Anybody got any tips for convincing Comcast to connect cable to a farm?

[tangledweb]

The cable internet provider in my area is Comcast, and I can see there is a cable passing along the front of my property. The problem is, my house is about 400 yards from the road.

When I asked for home tv/internet they said it was not available to my address. When I asked for business class internet they said I could have it, but connection fee would be $30,000.

I’m ok with an install fee for something that is clearly not a standard install, but $30K is not within the bounds of reality.

I’d hope that if I could find the right department or person to talk to at Comcast, there must be a compromise possible, eg if I trench some conduit from the house to the road and they just do the connection, or if I provide an outhouse near the road that has a 12" TV and a power outlet and they provide service to that and I deal with connection from the outhouse to the house.

Any tips? Has anybody solved a situation like this or have suggestions on who to talk to?

Carroll County MD if it matters.

Thanks.

[RAyers]

I had the same problem as you. I got Directv and use cellular internet (Hughes Net can do this too).

[tangledweb]

@RAyers;5713752

I had the same problem as you. I got Directv and use cellular internet (Hughes Net can do this too).

That’s my current compromise too, but because we are in a valley the cellular internet is frustrating. I’ve put up with it for a while, but it’s time to put some effort into finding another option.

[LittleblackMorgan]

Call an electrician. Any licensed electrician can install coax. You will need to trench (unless your local code allows you to avoid that).
Comcast doesn’t actually pull wires; they are not insured for it. They will use a subcontractor.

[RAyers]

Have you looked at Hughes Net. It is a satellite internet provider. The cost are about the same as a cable provider. I am considering that if my cell internet gets bad.

[chancellor2]

[QUOTE=RAyers;5713771]
Have you looked at Hughes Net. It is a satellite internet provider. The cost are about the same as a cable provider. I am considering that if my cell internet gets bad.[/QUOTE]

Don’t do it unless you have an unobstructred view of the southern sky. And I do mean UNobstructed. We live in central MA and there are a lot of trees. The satellite internet worked great as long as the moon was in the right phase in absolutely clear nonhumid weather. It is NOT worth it unless you live somewhere non-wooded and without hills.

[Appsolute]

Good Luck - You are gonna need it!

Well…

I live in the CA bay area… but in a small rural pocket that has NO CELL PHONE coverage, and my property does not have cable…

Its a REAL PTA! Satellites do not really work, as we have lots of tall trees as well :mad:

Got NO WHERE with Comcast… they wanted $$$$ to drop a line (you can SEE it from my house, but it needs to cross a creek).

Direct TV - paid for service, 50% of the channels wouldn’t work all of the time, and 100% didn’t work about 30% of the time. HUGE WASTE of time and effort.

“Blue Sky” Satellite internet - Terribly slow, expensive, and dropped connections all the time. Another frustrating waste!!!

Ended up working out a deal with a neighbor that does have Comcast. We share the bill, and I have a router type thing that picks up their wireless signal which we share (and its fast enough that both of us can down load, or “watch TV” online without slowing the connection speed.

[Appsolute]

[QUOTE=chancellor2;5713779]
Don’t do it unless you have an unobstructred view of the southern sky. And I do mean UNobstructed. We live in central MA and there are a lot of trees. The satellite internet worked great as long as the moon was in the right phase in absolutely clear nonhumid weather. It is NOT worth it unless you live somewhere non-wooded and without hills.[/QUOTE]

Yep! DO NOT GET SATELLITE INTERNET unless there is not a tree or other possible obstruction in sight.

The FOG would come in and our internet would go down! A light breeze would blow and the internet would go down. A bird would fly by and our internet would go down.

Forget winter and storms…

[LexInVA]

[QUOTE=tangledweb;5713750]
The cable internet provider in my area is Comcast, and I can see there is a cable passing along the front of my property. The problem is, my house is about 400 yards from the road.

When I asked for home tv/internet they said it was not available to my address. When I asked for business class internet they said I could have it, but connection fee would be $30,000.

I’m ok with an install fee for something that is clearly not a standard install, but $30K is not within the bounds of reality.

I’d hope that if I could find the right department or person to talk to at Comcast, there must be a compromise possible, eg if I trench some conduit from the house to the road and they just do the connection, or if I provide an outhouse near the road that has a 12" TV and a power outlet and they provide service to that and I deal with connection from the outhouse to the house.

Any tips? Has anybody solved a situation like this or have suggestions on who to talk to?

Carroll County MD if it matters.

Thanks.[/QUOTE]

It’s not feasible to run cable to your home. The distance alone requires more than just running cable because you can’t run coax like that and you need a fiber to coax junction box within close proximity to your home. That being said, there probably isn’t even any Comcast infrastructure surrounding your property to be connected to and the cable you say you saw is likely just a part of the overall fiber optics infrastructure and bridges different parts of the network across the area. Unless there’s going to be a residential development across the street from your mailbox, you won’t get cable service anytime soon. You need to speak to a service manager and ask them about what Comcast already has installed surrounding your property.

[ReSomething]

We have ATT DSL, and my mother did also even though comcast was available in her area, so I would try them first if they are available. I believe 500 feet is about as far as you can get, our neighbor takes off of our pole and runs about that far.

Otherwise Lex is correct, and so is Appsolute, your best bet is to get in touch with a neighbor and get on their wireless net. I’ve tried to talk my trainer into doing that as her old home is way off the road but not too far from her is an upscale development with the infrastructure and she could easily get on one of the neighbors’ wireless network.

[Obi]

I was in the same position. Neighbors ended up paying the money because they have a business that they run out of their home. That was a few years ago. Boxes are set up and ready to go at each end of my main road. Now Comcast is back getting ready to dig up my private dirt road because the cables they installed a few years ago are now ‘defunct’ and can no longer keep up with the new technology. Yet, they refuse to continue to put additional cable in to my house while they are digging up the old cable and replacing it with new cable.
I have Hughes net. Its okay but I sure do not spend a lot of time on YouTube as it burns up your usage.
It sucks because cell phones don’t work that great around the property either.

[casper324]

Cable

We ran fiber from the house to the end of the driveway approx 1/2 mile. It wasn’t too costly for the material and now we could have cable next time I get ticked off at Direct TV! THe key is what kind of handoff they give you either coax or fiber. The boxes that convert fiber to CAT 6/Coax aren’t all that expensive…

My husbands business is wiring so we have fiber down to the barns to run pony cams, fire alarms and internet, wiring for cable was a just in case extra and an excuse to use some left over fiber strands.

[LittleblackMorgan]

fiber to coax junction box

I dont think Comcast uses fiber. That’s Verizon.

Fiber is glorious.

[LexInVA]

[QUOTE=LittleblackMorgan;5713972]
I dont think Comcast uses fiber. That’s Verizon.

Fiber is glorious.[/QUOTE]

EVERYONE uses fiber networks to sling their services to customers and they have been for many years now. Verizon simply decided to heavily promote their use of it whereas others did not.

[rmh_rider]

When we were in Seattle our property did not have cable, only what we got on the antenna. I begged the cable company, they said, NO. Too much money for us to do so, and yadda yadda yadda.

So after 6-7 years, we got a dish and directv. Easy. We did the installation way back when. Easy.

We STILL have directv now, but live in another state. Works instantly when the dish goes up. Never goes “out” either. Rarely goes out with weather, if so, it comes on in a few minutes, and no snow on the dish doesn’t make it go out, if so brush it off. Easy. No lines to come down or be dug up, always works as long as we have electricity. We were out of electricity for many many days during the april tornado break out. Juice came on and poof, dish came right up like nothing had ever been wrong.

Stop dealing with the cable company.

[Guilherme]

[QUOTE=Finnegans Wake;5713949]
I was in the same position. Neighbors ended up paying the money because they have a business that they run out of their home. That was a few years ago. Boxes are set up and ready to go at each end of my main road. Now Comcast is back getting ready to dig up my private dirt road because the cables they installed a few years ago are now ‘defunct’ and can no longer keep up with the new technology. Yet, they refuse to continue to put additional cable in to my house while they are digging up the old cable and replacing it with new cable.
I have Hughes net. Its okay but I sure do not spend a lot of time on YouTube as it burns up your usage.
It sucks because cell phones don’t work that great around the property either.[/QUOTE]

Do they have an easement to dig up your private, dirt road? Is it valid? Sometimes a letter from your attorney threatening to challenge their easement will make them “reasonable” in connetion issues.

G.

[LauraKY]

Good luck. We can’t get Comcast to run cable two miles to about 50 homes, can’t get AT&T to run DSL. Cell phone reception is not good enough for internet. We had HughesNet which was TERRIBLE. We now have Wild Blue, which is better downstream but upstream is just a little faster than dial-up. Doesn’t work well when it’s very cloudy. Doesn’t work at all if it’s raining.

[kinnip]

We had a similar issue with our house. We ended up with Direct TV and AT&T dsl. It isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing.

[Prime_Time_Rider]

If you live in a town that grants a franchise to the cable company (Comcast in this case), oftentimes the franchise agreement betwen the town and the cable company REQUIRES that the cable company provide cable service to any town resident that request it. I once lived in a small, rural town in upstate NY that had granted a cable company a franchise license. My neighbor contacted the town and discovered that the cable company was required under the terms of the franchise agreement to run the cable down our rural road and provide us with srvice if we requested it. I would contact your local town and ask if they have granted Comcast a franchise agreement, and if so, if the agreement requires the cable company to provide universal service.

[CosMonster]

We have HughesNet because of the same reasons, though I have to say my experience with them has been pretty good. The bandwidth limits suck and it does slow down somewhat (but still much faster than dial up) in storms or very heavy winds, but it still works. However, we don’t have trees around here really. We are surrounded by mountains and that doesn’t matter.

Anyway, sorry it’s not really an answer to the question in the OP but I thought I’d share my experience. From my research when we first moved here, there’s pretty much no way to get Comcast to run cable at a reasonable price unless they feel like it.