Installation

(Part 3)

The Installation:

(5 out 5 stars) The installers where great! They did a professional job and over exceeded my expectations in ever way. It’s not often that a field tech treats you right and does the job right. I don’t now how many times I have heard “I just install it”. Never heard that here! I know I sound like an info commercial but I was amazed by the install because I have always had poor installers from cable and satellite providers.

Now let’s get to the good stuff. The installation! I have to say the installation went very well; I was highly impressed with the entire process. First we should talk about the commitment. Where they at my house when they said they would be? In my case yes! They actually called twice on prior days before the actually install. First, they called me a couple of days prior to let me know they where going to test out at the NID and wanted to give me an FYI that my DSL might be down for an hour or so. I thought this was very professional because internet is very important to a lot of people. I was at work, so it was no big deal. The Field Tech was a little concerned because he heard my dogs, but I told him not fear because there only daschunds, three of them. I told him to worry when he installs at the neighbors where they have three pit bulls (LOL).

I came home that night and of course they where all done with testing and there was no interruption in any service, DSL and phone worked fine still. I have to admit I was little worried I would come home to no service but they came through just fine. I have heard plenty of horror stories about other providers though. The Field Tech then called me the day before the installation to confirm the appointment between 8am and 10am, I was kind of surprised it was an actually person. Usually they have an automated system to handle these type calls, maybe that is in the works. The techs showed up bright an early and rung my door bell at about 9am. It’s likely they where at the node prior to 9am and that was quite fine with me, since I was still sleep. I work nights, so it was a rough morning anyway. Three techs showed up to do the install, 1 IR tech and 2 premise techs.

They started by installing a new NID, here are some pics. (Review continues below images)







As you can see they did a nice clean job of installing the new NID and pinning the coax under my roof edge. Some people like everything hidden but I don’t mind it running along under the roof if it is done neatly.

Next, they ran a coax from the outside wall on the side of the house into my office. Since my office didn’t have coax previous they had to install a jack. Luckily this was easy for the techs because my office just happened to be on the same wall the NID is on. So, they just tapped right through the brick. They actually hit in the wall exactly where I wanted the jack under my desk. The techs then installed what they call the RG (Router Gateway), which basically controls everything. It’s where the video and data are all networked together, if your RG goes down, everything goes down, trust me. I accidentally unplugged it and instantly all my TV’s shut down.

(Tip: If you do unplug the RG and have trouble getting it back in sync, unplug all your set top boxes (STB) and then try to sync the RG, it seems to do it much quicker this way. You can plug the STB’s back in after the RG syncs. The lights on the STB will blink about 64 times the tech said and then the video stream will return).

Okay, so we got the RG in, so I guess it’s time for some more screenshots.

If you look at the above image you will see all the extra coax I have. The tech actually asked me if I wanted a tight fit or that he could give me some extra coax, so if I decided to move the RG later I would have a little room to work with. I thought this cool because any other install I have ever had would have just put the stuff in how they want to and don’t generally care what the customer thinks. I think this is a big difference between contractors and employees (but that is a whole other conversation). Also, above you can see where the information for the RG is located. If you look on the side towards the bottom you will see your default gateway, MAC Address, and WEP key (Network Key).

Next it was time for the techs to install the set top boxes. I ordered three because it was free but I only have two TV’s. We have a guest room that currently doesn’t have a TV or a coax jack. My wife and I decided we would have them install the third box there instead of on the back covered patio but I knew I needed another coax drop. They didn’t charge for this at all and did it very cleanly, actually I told them exactly where I wanted the jack and they made the hole in the sheet rock. There was one problem, but at no fault of the techs. There was an oddly placed stud in the wall and they couldn’t fish the wall right to get the coax in the hole they already made. They tried for almost 1 hour and two techs went into the attic but they couldn’t get it to fish because of this oddly placed stud. I even got out my stud finder, it was very weird almost as if something fell in the wall as the house was being built. The tech suggested that they could drop it in the closet and then drill sideways through a stud where they made the hole in the sheet rock and fish in through there. The closet was right next to the where the coax jack was going, so I agreed because this prevented another hole in the wall. Also, the techs really seemed to know what they where doing, so I trusted their opinion. I was impressed when they went the extra mile, they where able to fish through the closet but half way through one of the techs stopped and said lets pull this black coax out. He took an extra 20 minutes and went to his truck and got white coax, so it blended in the closet wall nicely. You wouldn’t even notice it was there if I didn’t point it out. He even used clear stables to pin it to the corner of the wall in the closet. I will show pictures in a minute. I have never seen a FT (Field Tech) take so much into consideration, this was an awesome install.

The rest of the installation was pretty standard. They installed my DVR and hooked up the standard definition box in the master bedroom. Also, the synced the third box in the master bedroom as well, since I didn’t have a third TV for my guess room. So, once I get another TV, I can just connect it to the coax jack. The tech replaced all the coax that was going from any previous jack to the TV with new coax, he said he liked to use their thicker cables, which if I compared I could tell it was better quality than what I had previous, so I appreciated that.

That was pretty much it for the install, it went rather nicely. It did take about six hours but it was well worth the wait because I felt like they took their time and did a very professional job. Also, they told me in advance it would take roughly that long, so it was no surprise. The technicians were respectful and courteous the entire time of the installation. They even wear little booties for their feet when they came in the house, so they wouldn’t track any dirt on the carpet. I have never seen that before.

Here are the rest of the screenshots for the install.

The first one here is where they brought the white coax in my closet for the coax jack with the odd stud in the wall. You can see how nice of a job they did; the white coax makes it very hard to see in the corner of the closet. Can’t really even tell its there since it’s on the inner corner, you can only see it if you where in the closet staring out.



This is the back of the DVR, the techs did install my surround sound system but mine is so easily set up it was plug & play, since I just use an optical cable from the STB to the audio system.



Here is the back of a standard def box. Since I had an extra box because one of the rooms doesn’t have a TV in it yet, I just pulled it out. I noticed how all boxes have USB, Ethernet, and HDMI. That makes me think they are all compatible to a computer and HD ready. Now, I know there are a lot of you wondering about the HD and I plan to add this part soon to my review. I don’t have an HD TV yet, so hang in there. However, a buddy of mine does have HD from U-verse and I’m hoping he will give us some screenshots and a review before I actually get around to spending the money on a TV and another clearance code from the wife (wink, again).



Here you can see the difference in size from the DVR to the regular STB, really not too much difference. They are probably the same thickness but different in width and length. Below the is my Phillips DVD player that plays everything (AVI, Divx, and etc.).



Here is an aerial view of the STB sizes for another comparison.



Well, that is about all I have on the install part. If you have question or would like me to consider adding something left out in the install section please let me know. Also, the install is based on my personal experience this could very from city, town, tech, and state. Maybe, I just got lucky!

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