New NTL Cabling to House (BIG QUESTION)

Yellowhill

NTL have recently been installing new cabling in my area on the Northside. They said it was to upgrade the TV signal?? We have NTL digital so i don't know how they're going to upgrade that....I think they're just preparing to offer all their digital customers a broadband service as well....anyway, long story short, the guy putting up the cables wanted to run a cable from the house facing us across to our house so he could enable our row of house to be connected to this new 'improved' service. I agreed but afterwards had a thought.....

Question? Does anybody know what would be in this cabling? Is it digital info?is it telephone lines? It goes directly from a telephone pole (or maybe it's an esb pole) to the house facing us and then to our row. Does whatevers in the cabling emit any energy or magnetic force (this all sounds a bit Dr. Who...)

I'm intensely curious to know and i won't even begin to waste my time trying to contact NTL (seriously, where do they get them???)

Any techies out there have any answers??

watty

Just coax mostly. The Analogue & Digital TV only need a forward path. Ampliifers on the cable need replaced for return path for broadband, also some areas barely support basic Digital.

A bunch of Digital TV channels or one Broadband signal for many users takes the same space as one Anlogue TV channel

Yellowhill

Thanks Watty, did wonder if it was coaxial but it's pretty thick black cable (as opposed to the normal white coax we have indoors)...presume that's because its outdoors or would it be thicker coax or is it a bigger bunch??

So if our area barely supported basic digital what's the upside of NTL 'upgrading' the cables?? Or any idea why the 'upgrade'?

Freddie59

Yellowhill wrote:

Thanks Watty, did wonder if it was coaxial but it's pretty thick black cable (as opposed to the normal white coax we have indoors)...presume that's because its outdoors or would it be thicker coax or is it a bigger bunch??

So if our area barely supported basic digital what's the upside of NTL 'upgrading' the cables?? Or any idea why the 'upgrade'?

I would imagine it's to IMPROVE (upgrade) the service. If your service is already borderline then it can only work in your favour......

watty

Yellowhill wrote:

Thanks Watty, did wonder if it was coaxial but it's pretty thick black cable (as opposed to the normal white coax we have indoors)...presume that's because its outdoors or would it be thicker coax or is it a bigger bunch??

So if our area barely supported basic digital what's the upside of NTL 'upgrading' the cables?? Or any idea why the 'upgrade'?

Yes proper outdoor very low loss "trunk" coax. Probabily a bit better than RG213. Your indoor cable might be RG59 or if more than 5.5mm then maybe RG6

You'll get more reliable Digital and option of Broadband. Also someone further down the system that maybe only had analogue will now get Digital & Broadband.

I have coax about 3/4" that is like Cable TV trunk cable. Also I have megawatt/Microwave coax that looks like high pressure waste plumbing that uses a copper pipe for the inner core. It is still a single coax though over 1.25" (30mm) diameter.

Yellowhill

All interesting answers..thanks very much guys.....my digital service from NTL has been fine up till now so i'm still wondering how they will IMPROVE(Thanks Freddie59 for clearing that up....:p ) something that up till now has been performing well? Thats why the broadband question arose...

Freddie59

Yellowhill wrote:

All interesting answers..thanks very much guys.....my digital service from NTL has been fine up till now so i'm still wondering how they will IMPROVE(Thanks Freddie59 for clearing that up....:p ) something that up till now has been performing well? Thats why the broadband question arose...

Well, in your own words you said your area barely supported digital TV - which would indicate you were having problems. Now you say you weren't. Which is it?


UPGRADE: to improve the quality of (machinery, equipment, a computer or its memory, etc), especially by adding or replacing features, components, etc.

bk

There probably trying to increase the bandwidth of their cable to over 850MHz and reduce the noise on the cable.

By doing this in future they could offer more channels, HDTV, VoD, phone and higher broadband speeds.

Yellowhill

Just to be clear.....Freddie59....What i said was 'So if our area barely supported basic digital what's the upside of NTL 'upgrading' the cables?' i used the qualifier 'IF' i didn't say the 'area barely supported digital TV' (see now it's turning into a question of semantics) ...check my post.

I did raise a supposition without qualifying that my service was fine so i can see where the confusion might have arose.:D

The question still sits...if my service has been fine up till now what benifits do I get from NTl upgrading their cabling......persistent, no?

Yellowhill

I posted before i saw BK's response. Thanks for that BK. Makes a lot of sense...:)

watty

You might get none, but it migh make a huge difference 1/2 a street away further down the SAME trunk.

dave oc

Dont mean to hijack this thead but have some questions on the same topic. My dad got a call from ntl about the same thing, upgrading cables in our area. It appears that ntl need to put a box at the side of our house for this cable upgrade, and a ntl rep is calling out to the house next wednesday to discuss it futher with us as they need our approval first.

One interesting thing he mentioned on the phone was that if we did comply and allow them install this box that we could discuss a possible reduction in our monthly bill (or even free services).

Now thats about my extent of knowledge on the topic, as my dad doesn't know much either until wednesday, but im wondering has anyone else had an experience like this with ntl or a similar group and what sort of bargaining rights we have.

As i see it ntl need to put this box at the side of the house and are willing to offer us compensation for it, i jus wonder how much can we ask/demand for from ntl?

watty

This must be UPC policy. The "real" NTL often didn't bother asking. More or less anyone needs permission to install poles, wires, pipes, boxes on your property. You can ask and you are entitled to a very small annual rent. Whater is agreed must be in writing incase there is a dispute or you sell the house.

You can't ask much as they will simply put the box somewhere else. Things like free cable TV forever are easier to get than money as that essesntially costs them less. It must however apply not to you but any resident of the house (good additional selling point if you ever move).

If you rent, then sadly they need to deal with the landlord and you not entitled to anything.