was looking for a little help.

I just moved to the Olympia, WA area and bought a house. Comcast is the only game in my area without a dish and I got a decent enough deal on basic digital with internet. So I set up the service about a week before I was scheduled to close on my house. They told me the installation charge was $49. I asked if I could install myself, which I kinda remember seeing self installation for free on the website. She told me the professional installation was required . Whatever, I figured I'd pay the fifty and maybe get an extra outlet put in or something.

Anyways, I moved into the new place on Wednesday and the previous owners had the same service (digital cable with internet) which was still on when I moved in. There was a working cable outlet in the living room and all three bedrooms which I rolled my 27" TV in and checked. I was able to watch TV with no digital box in all these rooms, and I got a good number of channels (about 70). The cable dude was scheduled to show up the next day between 12 and 4 with my digital box and modem.

On Thursday, my installation guy showed up right on time (15 minutes early actually, off to a good start). I asked him if adding an outlet was part of the $50 installation price and he said he can hook up 2 lines as long as they were on on outside wall. The new one I wanted was on inside wall so I said forget it. He then asked which two outlets I wanted active. I said all the rooms had active outlets already and all I needed was the digital box and modem and make sure the signal was on/strong. He said I could only have two outlets and they charge to hook up any more than that. This is where I got confused. But I had an in-processing appointment on base I had to get to, so I left my dad to watch the cable dude. As I left, I saw the dude working on something inside my garage inside the drywall. When I got back later, cable dude had unhooked all my rooms except living room with digital box and third bedroom with cable modem. The splits for all these rooms turned out to be in a junction box in the wall in the garage where I saw cable dude working as I left for base.

So long story short, I just got charged $49 for the cable company to come and disconnect my outlets . I was under the impression that I could legally have all the splits I want inside my house. Do they have the right to come in and disconnect them like that? Especially since the splits were inside my home and not inside their junction box outside of my house. Was I REQUIRED to have professional installation in the first place?


Like I said, hope this isn't a situation that's been beaten to death, but I didn't see anything in the searches I did.

Thanks,
~Topper

[grydlok]

Hey all, did a bit of searching so I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here but I have a Comcast installation question and was looking for a little help.

I just moved to the Olympia, WA area and bought a house. Comcast is the only game in my area without a dish and I got a decent enough deal on basic digital with internet. So I set up the service about a week before I was scheduled to close on my house. They told me the installation charge was $49. I asked if I could install myself, which I kinda remember seeing self installation for free on the website. She told me the professional installation was required . Whatever, I figured I'd pay the fifty and maybe get an extra outlet put in or something.

Anyways, I moved into the new place on Wednesday and the previous owners had the same service (digital cable with internet) which was still on when I moved in. There was a working cable outlet in the living room and all three bedrooms which I rolled my 27" TV in and checked. I was able to watch TV with no digital box in all these rooms, and I got a good number of channels (about 70). The cable dude was scheduled to show up the next day between 12 and 4 with my digital box and modem.

On Thursday, my installation guy showed up right on time (15 minutes early actually, off to a good start). I asked him if adding an outlet was part of the $50 installation price and he said he can hook up 2 lines as long as they were on on outside wall. The new one I wanted was on inside wall so I said forget it. He then asked which two outlets I wanted active. I said all the rooms had active outlets already and all I needed was the digital box and modem and make sure the signal was on/strong. He said I could only have two outlets and they charge to hook up any more than that. This is where I got confused. But I had an in-processing appointment on base I had to get to, so I left my dad to watch the cable dude. As I left, I saw the dude working on something inside my garage inside the drywall. When I got back later, cable dude had unhooked all my rooms except living room with digital box and third bedroom with cable modem. The splits for all these rooms turned out to be in a junction box in the wall in the garage where I saw cable dude working as I left for base.

So long story short, I just got charged $49 for the cable company to come and disconnect my outlets . I was under the impression that I could legally have all the splits I want inside my house. Do they have the right to come in and disconnect them like that? Especially since the splits were inside my home and not inside their junction box outside of my house. Was I REQUIRED to have professional installation in the first place?


Like I said, hope this isn't a situation that's been beaten to death, but I didn't see anything in the searches I did.

Thanks,
~Topper

Call Comcast and let the know. You are correct all he had to do was install the Digital receiver and modem. Disconnection anything else was wrong. You could also re-install them your self.

[grydlok]

Hey all, did a bit of searching so I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here but I have a Comcast installation question and was looking for a little help.

I just moved to the Olympia, WA area and bought a house. Comcast is the only game in my area without a dish and I got a decent enough deal on basic digital with internet. So I set up the service about a week before I was scheduled to close on my house. They told me the installation charge was $49. I asked if I could install myself, which I kinda remember seeing self installation for free on the website. She told me the professional installation was required . Whatever, I figured I'd pay the fifty and maybe get an extra outlet put in or something.

Anyways, I moved into the new place on Wednesday and the previous owners had the same service (digital cable with internet) which was still on when I moved in. There was a working cable outlet in the living room and all three bedrooms which I rolled my 27" TV in and checked. I was able to watch TV with no digital box in all these rooms, and I got a good number of channels (about 70). The cable dude was scheduled to show up the next day between 12 and 4 with my digital box and modem.

On Thursday, my installation guy showed up right on time (15 minutes early actually, off to a good start). I asked him if adding an outlet was part of the $50 installation price and he said he can hook up 2 lines as long as they were on on outside wall. The new one I wanted was on inside wall so I said forget it. He then asked which two outlets I wanted active. I said all the rooms had active outlets already and all I needed was the digital box and modem and make sure the signal was on/strong. He said I could only have two outlets and they charge to hook up any more than that. This is where I got confused. But I had an in-processing appointment on base I had to get to, so I left my dad to watch the cable dude. As I left, I saw the dude working on something inside my garage inside the drywall. When I got back later, cable dude had unhooked all my rooms except living room with digital box and third bedroom with cable modem. The splits for all these rooms turned out to be in a junction box in the wall in the garage where I saw cable dude working as I left for base.

So long story short, I just got charged $49 for the cable company to come and disconnect my outlets . I was under the impression that I could legally have all the splits I want inside my house. Do they have the right to come in and disconnect them like that? Especially since the splits were inside my home and not inside their junction box outside of my house. Was I REQUIRED to have professional installation in the first place?


Like I said, hope this isn't a situation that's been beaten to death, but I didn't see anything in the searches I did.

Thanks,
~Topper

[jayn_j]

They did the same to me. The interesting part is that they don't charge a monthly fee for the extra outlets, only an install charge. It is just a way of extorting a bit extra cash during installation, and is common practice in some areas.

The proper way to do this is to remove the lines and install a 50 ohm terminator. It looks like a cap on the port. I bet he didn't do that and it can cause ghosts. I would reinstall the wires he disconnected and go back to normal.

Not as frustrating as some of the other stuff. Did you lease a HD box? One of my big frustrations is that they hook all boxes up using the lousy RF connection (everything on channel 3 of the TV). It is the worst possible quality, especially on HD boxes. It totally disables the HD signals. Take some time and hook up the best quality connection you have available between the digital box and the TV. You will be amazed at how much better it looks.

[TopperHarley]

Thanks for the replys guys,

They did the same to me. The interesting part is that they don't charge a monthly fee for the extra outlets, only an install charge. It is just a way of extorting a bit extra cash during installation, and is common practice in some areas.

Yeah, I realize they want to charge for installation of extra outlets and I don't have a problem with that. But I basically got charged for them to come out and uninstall my outlets.

The proper way to do this is to remove the lines and install a 50 ohm terminator. It looks like a cap on the port. I bet he didn't do that and it can cause ghosts. I would reinstall the wires he disconnected and go back to normal.

Just went out to the garage where the splits were. He took out a signal amp, and just chopped off the extra lines.

Not as frustrating as some of the other stuff. Did you lease a HD box? One of my big frustrations is that they hook all boxes up using the lousy RF connection (everything on channel 3 of the TV). It is the worst possible quality, especially on HD boxes. It totally disables the HD signals. Take some time and hook up the best quality connection you have available between the digital box and the TV. You will be amazed at how much better it looks.

Last week when I got service I only had the old 27" CRT TV and wasn' t planning on upgrading for a couple months, so I only did a regular digital box. And yes, they just used the RF on channel 3. But that tv doesn't even have S-Vid, so I don't care. But I went out and picked up my 67" Samsung DLP yesterday from Best Buy (who amazingly price matched Amazon.com). So when I call to talk to (yell at) them I'm going to have them switch out the box for an HD DVR and hook it up via HDMI.

~Topper

[jayn_j]

But I basically got charged for them to come out and uninstall my outlets.

Yep. That's the extortion part. You want it, you pay.

Just went out to the garage where the splits were. He took out a signal amp, and just chopped off the extra lines.

Signal amp will cost some $$. A reasonable crimper is $15 and the connectors are nearly free.

So when I call to talk to (yell at) them I'm going to have them switch out the box for an HD DVR and hook it up via HDMI.

I bet they won't do it. When I had them install mine, I had an HDMI cable laid out. The installer told me he was required to install the rf connection, and that he couldn't plug in the HDMI due to "liability issues". They certainly won't supply an HDMI cable, so be ready for that.

[TopperHarley]

Little update. I called the other day, and they just talked circles untill I got fed up and hung up. I kept asking why they unistalled my rooms and they just kept answering that you have to pay to have rooms hooked up..... even though they were already hooked up. As soon as something like FIOS comes available in my area, goodbye Comcast. Anyways, I just got a $15 crimper and did it myself. I don't have an amp on there, but modem is running fine and so is HD box. Analog signal isn't perfect in the bedroom, but I don't really care.

And I got an HD box the other day. Running component right now, waiting on my HDMI's to ship from Monoprice. Paid for 2 day shipping so they'd be here today, but looks like they got rescheduled to the 7th. I can't win.