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[Install] Installation question

I am thinking about switching from AT&T DSL to Comcast cable internet. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment where there are two Comcast cable outlets...one in the living room and another in a bedroom (bedroom #1). I would like to avoid wireless to my PC if at all possible, however my PC is located in a 2nd bedroom (bedroom #2) which does not have a cable outlet and so I would have to get a cable from bedroom #1 to bedroom #2. I have a few questions about the best installation options for my situation:

• If I were to run a cable from bedroom #1 into bedroom #2, would it be OK to use a 15-20 foot run of RG6 coax cable so that I could have the cable modem in bedroom #2 ?
• Or would it be best to put the cable modem in bedroom #1 right near the cable outlet and then run a CAT5 cable from the cable modem in bedroom #1 to my PC in bedroom #2?
• Or should I just go wireless using my Netgear router? I envision some latency and/or speed loss with wireless but granted I don't have any experience since I've always used a hard-wired internet connection to my PC

Thanks!

It wouldn't make any real difference if you connected the rooms with coax or CAT5. If I were doing it I would use coax as that puts the modem in the same room as the PC. You will have to reboot it sooner or later so no sense in going from room to room.

Without seeing the layout of the apartment, could a cable outlet be installed in the 2nd bedroom fairly easily? When I was doing installation work, the two most common ways that I did it was to put a splitter behind the wall plate of an existing outlet, so you would have a back to back wall plate, If that wasn't possible, a lot of times I could do like you mentioned, and run coax from room to room, and if there was hot water heat, I would run the coax between the two rooms following the heat pipe between the two rooms. I could do either in about 5-10 minutes.

There is about a 2 foot section of wall in bedroom #1 that the cable wall plate is attached to which is not accessible from bedroom #2....it must be a segregated area they designed for wiring, etc. What I will do if I decide to go with cable internet is to drill a hole through each wall in an area that is accessible on the common inside wall between the two bedrooms and run the cable through it. I'll then attach a very short length of coax to the wall jack and then attach a splitter to it, with one output line going to the TV in bedroom #1 and one output line going around a bend into the closet to the common wall and then through the wall and into bedroom #2.

So much for that idea...I tapped three different small holes using a small phillips screwdriver into the wall in bedroom #2 in three different horizontal and vertical spots and hit something solid in all 3 spots. Seems there is something solid between the two walls and I am not sure I dare try and drill through it.

Do u have a maintenance man. He will probably get a hole for u.

A decent 802.11N (or better yet, 802.11AC) router attached to the modem in bedroom #1 should suffice. As long as it is configured correctly, you shouldn't notice any latency or speed loss.
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I ran a run of about 70' of ethernet cable from the spare room that the cable modem and my computer is located to my living room that has a few networked components. I specifically ran it for the PS3, since the wifi built in the PS3 is pretty bad. Anyways I used white ethernet cable that is dirt cheap at monoprice and I used these cord clips from 3M:

»www.amazon.com/Command-Small-Cor···rd+clips

In my case I used the white clips with the white cable and I attached it to my baseboard trim which is also white. I had to go up and over a few doors (4 I think). The white on white allows the cable run and the clips to meld into the background.

Is it perfect and ideal, nope, but my wife and I currently live in a rental and I wasn't going to hire and electrician to add an ethernet drop for someone else's house. And most importantly it got my wife's seal of approval, never thought I would admit that as a young man, but one gets wiser as one gets older.

That may work for me as well. I do have one doorway that the cable would have to pass through...not sure how I would install the cable so that the door would still close unless there is enough space between the bottom of the door and the carpet and then I could run it along the bottom of the door jam.

The door stop in my door jamb that the door closes against doesn't go all the way to the carpet, so i just stuffed the cable underneath that. Clever placement of the cord clips keeps the cable in place.

I was able to finally find a place where I am able to make a hole in between the two bedroom walls and run a cable between the two bedrooms withoout having to deal with doorways. So, now I am thinking I will run an RG6 cable between the two rooms. Will a 50 foot RG6 cable be OK to run from the splitter to my cable modem?

50 feet will be no problem.

Thanks. I pulled the trigger this past weekend and signed up with Comcast (voice, HDTV and internet). Now I just need to go pick up the self-install kits.

I don't have them for voice, but others I know have had problems with it.

I have HDTV and Internet and have had no problems with them.

We shall see. My dad and brother both have Comcast voice and have not had problems.

I would suggest not porting your existing phone number to Comcast until you are sure there are no problems with it.

You should be able to forward your existing number to your new (temporary) Comcast number. That way all your incoming calls to your current number will go to the Comcast line.

If after some time you are problem free and happy, then go ahead and port your number into Comcast.

I have had phone service from Verizon FiOS, Time Warner Voice, and currently have Comcast Voice. In terms of call quality both Time Warner and Comcast are about the same quality, which is to say middling. Nothing really compares to the quality of a call you get with FiOS. Still miss my Verizon service.

Well, you might get lucky after all. Porting a number is a touchy process. If every i is not dotted and every t is not crossed, the process will fail and have to be started all over again. That would be the opportunity to decline the port at that time and wait until you are satisfied with the service first.

As it turns out, Comcast did not do all the steps needed to port my number over, so when I learned of this I told them I did not want my number ported over yet. So, as of now I still have my AT&T services and Comcast's. So far so good with Comcast for the most part, although I am not happy with the wireless performance of the ARRIS TG862G cable modem/router I am renting from them, so I am looking into having it put into bridged mode so that I can use my own router.

You will have to call comcast to put the modem into bridged mode. I have heard rumors that they might allow the customer to do that themselves, but so far that is just a rumor.

Don't even get me started on their dvr box. It is a constant source of rage for my better half.

I think that you won't get shuttled over to their signature support to get the modem put into bridged mode, but I don't know taht for sure. What ever you do, DO NOT HAVE THEM TRANSFER YOU TO SIGNATURE SUPPORT.

Well, you got lucky on that failure to port the number.

But don't feel special. Everyone I know who has tried to port a number no matter where from or where to, it never worked on the first try and they weren't even told it failed to port.

They depend on you to discover this on your own and contact them to get the port started again.

You should have a temporary new number from Comcast that you can use to evaluate the phone service. Depending on which phone package you have with the land line, you might be able to forward all incoming calls to the Comcast number. That way you don't have to bother giving out the temporary Comcast number.

Then later if you are sure you want to keep Comcast phone service, get your number ported over.

Good luck.

You can always tell them it's not your new number and not to call it.

But give it a bunch of time. A neighbor of mine went from AT&T to Comcast for phone and it has not worked out so well.

No reply yet to my post in Comcast Direct regarding putting my modem into bridged mode. I sure hope someone helps me there...I dread calling Support.

From what I have read here that can be done over the phone without too much pain. Also, online chat may be able to do it.

Most of us who have our own routers buy or lease a bridge modem instead of a gateway.