Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

At the end of the day if you move the cable and it works fine .If it does not work and you ring NTL we will charge you .I see this all the time :rolleyes:

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

tried that. chiselled away some 3 inches into his sealer.....no idea how much he put in.......plus he went up and diagonally through the wall.....when if he had looked more carefully he'd have found a route that wouldn't have neccessitated drilling in the first place :rolleyes:

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Here would be a good place to start mate or here. These will give you enough info for you to be able to use google to get a better overall view.

have fun

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Get them to come and do it then lock the guy in the cupboard for when it all goes wrong, save yourself the bother of chasing engineers everytime you see a van :)

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Okay smarty boy, you have a point. Good on ya. Now, tell me, if something works, would you go out of your way to make it work "better"? No. You wouldn't.

We're all familiar with electrons flying around all over the place and the need, often, for perfection. But these are dodgy STBs, not high quality broadcast apparatus.

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Actually yes I would, I pride myself on the fact that every bit of work I do is completed to the best of my abilities and that the end result dosn't just work but that it works as well as I can make it. Perhaps these days having pride in the work you do and striving to excel are out dated concepts but not for this engineer.

Yes perhaps the the STB's and SACMs that ntl deploy arn't the best that money but would you be willing to pay more for a STB that costs £500 instead of £300 I think youd probably be in a minority. This thread isn't about the customer equipment though its about trying to maintain the integrity of the network that is used to deliver the data to those devices.

What many forget is that a cable network is a two way system, signals go down to the customer but also come back all through the same bit of cable. The way a system is designed is roughly funnel shaped every thing going out to the customer starts at a single point and spreads out, but everything includeing the interference has got to come back to that single point.

Admitedly if one person does somthing like this it possibly wouldnt impact either themselves or anyone else. But where does it end? if 4 or 5 connected to each street cabinet do it you end up with 40 or 50 at each fibre node multiply that again by the 700-800 plus fibre nodes feeding back in to the Headend and the result is a network that firstly breaches the DTI regulations for egress and secondly that won't be able to carry any decent traffic because of ingress. The network around London used to be the best example of it. Theres still to this day areas of that city that don't have DTV or broadband becuase it takes years to repair that sort of problems.

Anyone wanting anymore info on this sort of thing is invited to use this new fangled internet thingy which I believe has somthing called search engines to search for return path ingress problems, funneling effects within CATV systems etc.

Also worth a guick google is common path distortion just highlight the fact that theres enough problems inherent within a CATV system without adding to them.

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Ah this will be good, an assistant engineer for a local radio station questioning the CATV knowledge of a guy with a decade and a half's experience in the industry.

Seconds out...

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

They're not outdated concepts, but I'm sure you'll know that when you're working in a commercial environment with time constraints and the need to do things with as little cash as possible, it's not always possible to use the best for everything. It's about making every piece of equipment and every piece of cabling do the best it can do.

It's quite obviously highlighted with small things at the consumer end this this is going on within the CATV industry - especially after companies getting as close to folding as they dare - RF passthroughs, etc. Fair play, I now have an external one supplied, but Samsung obviously don't fit them as standard to nudge those costs just a little lower.

I'm not saying anyone should start truly fudging everything for all it's worth, but there has to be a degree of focus on the financial side of things. We'd all love a Orban Optimod, for example, to process all our audio, but it'd cost many times more than we have to spent. Gotta make the best out of what you've got.

(And there was no way I'm going to joke around and claim I know everything about NTL, or anyone else's, CATV system. I'd love to, but I don't. :))

I don't know who some guy called Stu is. He doesn't really know who I am. After all, we're dealing in facts not years in whatever industry, aren't we? It doesn't matter.

I have to say that your post wasn't the most valuable input I've ever seen into this forum. What do you do, anyway?

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Doesn't matter, we're dealing with facts not years in any industry, aren't we?

EDIT: There was me thinking I was having a bit of a giggle ;)

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Can we keep this civil and on-topic please. :)

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Thats one of the reasons why I qualified my statement with the comment As I said before this thread wasnt about the quality of the equipment ntl supply but about what I percieved to be the cavalier attitude and advice of some of the other posters in this thread that lead to the OP breaching his Ts&Cs by modfying the cabling going into his house and the effects that such actions have on the services provided to their fellow subscribers.

Glad to hear it.

Not relevant to the discussion mate, the only focus on finance here is for the OP, by not paying ntl the money to do the job properly he puts not only his own services at risk with the possible additional costs incurred by him if ntl have to come out and sort it out for him, but he also potentially screws up other subscribers. One of the most common crys on this and similar sites is why am I paying for a service I'm not getting? One of those reasons is illegal modifications such as were made here.

Google is your friend :) Its certainly not some form of black art, all of the general info on CATV systems design, build and maintenance is out there for anyone willing to look and learn, its available in any version you want from the complex maths to the basic block diagrams.

I'll keep out of this bit ;)

<edited Bit>
good job I put the last paragrph in before I saw Chris's post ;)

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

I tried, honestly I did, but a couple of pages on impedence mismatch and I was ready to get that stanley knife out again ;)

---------- Post added at 22:18 ---------- Previous post was at 22:01 ----------

Can we clear up (again) why I didn't get them out to do it? I first started this thread asking about the fittings because I fancied doing it myself, and was a little frustrated about the lack of flexibility in the installation. I've made it clear it's not about cost, more about my curiosity. You've all but confirmed in an earlier post that self made connections are unlikely to cause the user, or anyone else for that matter a problem. I'm happy to bow to you on the technicalities of it all, that's why I'm on here asking questions :)

If ntl were more flexible in their approach to siting of the cable I wouldn't have had this problem.

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

Firstly mate, see your PMs :)

My own personal view is that if the customer wants to move their STB or modem then we should do it foc for them once a year, any more often becomes chargeable, primarily to protect the integrity of the network.

I am though realist enough to know that its not going to happen as its a pretty poor business model. :(

I'm not quite sure though what your asking for here with more flexibility? are you saying that you want the installers to leave longer cables, shorter cables or that ntl should come out and move the cable for you foc every time you want it moving ? Or are you saying that in your case the original installers dictated to you where they were going to put the cabling rather than both parties coming to an agreement?

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

I wasn't actually in whe the guy came to do the install a couple of years back, but it's worth relay-ing (the story).

When I moved in there was a ntl box outside (previous owners had phoneline). I never used it, got BT re-enabled, and sky digi installed for telly. When we needed bb, ntl were competitive, so they got the nod. Like I said I wasn't in, but the guy came in, and my wife informed him where we were looking to have the cable modem sighted. He went under the floor, and apparently couldn't drill upwards at the point he was looking to do so. he then came back up, and blindly drilled from above to below the floor, which ended up in him going at a 45 degree angle through a dwarf wall. He then passed the cable through, and for some reason sealed the hole, so thorougly that I can't open up the hole, thereby giving me my previous problem. He ran about 20 metres of cable from the front of the house to this termination point, and my frustration simply is that I didn't have the flexibility of moving the cable myself to another room, as the hole being sealed prevented this. I can't believe for a minute that ntl care (why would they) about where my modem is, aslong as the equipment isn't tampered with. His actions unfortunately prevented this.

To top it all, my wife (heavily pregnant at the time) was enlisted to hold the drill in position once he had drilled through so he could find it when he went back underneath.

Anyway, Stu038's been rather helpful, and thanks for the rest of the contributions. This cable malarkey eh !

Re: Type of cable (actual cable)
 

No but some of the lazier installers do mate :(

Not quite sure why he sealed an internal hole so well though. Still, no accounting for folks :shrug: