Cable Installation Costs

[Manning]

I went to get my cable set up in a new home. The house is obviously wired for cable, but has never had
Comcast service. The rep at the office quoted me $85 for Internet, 1 box, and 3 other TVs to install. Im not sure what exactly this install is going to entail, but $85 seems a bit high.

Is this normal???

 

[Jim]

Do you have Fios available in your area?

 

[Manning]

Do you have Fios available in your area?

Yep, seriously considering, but When last I looked it seemed like cost per month for Verizon fios and direct tv bundled was higher than Comcast.

 

[Jim]

The quality is night and day- the Fios is a much better product. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. In my case Fios was less expensive for what I needed and the connection speed is unbelievable.

 

[Manning]

Well, scratch that, after a call to Verizon, Fios is not yet available in my area. Only Verizon high speed, which I would assume is DSL service?

 

[BigBull]

I would highly recommend AGAINST Comcast. I've now had the service for 1 year. We signed up for all the channels, and a 30 mb d/l connection for $124/month. High? Yes. However, I was assured it would stay this price the entire year. Each month the LOTH is on the phone with their customer service arguing over some charge they've arbitrarily thrown in there. On average, she spends well over 30 min/month on the line. Our most recent bill? $206. Sure, this is just our experience, but I acutally placed the call today to have them come pick up their stuff. I do not in any way, shape, or form recommend going with Comcast. I hope someone high-up in their company is reading this.

 

[Arcadies]

I would highly recommend AGAINST Comcast. I've now had the service for 1 year. We signed up for all the channels, and a 30 mb d/l connection for $124/month. High? Yes. However, I was assured it would stay this price the entire year. Each month the LOTH is on the phone with their customer service arguing over some charge they've arbitrarily thrown in there. On average, she spends well over 30 min/month on the line. Our most recent bill? $206. Sure, this is just our experience, but I acutally placed the call today to have them come pick up their stuff. I do not in any way, shape, or form recommend going with Comcast. I hope someone high-up in their company is reading this.

+1

I've been using Comcast since 2001..well they used to be Adelphia until Comcrap bought them out. Anyway, my service started out at $35 a month for internet and $30 for cable, eventually Comcast bought them out and raised it to $45 internet and $55 cable. Fast forward to the present and my internet is $55.95 and digital preferred with DVR and HD and no movie channels (other than encore) for $94.85. So my monthly total with taxes/fees is a whopping $163.64 and it's terrible service. The internet is great, I will admit, but the TV flickers and freezes and pixelates quite often to the point it's unwatchable...oddly enough it seems to be worse during prime time. I've been loathe to change to Dish or Direct TV, I keep hearing they have even worse quality issues in this area.

 

[Go West Young Man]

The guy is going to come to your house (and Comcast seems good about keeping to appointment times these days), check that all the cabling is good, the switches and outlets properly installed, etc. $85 isn't a bad price, honestly. The installer spent over an hour at our place, there was significant signal degradation between the street and out walljack and he replaced a bunch of stuff to bring us back up to 100% for no extra charge.

 

[dpm802]

I just bought a house in April and had Comcast come out to hook me up to internet. I didn't get any TV channels. I use a MagicJackPlus for VoiP telephone service. I signed up for a 15meg download speed, but my actual service is closer to 20megs.

I paid $49.95 for the tech to come and hook me up. The house already had cables run through the walls from the previous owner. I bought my own modem for $80 and a WiFi router for $90 ... I wasn't about to get trapped into paying $7 a month forever to rent their equipment.

My monthly bill right now is $30.05 ... after 6 months, this will jump to $70 ... I'm trying to figure out a way to negotiate a lower rate, which most people (including Comcast associates) tell me will run about $45. I can't stand the though of being without internet.

I have NetFlix and Amazon Prime to watch TV shows and movies, but I'm quickly running out of things that are worth watching. I'm looking into getting a roof antenna so I can get over-the-air broadcasts. I do have a set of rabbit ears on one TV, but I can only get CBS if I turn it in one direction, and NBC if I turn it in another, plus a few UHF channels where I can pick up syndicated re-runs and a lot of Spanish language and gospel stations.

I've looked into other ISPs, but there doesn't seem to be too many to choose from in this area. And most of them charge about the same as ComCast anyway. At least the service has been reliable, so far. I always get a solid signal, which was something I could never count on when I had Verizon DSL.

One might be tempted to get the highest download speed available, but its not really necessary. I rarely use more than about 10% of the total bandwidth available to me, and I have four devices hooked up through WiFi. Why pay for extra speed if its not necessary? If I could downgrade my 15meg speed, I would do so, but I think the only thing they offer less than this is 384K, and I know that won't be enough ... and I wouldn't really be saving much money with the lowest speed, either.

 

[Arcadies]

I wasn't about to get trapped into paying $7 a month forever to rent their equipment.

I pay for the modem rental and they gave me a wireless router free, I can also stop renting whenever I choose, they don't "trap" you into it. I've found in the end it's about the same cost to rent (for me anyway) I had one get fried by lightning, another that got knocked off the desk onto hardwood flooring and cracked open the chassis, I've had 4 others that stopped working or just started bugging out in some form or another and I had one replaced just because they had newer and better models. They've always replaced them with no questions asked, I can see the argument on it being more cost effective to buy your own but I kind of like being able to just swap it out, you never know what the hell is gonna happen.

 

[Jawaburger]

In my area they often run free installation deals. They are always leaving flyers on my door.

 

[The Nid Hog]

Time-Warner is offering free installation and discount bundles where I live. $89 a month for two years: internet, phone and TV. DVR included, large channel package that includes HD, etc. I had shut off my satellite service and was getting by on Roku, but the only internet provider that I can get is T-W and my internet charges alone were close to this. I went ahead and got the package. Starting Monday, I'll be a full on T-W drone again.

 

[BeeSeeDub]

Time-Warner is offering free installation and discount bundles where I live. $89 a month for two years: internet, phone and TV. DVR included, large channel package that includes HD, etc. I had shut off my satellite service and was getting by on Roku, but the only internet provider that I can get is T-W and my internet charges alone were close to this. I went ahead and got the package. Starting Monday, I'll be a full on T-W drone again.

TW here always installed for free as well - but $85 does not seem like highway robbery. We dumped the TW cable tv but kept the internet / phone...and are still content with netflix as a substitute.

 

[Manning]

Thanks for all the replies.

I'm pretty much stuck with Comcast, as the only alternative is Direct TV/Verizon "high speed." So, install costs are what they are I guess. I was just a little thrown because on the Comcast website it says install is $34.99 for "Primary TV"+ $7 for every other TV + some fee for internet installation. Of course, the fine print wasn't even in fine print as you cant even see that fee schedule anywhere, nor could the representative print out a bill or estimate, just wrote down the total installation costs on a piece of receipt paper. I would like to just do it myself, but because the house has never had Comcast before I am told that isn't an option.

Like I said, it is what it is, I just wanted to see if this is normal for this type of installation.

 

[xraygun]

Just tell them you have an offer of free installation from Direct TV. They'll most likely waive the installation fee. They can wheel and deal to get a customer.