TV/Internet Connections Throughout House?

[thelok]

I'm buying my first house so I'm a newbie at this:

My house will have multiple coaxial connections throughout the house: basement, living room, bedrooms. I want to have TV and internet connectivity without running a ton of wires throughout the house and I want to avoid running up the bill by renting out a ton of TV/internet boxes.

I have a choice between Verizon FIOS and Comcast/Xfinity as providers. Does anyone have insight or advice into making my home TV/internet connected for as low a price as possible without needing to run wires everywhere? It seems FIOS might be the most expensive since I would need a converter box at every coax outlet. I'm not sure how cable works if it will "activate" and then let me connect directly to the outlet, minus the cable modem for internet.

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

I'm buying my first house so I'm a newbie at this:

My house will have multiple coaxial connections throughout the house: basement, living room, bedrooms. I want to have TV and internet connectivity without running a ton of wires throughout the house and I want to avoid running up the bill by renting out a ton of TV/internet boxes.

I have a choice between Verizon FIOS and Comcast/Xfinity as providers. Does anyone have insight or advice into making my home TV/internet connected for as low a price as possible without needing to run wires everywhere? It seems FIOS might be the most expensive since I would need a converter box at every coax outlet. I'm not sure how cable works if it will "activate" and then let me connect directly to the outlet, minus the cable modem for internet.

Thanks!

I have FiOS, and there is no way I'd ever go back to regular cable. When searching for my current house (renting) that was one of my requirements...FiOS.

FiOS (fiber) or Comcast(cable) will require a box for each TV. If you only want the absolute basic channels on extra TVs, Comcast might not require a box for each. But if you want all the channels everywhere....each TV needs a box.

For internet....you need either a strong enough WiFi signal to cover, or run Cat5e throughout. You don't send the internet signal over the coax cable.

So...from the main router, to a multiport switch, then wires to each room.
Or a strong WiFi signal. Depending on the size and construction of the house, that may require one or more extra access points.


And do NOT tell or let the installer guy put the main router in the basement. That is a popular configuration because that is often where the entertainment room, or 'dad cave' is. But that is the absolute worst place to propagate the WiFi signal from.

 

[Wolfshadw]

I'm not familiar with Verizon FIOS, so I'll only speak to Comcast/Infinity. Television throughout the home won't be an issue as you already have the coaxial lines into each room. Whether or not you need set top boxes for each room will depend on your cable subscription level and your televisions. Internet throughout the home is going to be quite a bit trickier.

Ideally, you would want to run Ethernet cable to each room you want to have internet access. There are other options, such as wireless networking and power line networking, but these will not give the throughput or stability of Ethernet cables.

-Wolf sends

 

[USAFRet]

I'm not familiar with Verizon FIOS, so I'll only speak to Comcast/Infinity. Television throughout the home won't be an issue as you already have the coaxial lines into each room. Whether or not you need set top boxes for each room will depend on your cable subscription level and your televisions. Internet throughout the home is going to be quite a bit trickier.

Ideally, you would want to run Ethernet cable to each room you want to have internet access. There are other options, such as wireless networking and power line networking, but these will not give the throughput or stability of Ethernet cables.

-Wolf sends

FiOS requires a box for each TV, but how much each one costs depends on exactly what it does. Just a basic converter is ~$4. A DVR is more, and a DVR that connects to the main DVR (pause here, start from the same spot in another room) is more again. SD, HD...depends on what type of TV is in that room.
Just depends on what you want it to do.

I'm in the process of rewiring my other house. Moving into it in the spring. All new coax, and Cat5e throughout.