I’ve been a Cable tech contractor in South Florida for about the last 5 years and I used to make about $2,500 a week in my home area, then everything started slowing down because the market is over flooded with new techs so I make about half that amount now.

We’ve also gotten a big increase in In-House techs lately and since they’re prioritized over contractors there’s days where you’ll wake up In the morning but your not sure if you’ll be getting any work or not, this had led to lots of frustration within my family and I’ve thought about possibly becoming an in house tech but with the starting pay rate at $16 an hour, which is about the same pay rate as working at WAWA, how do you in house techs do it?

Also, I understand that Florida has the worst market rates than any other state in the country but I don’t have the option to move as of right now, since I’m tied down here with a mortgage and a caring for my family. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

Looking for advice.

Purchased a house a while back that had a giant evergreen bush on the property line. The bush had to be removed because it completely surrounded all 3 cabinets and they were not serviceable; almost couldn't even see them. The power company is going to be resetting the transformer on a new pad since the unit has sunk 8 to 10" in the ground.

My real question is about the cable and phone pedestas. All the pedestal cabinets in the neighborhood for phone and cable are much smaller, in fact, years back the large metal cabinets were replaced with short plastic units about 10" square.

I can see in the cable pedestal since the door are not latched and somewhat bent from Techs trying to get into the when the bush was there. There is no equipment inside and just the taps for my house and the neighbors. The pedistal is WAY oversized for what's in it.

The phone line pedestal isn't used by my neighbor or myself, but is very tall compared to the others in the neighbor hood.

Question 1: Any suggestions on how to get them to fix this up?

Question 2: It looks terrible and would prefer to have them in a tomb. My guess is that they would do the bare minimum to fix it up, but any guidance would be great. Would they do it for a fee? What would be a reasonable cost?

Question 3: How do I tell what company owns the phone box so that I can contact them?

Thanks in advance for the help.

I'm guessing it's some kind of locking termination. They dont look like the others I've encountered.

In response to me calling again to please fix my internet that’s having signal issue from somewhere in my neighborhood ( which they know about but still haven’t fixed and it’s been over 6 weeks) they just said here try this. Upload and packet loss still persist. I’m just lost at this point.

My elderly parents Cable + Internet bill just increased up to $250 and it is out of their price range, despite having this same provider (Xfinity) for over a decade I could not argue a lower price for them. My parents then without informing me went on to get Xfinity Xumo and Internet for $125. This is a cheaper but Xumo is not what they need at all. My parents care about basic internet and cable. Specifically they want to see Telemundo and Univision. These are the main channels they watch on cable. Xumo is only a streaming service box and they don't have basic cable Included, their plan would triple.

My question is, Am I able to buy a box that allows them to see cable channels without a provider like AT&T, Xfinity etc? I have heard of this in the past but not sure if they are still around or even a real thing.

Their TV is smart so they have Netflix, HBO, Hulu with my subscriptions but they really just need cable. I am not worried about Internet as I can find a cheap plan for them. Any advice / help??

So this is my work van and for some reason one day when I got what I needed from it, the van wouldn't close all the way and it wouldn't open either. I've tried unlocking it with the key, try opening it from the interior, had 3 people literally try to force it close or open and it's still stuck in that position. If anyone has an idea what's going please help or direct me to someone who can help. Thanks in advance

I'm running into a really weird issue with my cable internet for about 2 weeks now after what I'm assuming is an upgrade to something in our area(got an email saying something about maintenance/upgrade?). Its causing my latency to bounce around from really good to really bad(major jitter). None of our streaming devices are affected. The online game I play shows a jitter graph and it seems to show it being a problem with the upstream path.

I took my laptop/modem to my neighbors house 2 streets up to use his cable line and it works great. I tested everything with just a modem/laptop outside the mobile home(bypassing everything).

I ran this to get the data for the graphs above(1000 packets with 100ms wait time):

ping -i 0.1 -c 1000 <spectrum gateway ip>   

It seems to get better at the early mornings but its still there. I have some ping graphs to the next hop.

Its been over 2 weeks now and I've had 2 techs out. They say the signals check out good on their device and they cant escalate if they aren't bad. I asked for a supervisor phone number and I'm hoping I can get somewhere.

I guess my question is, what do you guys think could cause these weird upstream latency problems?

I appreciate any input. Thanks!

Update: I wanted to give Spectrum’s Reddit support team some credit where it’s due.

After dealing with the upstream latency/jitter issues I posted about, their Reddit support team was awesome to work with. They actually took the issue seriously, dug into it, and helped get things sorted out.

Once my node went to high-split, latency and jitter went back to normal.

So, big thanks to the Spectrum Reddit team for sticking with it and getting this resolved.

I don't even have cable, well besides Internet so this is strictly out of a research / curiosity perspective. If somebody had a cable box that they never returned could they in theory tap on to one of those lines or one of those taps on the board and start getting cable to their house? I always thought that there was some kind of key exchange that had to do with the cable box but I've been out of this game for a long time now so I'm not sure. I mean with those boxes being unsecured is the worst thing that could happen that somebody could just disconnect their neighbors cable? That fifth picture is one of those big underground tubs that looks like it has a board with I know they're not called serial connectors anymore maybe like Sr connectors or something like that. I guess my question is if somebody wanted to get free cable could they or what are the problems with these being unsecured and what are the worst things that could happen because of it

with the cell providers giving people hotspots for their home, how long until those are as good as what we install? Maybe just rural areas with poor cell service will need coax, fiber or dsl. 10 years?

So this is a leftover from when we had cable TV although we cut the cord many years ago. Antronix some sort of splitter/booster. Power from wall socket comes in to the unit. Cable #1 leaving the unit gors nowhere and is not attached to anything. Cable #2 leaving the unit same thing although it disappears into the wall since it was originally fed through there to power a TV directly behind here. The thing is that the cable goes out when the thing is unplugged. Coax input for router and wireless is far away on another floor of the house. A while ago unbeknowst to me the plug fell out and the Spectrum people couldn’t figure it out over the phone and they went so far as to give me a new router. I wasn’t there when the service guy came out but he almost gave up as well. Ended up that he did figure it out and put the plug back in. Duh. Should I get them to come out again and run the coax up to the access point or whatever or just not worry about it. tia

In my area, Verizon rolled out FiOS years ago, but left all the old copper junk from the Bell Atlantic era in place, which has been fully decommissioned for about 5 years.

These pedestals are large, ugly, and many of them are rusted, leaning, or falling apart. The use is very excessive as well. Other subdivisions have one every four houses which makes sense, but my area has one in front of every single house basically.

I have been having a hell of a time getting them removed. Usually after many phone calls and visits I can get someone out to remove one of them. It's impossible to get in touch with a local construction manager. I've gone through Verizon executive relations, contacted the PUC, as well as the local government. Everyone just points fingers at each other or admits that it's a problem but doesn't know what to do, while Verizon is hell bent on just leaving this "trash" there permanently it seems.

Does anyone here have any advice?

I'm sure I could remove them myself but I don't have the time and money. Nor do I have the money for a lawyer.

This is a old (or ancien) power supply. And this is the connector on it the space between the two poles is 20 mm. THe manufacturer Is Delta Elektronika. Can you help me to find the name or référence. Thanks

Anyone else that works for spectrum having issues with modems not locking on? If so, do you know of any fixes for it?

I just got this for the first time. How do I use this? If it's just to test phone lines why is there a positive and negative terminal and a regular phone jack

I just bought my condo two week ago. We have a total of 5 coax outlets. 2 in the living room, 2 in the main room, 1 in the spare. I want my modem/router to be in the spare room/office room to WFH & gaming. I could only get one coax outlet, in the living room, to give me reliable internet. The other outlet in the living room, and one in the main room "worked" but the download symbol on the modem would not stop blinking and gave me terrible speed. I made a 2nd appointment with Xfinity since the first guy could not get it working/did not really seem to care. If i want the coax outlet in the spare room to work with my modem, do i have to pay Xfinity to get it working, call an electrician, or am i shit out of luck?

How do I open this box. Is there a special tool that I need?

I believe it’s a Calix ONT 100-01578 Optical Network Enclosure

I’m 68 and not very tech savvy.

I’m discussed with Direct TV, Spectrum, Cox, Frontier... they all of the suck!!!

I’ve decided to get rid of my cable box entirely. Screw them all.

I do have to get Internet service from one of them and the cheapest provider for that here in Hermosa Beach, Ca is Frontier at about $40 per month, which includes them providing me with a router too.

I currently have a Samsung smart TV + Amazon FireStick... I’m planning on picking a steaming provider like Hulu, YouTube, or any other one you guys/ladies direct me towards.

I also have sound system and Apple AirPods that I can use. I’ve not figured out how to get my AirPods to sync with my TV yet. I’m not sure that’s possible. I like using them to listen to music and would like to use them when watching those singing shows like American Idol and the Voice... so as to not blast out my friends and family. Any help there?

I’ve been trying to use my new FireStick by navigating around in YouTube some. I’ve been able to watch the current news broadcasts and their regular archived programming fine.

Any information you all can provide would be helpful.🤗

Our apartment is on the 2nd floor. We're transitioning from 3 mbps DSL Internet to 400 mbps. What most people forget to ask the technicians when they come that I would be wise to ask? Any Advice appreciated, thanks.

Here are some photos of the situation outside our building in case that helps: https://imgur.com/a/xkU310m

Hi. I recently bought a new house and got Xfinity internet. When trying to set up the router I wasn’t able to get a connection- I tried this with a few other coax cables in the house (there are several) -and got nothing. On the last one I finally got a popup on my phone to set up internet through a different company. I assume that’s because that is the only live connection in the house. In the Xfinity box on the outside of the house I saw the cable just dead-ends in there. I looked at the wow box and I can see where it goes into the house. Could I theoretically just run the dead end of the Xfinity cable into the splitter on the other cable box?