I have comcast also. They ran a wire halfway around the outside, then through the wall and half around the room like you describe. They have these plastic grommets to protect the wire and they are supposed to seal them with silicone. When I got new siding I wanted the wire through the basement (why punch uneccesarry holes for $7000) had one heck of a time. Then they wanted to drill and bring the wire up in the middle of the floor (gotta come up 1 foot from any wall, duct,other cable). I told them I would drill my own hole and pull the wire, they just had to connect it; they told me I couldnt do it. I ended up getting close to my way. Typically their installs are very ugly (drilled through the window trim on my neighbors) and THEY WILL NOT FISH CABLE. IF you want it fished the easiest way is to buy the wire and do it yourself then let them do the hookups. They seem to want to do as much as possible on the outside. Many of these guys get a two or three week training course and some startup money for the basic tools). I would demand that they seal the exterior though. You could get some plastic raceway to conceal the cable in. HD and lowes have some cheap stuff that adheres with double sided tape.

Time Warner is in my general area, but not on the road where I live (beside the road, if you are from Rio Linda). From comments overheard at a couple of jobsites, I suspect that TW pays a flat rate per install to the contract installers. Probably not a generous amount. That would explain quick-and-dirty work. I suggest watching them while they are on your property and being prepared to shout "STOP" as soon as some shoddy work is commenced.

Things may have changed in recent years, so take this accordingly. Circa 1999, Comcast employees were absolutely forbidden to "fish" walls or enter any un-floored overhead space. Underfloor areas were generally avoided unless there was a substantial time savings evident. No more than 6ft of unsecured cable was to be left inside for any reason, if the TV, modem etc. is more than 4-5 ft from the wall entry, that means cable clips on the baseboard.

Customers who were not happy with the above procedure could (A) Arrange for inside wire and installation by others at their own expense, and run same to the demarcation point for connection. (B) Cancel the order/account. Experienced technicians would often suggest option B when dealing with detail oriented prospects, since the picture/service never seemed to satisfy later on. For every one who measures the spacing of cable clips, there are three who would probably pay for service if you kicked a 4" hole in the drywall for the wire.

For every one who measures the spacing of cable clips, there are three who would probably pay for service if you kicked a 4" hole in the drywall for the wire.

Would those three happen to be renters, by any chance? That sounds a lot like the crummy hack jobs I see in my rental properties.

In my experience, there is no pattern to customer's tolerance or lack thereof for "expedient" installs. I will say that generally, rental properties are TV/telephone installer's nightmares. The tenant generally never wants the TV/phone in the place that is prewired, and often steals everything that he/she can get hold of on departure. The best solution I found was special wallplates that I had made up. They were engraved with "CATV test only-no set hook up"- 90 percent of the time, customers would insist on having the set right there. No need for them to know that was where I wanted it anyway...

firsthome: "Does this sound right?"
Does it look right?
Do you really need an answer?

I've had Comcast internet in 3 houses since 2001. In 2001, I pulled my own coax and they terminated it - no problems. In 2002 they used the existing coax to an existing jack in my home office - no problems. In 2003 they used an existing jack again. Again, no problems. Later on I pulled a new coax to where I really wanted it and swapped it. I use RG6quad and compression connectors. You don't want those goons in your attic anyway.

Lol the goons. I was at a house the other day where a lady had just moved in and needed electrical changes. She had the cable guy come out, which he was supposed to connect cable phone and internet in her office. She wanted an outlet in closet so that the router could be in there. I had to fish from the electrical outlet over a finsihed basement to the panel cutout. Cable guy had to run his cable across the siding and poke in. My favorite was he shows up and I answer the door in my work clothes and tool belt. He says is ... home? I say no and that I am an electrician working there. He says well are you over the age of 18? (I look kind of young) "Yes". He then enters the house and chuckles "Hah huh, odd this lady would let us guys work in her house all alone" He then ran the cable out of the closet to the desk where he sat the router right in the middle, ran a phone cord right across the floor to the existing phone jack on the other side of the room.

I got to re-do everthing after he left.

where i live, the time warner technitions are the same. they get paid a flat rate per install. at very least, they should discuss options with the homeowner first.

case in point, i had a tech come out last year when we were having signal trouble with our cable internet. he said it was too far from the interface, and just went ahead and drilled a hole through our wall without even asking first.

most of them arent qualified to flip burgers, let alone install electronics.

i invested in a high quality cable crimper and do it myself now.

GET VERIZON FIOS. They spent the entire day at my house to install fiber. And they snaked the wires. In one area they went behind some baseboard molding. Their techs only do ONE home per day. Top notch job. They even install a section of 3/4" plywood on my basement wall concrete block to install their equipment (battery back up stuff).

tom_p_pa: "GET VERIZON FIOS."

Sounds great, but not a lot of folks have fiber at the curb.

Out of curiosity, what's your download/upload speed on that and how much a month?

I also have Verizon FiOS. I think they did a terrific job on the install. Here is a link to the fios site.

Here is a link that might be useful: FiOS Website

Well AT&T has zero plans to run fiber to the premises. From what I hear they had to be browbeat into doing fiber withing 2000 feet and tying to the existing copper). I don't think comcast will either. FYI in my area most residential cable and satellite installs are handled by contractors. The best one was the cable co contractor telling me I had to call the phone co to get the cable wire running from the pole to my house tightened. Talked to a regular comcast tech months later, apparently the contractors are somehow cheaper and have lots of leeway in materials/ parts they use. In the past 7 years I have dealt with maybe 10 cable and satellite techs, out of those I would say 2 actually knew what they were talking about/ doing

tom_p_pa, where are you in pa? They actually just installed Verizon Fios in our area (Upper Merion) but right now we only have the internet service available...no cable tv yet....I guess that will come later. I was looking into the Verizon Fios but wanted to wait until I could see what a package deal (cable tv & internet) would run. But at this rate, with the problems we have been having with our internet and the hack job wiring I may just switch now!

tom_p_pa....what is your connection speed like? I have heard that even though you have a fiber line directly to your house, they still have capped the amount you get to use...I heard it is only like 1/10 of the speed a fiber cable can handle. That is how they are able to sell you different speeds/packages.

FiOS is BPON (Broadband Passive Optical Network) - meaning that there are no powered devices between the CO and your house. The rated speed for a BPON channel is 622 Mbit/s down and 155 Mbit/s up, which is "shared" among 32 houses.

That means that, theoretically, each house could simultaneously use 20M download and 5M upload. The three tiers for FiOS vary based on local competition, but they are somewhere around 5/2, 15/2, and 30/5. The first two are significantly more popular than the last one, meaning that for any 32 houses, the total amount of bandwidth sold is less than the rated capacity of the fiber.

Note that if Verizon wanted to update to GPON (2488 Mbit/s Down and 1,244 Mbit/s Up), they only need to change out the hardware at the CO and the ONT at the customer's house - everything in between will fully support the higher speeds.