Question about BHN install (new construction)

[jdiehl]

I have BHN scheduled to come to my new house this Saturday (5/29) and according to the customer service saleslady that signed me up for services, she said that they will only activate 3 rooms for free, after that, it's about $10 per room! I told her that was complete BS, and that I would "activate" the prewired outlets myself after the BHN tech leaves my house.

Is there something magical that they do to "activate" each outlet. Seems to me, they'll take the nine RG6 lines of coax bundled outside of my garage and hook up the 3 that I tell them to into a splitter from their source signal.

What's to keep me from swapping out the splitter outside and connecting all 9 jacks (4 bedrooms, den, fam rm, living rm, lanai, bonus rm)?

Is there something special they would do to the outside box if I let them bend me over and paid the extra installation fee to have them activate all 9 rooms? I don't want digital cable boxes at all 9 locations, just analog cable would be fine for some of those rooms, but if they want an extra fee for doing that, IMO it's complete garbage since the tech has zero inside installation, fishing, drilling, etc to do (they are all prewired, the jacks are ready to go). If there is something special they would do (ie. bigger splitter, powered amp, etc) is this something I could do myself or do they lock the box outside preventing customer access? Back in St. Louis, Charter Cable just ran a single line to your basement (no outside box on the house), installed a powered amp if you had more than 4 jacks (or if you had internet service), provided as big of a splitter that you needed, and then let you goto town on however many ways you wanted to split it off. No extra fees for extra rooms, I had 8 lines back at my old house and they didn't charge one penny extra for it.

Thanks in advance for answering my questions and providing advice... I have a feeling that with the way BHN seems to nickel and dime you to death for everything, it won't be long before I get a dish on the roof (will probably wait until they have a NFL Sunday Ticket install special).

[pilotbob]

I have BHN scheduled to come to my new house this Saturday (5/29) and according to the customer service saleslady that signed me up for services, she said that they will only activate 3 rooms for free, after that, it's about $10 per room!

What's to keep me from swapping out the splitter outside and connecting all 9 jacks (4 bedrooms, den, fam rm, living rm, lanai, bonus rm)?



If I remember correctly from when I had my stuff first installed when I moved, they will hook up ALL prewired jacks at the box. What they told me was that any more than 3 outlets REQUIRED an amp or it will degrade your's and your neighbors signal. (I'm still not sure if I belive that about my neighbors signal.) Anyway, the amp was a one time $40 bucks or so.

One caveat, RoadRunner can NOT go through the amp... so they hooked me with two splitters, one two way... one branch went to my RR outlet the other to the amp, then to a 4 way splitter to hook up 4 prewired outlets I had.

As a matter of fact, if you have one feed to the box, and your own splitter in the atic, what could they do? I can tell you this, BHN installers do as LITTLE as they can get away with (unless you get lucky and get one of the few good ones that cares about customers and pride of workmanship) so they guy won't go crawl in your attic to disconnect them. :)

As far as the outside box... yes, they do "lock" that and don't want you in their.

You may want to call them back, another rep might tell you different. Tell them you will pay for the $40 amp... it's a bit more than going to Radio Shack, but if you have problems with it, you can call them back.

Good luck in your new house.

BOb

[dprice]

I'm no expert but here's how my install worked 2 years ago..

12 outlets prewired in house but only using a 6 way splitter since 6 live outlets is enough for now...2 cable runs (1 spare) from demarcation point (the cable box on your garage wall) to wiring center. I told the tech to power up the main input cable and he would be about done.

Tech checks output levels...adds splitter before 6-way to get RR cable model signal at right level...then adds amp at 6-way to get them right. Installed one digital cable box. Later upgraded to an HD box and moved the second to the bedroom.

I forget what I was charged for...but it may have been for two outlets and 1 amp. Of course the tech spent almost zero time moving furniture, hooking up A/V components, or stripping wires. I made his job relatively easy.

Good luck.

Don

[jdiehl]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Like your install, my tech will have zero hookups to do inside, no furniture to move, no runs to install, so you'd think they'd maybe go ahead and connect all nine for me... we'll see.

I'm sure they'll have an amp in the truck, I'll try and get him to add it in w/o calling them about it. I guess one way to get 4 outlets installed would be to do 3 rooms for TV, and my den for RoadRunner (which I could split at the wall jack to a TV anyway).

[kevinsnewmatrix]

Well for 1 yes there is the signal problem(no it will not affect your neighbor) if you get below a certain point digital will not work and if to low then analogs get pic quality problems.
2. The additional cost is more for "quarantee of the line" in other words if ANYTIME in the future any of the lines you pay for fail(you are in the lightning capital of the world) then they will be replaced at no cost to you. If you hook them up yourself BHN will not work on those lines unless you pay for them at that time.(which costs more at a later date). You can get an amplifier yourself and install but if it fails YOU buy a new one. If BHN installs THEY replace.

P.S. If you do an amp yourself it needs to be rated for 5-1000 mhz.
Hope this helps !!

[jdiehl]

Thanks for the tips.

Yeah, I keep hearing about the bad lightning problems around here. Is that a major issue with the cable and phone lines, or more so with the actual electric lines themselves? I'm living on a golf course, so I guess there's even a great potential for a strike nearby. When I did my walkthrough with the construction super on Monday, he did mention that I already had a meter-based surge protector installed. Not one of those zap cap things, something different I guess, although I do plan to use quality surge protectors throughout the house for the rest of the electronics.

[Skikrazee]

You may hook up as many outlets as you like, brighthouse cannot stop you. But there are several things to take into consideration, everytime you split your signal there is a determined amount of signal loss depending on the splitter, there is also drop loss depending on the length of the cable both from the tap/pole to the split and from the split to the TV. The more you split the signal eventually you will not have sufficient signal to receive an acceptable input to the TV/cable box/Modem. that is where the house amp comes into play. RR WILL work thru a house amp, however the house amp is passive (no gain ) on the return so you are limited on the number of splits you can have prior to the RR hookup. If what you do impacts your cable service, BHN will revert back to what they installed to fix your problem, they will not fix what you broke.

[jaymer]

a friend in my neighborhood called me the other day asking "how to handle bhn when they called in"...

seems they have 2 tv drops and a while back he had run a cable through his attic to the deck to an outside tv. hadn't been hooked up. has been getting a tiny bit of snow on channel 7 (NBC).
now he hooks up to the outside and signal gets worse... almost unwatchable on NBC.
I think a tech had been out and the signal was within spec, but i don't think he had the 3rd tv hooked up.
probably the amp would work fine, but he's dicking around the issues so he doesn't have to pay more, or for a service visit.

as max_gator posted recently, even a loose connector caused his dropouts in HD... and installers have been adamant about tight connections for years because of signal leakage. there's no telling if his connectors are still good, or if his cable in the attic is even the right kind of cable (he painted over it on the outside so couldn't tell me what it was).

[Max_Gator]

Thanks for the tips.

Yeah, I keep hearing about the bad lightning problems around here. Is that a major issue with the cable and phone lines, or more so with the actual electric lines themselves? I'm living on a golf course, so I guess there's even a great potential for a strike nearby. When I did my walkthrough with the construction super on Monday, he did mention that I already had a meter-based surge protector installed. Not one of those zap cap things, something different I guess, although I do plan to use quality surge protectors throughout the house for the rest of the electronics.

Lightning hits everything. It hit my patio screen enclosure, jumped to the speaker wire attached to the outdoor speakers, ran to my amp, then to the cable box, then out the cable and throughout the house, jumping to the alarm and phone lines along the way.

Never tripped the surge protector on the electric outlet.

I now have the cable going through the protector so that may afford me some future protection but I'm still vulnerable through the outside speaker wires.