Installing dish in a large apartment building

[ryanc]

I recently moved into a high-rise style apartment building and was not able to take my dish network account with me due lack of visibility in the southern direction. I was happy to learn that one of the residences had looked into installing a building wide dish network service however he has since moved out the building. I wish to take on the project and could use some pointers to get me in contact with the right people/businesses. Information that I am particularly interested in hearing about what kind of installer do I need to look for and what information would it be helpful to have on hand to answer their questions (number of units, potential number of subscribers, anything else?). The building is in Austin, Texas.

For those that are interested the building is 11 stories and built in the mid 70's. There are currently two cable infrastructures in the building however only one is active. Time Warner (the local cable provide) installed the one they are currently using and a now defunct company installed the inactive system. Unfortantly Time Warner purchased the defunct cable company and owns both infrastructures. So in order to move forward with providing dish network service to the building a new cable infrastructure would need to be installed. There is a single maintenance closet on each floor in the middle of the building where the telephone, electric, and cable run out of.

Any information is appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Lorenzo]

I think a very important thing is who owns the drop cable (the small diameter cables that go from the mid floor lock box to the residents apartments. If the apartment owns those cables you have a fighting chance as I see it. Then all you need is a simple stacked Dish system where you send the satellite signal down new trunk cables that go to each floor and use the existing drop cables to access the subscriber's apartments. If you have to overbuild the drop system I don't see how you could ever cover your costs as you'd be fighting the incumbent cable system for subscribers. What I'm saying is that putting in new drop wiring is very labor intensive and thus costly compared to everything else that you would need to allow Dish subscribers to use their Dish receivers in their apartments with a shared dish on the roof.

To overbuild the drop system you need MDU cable contractors. To set up the satellite system you need a Dish installer with multi dwell stacked system experience.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Lorenzo's right, but there's yet another problem.

30 year old buildings like that sometimes did NOT have "home runs" for each unit.

If units share a feed, you're pretty well screwed.

 

[ryanc]

I haven't checked other floors however I know the floor I live on each unit has their own home run to the maintenence closet where the cable company has their box. Some units are wired in some are not. I ran my own rg6 cabling from my unit and it was very easy as the hallways have a drop down ceiling with those rectangle panel grids. I will see what I can find out as to who owns these drops.

It looks like some units are wired with rg6 however for some reason my old cabling started as rg6 and halfway to my unit it was spliced to rg59 which ran into my place and to my tv.

Am I correct in assuming a dish installer with "multi dwell stacked system experience" would be able to install the dish on the roof and drop the trunk down the building to all the maintenence closets?

Thanks for the info guys.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Note that when laying cable into a drop ciling like that, fire code says it has to be plenum rated cable.

A MDU-certified installation company does this kind of thing all the time. Note that "free installation" does not typically apply.