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[jmone]

Our house has a long driveway from the street (about say 100m - 300ft) and as a result the local Telco (Telstra) will not do a Std Install of the Cable Modem/TV (HFC network).  I've requested a "quote" but they are generally reluctant to do such installs as I presume this is due to the cost associated with long RG-6 feeds and signal loss (I could be wrong of course).

so I'm thinking other options as we have both Power and space to put an equipment cabnet at the top of the driveway but I'd then need to have my own cable run.  I'm yet to get the specs on the CAU that Telstra use but I was thinking that with a total Run Length from the top of the drive, down to the house the around to my Routers etc it may be as much as 150m or 450ft) I could:

1) Get some "active booster" to allow longer RG-6 cable runs.... or better cables... or both?
2) have them do a Std (free) Install with the CAU at the top of the drive and then Pull a Fibre Optic Cable(s) with Coax to Fibre Media Converters on each ends to connect the Cable Modem / Cable TV box in the house.  I have yet to get the specs on the CAU... BUT I've no idea if such compatible media converts even exist.
3) have them do a Std (free) Install with the CAU and Cable Modem at the top of the drive and then Pull a Fibre Optic Cable(s) with Coax to Eithernet Media Converters on each ends to connect to the Router/Switch located in the house.  This should be straight forward but I'd only get a connection for the Cable Modem (eg no TV) but the data connection is more what I want.
4) Drag the house 70m up the drive

Ideas?

Thanks
Nathan

[Sandy B Ridge]

Long runs of good grade coax should be OK since the cabinets are usually located about 250-500m apart, so the houses in the middle would have to make do with long coax runs.
My house is at the end of a 100m drive and the cabinet is at least another 100-150m down the road. I didn't put the cable in, the previous owners did that when they built the house. It was a new build about 10 years ago in the back garden of a larger house at the front - hence the long driveway.
I suspect the telco was happy to run the cable at the tine because the builders presumably dug the trench ready for them.

They keep offering me a 50 megabanana per second connection, so I guess it is close enough to the cabinet. I currently am on 20 megabananas.
 
Maybe telstra are a bit reluctant to do the digging? Maybe if you ask for a quote on the basis that you sort out a suitable trench for them?

SBR

[glynor]

Extron makes the highest grade RG6 IMHO.  They qualify them for long runs.

Expensive, though, and regular stuff would probably work fine.

[rjm]

The miracle of how much stuff you can push through a single coax is right up there with the great pyramids.

[Sandy B Ridge]

Don't they use the triple screened RG11 for longer runs? Should be better than RG6?

SBR

[jmone]

Mmmm I wonder if the run length is an excuse then

[glynor]

Mmmm I wonder if the run length is an excuse then

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[glynor]

The miracle of how much stuff you can push through a single coax is right up there with the great pyramids.

The current limit on RG6 is roughly 1.5Gbps (single-link HD-SDI).  Extron HD-SDI-certified RG6 (18 AWG) can do this up to around 285 feet (often longer in practice, depending on conditions).

I have a 500' spool of it in my office right now...

EDIT:  My bad.  I forgot about SMPTE 424M (3G-SDI) because that is typically run over RG11.  It doesn't have to be, though.  3G-SDI can do 3Gbps over a single-link of RG6.  Clark Electronics' Low-Loss RG6 Coax claims they can do up to 376' at these data rates, though I bet in practice you'd see much, much less usable distance.

For comparison, they claim their RG11 cable can do up to 570' at 3Gbps, and 849' at 1.5Gbps (which would be more typical for a home HDTV cable feed requirements).

If you're going to run something yourself, and bury it, I'd buy RG11.  The main problem with RG11 is that it is SUPER non-flexible, so it is not appropriate for in-wall use, unless you can do everything in a straight-run.

[rjm]

The current limit on RG6 is roughly 1.5Gbps (single-link HD-SDI).  

interesting... I would have thought it was higher for the hundreds of hi-def channels, pay for view, high speed internet, and phone that it carries.

[glynor]

interesting... I would have thought it was higher for the hundreds of hi-def channels, pay for view, high speed internet, and phone that it carries.

Nope.  They compress the crap out of it.

Home cable Internet and Digital Cable typically runs at less than 1.5Gbps.

[rjm]

You can see why the majority do not understand the magnitude of our debt problem because it's hard to visualize trillions against billions against millions. I just did it. A nice quality h264 encode for me is 1000 Kbps. That's 1 Mbps. With 1.5 Gbps I can have 1500 simultaneous videos which feels about right for what I see offered by my cable company.

[Sparks67]

Actually a friend mine had a similar problem with Time Warner Cable, they wanted. $25,000 to cross the road (50 Meters) and hookup his 10 neighbors.   His neighborhood refused to pay that amount, and he still doesn't have broadband.  The only way that he has been able to get the internet is with a Verizon Mifi card.  This has been going on for about 10 years.  No, DSL is not an option either.  Actually, this quite common for rural areas.

Nathan's problem is more of asking a cable company to do a custom install free. The solution is hiring a private certified cable contractor to hookup his home to the curb.  Nathan can't do the install because he is not certified to do it.