Structured Media Panels and Cable Companies:

Kolosus

I am almost done installing my own structured media panel. I used Leviton products. My question is this, has anyone else ever installed their own media panel? If so, did the Cable Company try to rewire things while hooking up your service, or did they respect the wiring you had done and hook things up your way?

Rderdall

I do structured wiring and home automation for a living, so I see this all the time. The cable company guys are paid based on how many homes they do, so they're trained to get in and get out quickly. Unfortunately for the home owners, this means that their work isn't as neat and tidy as you'd like it to be.

What you can expect is a couple of cable splitters, and lots of extra cable length connecting your cable ports to the splitters. It isn't worth it to ask your cable guy to do it neatly, I'd just shorten up and tidy the cables he installs after he leaves. If you're working on your own panel before he gets there, I'm sure you can handle shortening the cables that he leaves.

Kolosus

I'm comfortable cleaning up after them, but the concern I have is that I have all of my Coax going into my Coax module, I am just worried that this person is going to disconnect my line from the outside going to my Coax module and split it there and then try to re-do my wiring to the other rooms. Hope that makes sense.

Rderdall

Most cable guys are pretty anal about how many cable outlets they make 'live'. If your cable distribution system is actually a giant splitter (which I believe is the only option Leviton makes) (eg. 1 input, 8 outputs), he may disconnect your wiring so that only 4 outlets are live. If you ask him to connect all of them, he may indicate he'll have to charge you extra. He may also disconnect your cable runs from that splitter to one that he installs that only has 4 outputs. Either way, nothing he does will be permanent. If he installs his own splitter, just take the feed into that and move it to the input of your splitter, then re-connect the cable lines you want.

If you want, I can give you my work email address for you to send a picture of your panel once the cable guy's done if you need assistance.

Kolosus

I will just re-route all of his crap after he is done then. I was worried he was going to do the installation while I was at work, but I got it scheduled for the weekend instead.

Kolosus

Hilariously enough, they disconnected the Coax from my Coax module because he told me his company has a "special" kind of splitter and that my module won't work with their special lines that they need to run.

I'll mess with it later and re route the cabling.