Feeding through Cable Co.'s access box?

[roo5ter]

Hi All,

I subscribed to cable for four months and after 2 price increases I decided to cut the crap, cancel cable and get Dish. I live in a duplex and my neighbor still subscribes to cable and we share the same cable access box. I have a 510 and wanted to split the TV SET OUT line to another room. So, with separate existing cable lines ran into 2 different rooms using a star topology, the best solution I found was to connect them together inside the box on the side of my house. I ended up using a pair of needle-nose pliers to unscrew the terminator to get to box open. I got in & connected the 2 rooms together using a barrell connector. I didn't touch the cable drop and the terminator came back on with no damage done. Everything works great & I now can watch the same channel in the second room.

Now for my question... is what I did legal? I mean, I'm sure the cable company has more things to worry about... but do I own their cabling and was it ok to do what I did? They are not losing any money because of what i did. Thanks for any help you can give me.

[ypsiguy]

I'm not a lawyer, but as long as you're not stealing their signal I don't think their opinion matters. If it were attached to my house, I'd consider it to be my property. If they complain, just tell 'em you want it left there in case u ever want to reconnect, lol. For my apartment I removed Comcrap's lead completely. Nice feeling to be free from cable, eh?

[DishDude1]

don't worry about it, however if a cable tech ever comes out to the house he may disconnect it.

[garypen]

I use the original Cable wiring of my townhouse to get signal from room to room. I also use barrels and splitters located in the common utility room, right next to the Cable blocks. No problem for me so far. (I did attach a little note asking cable techs to leave my wires alone, as they are no longer connected to their blocks.)

[roo5ter]

Thank you all very much for your responses. I knew the cables were my property... I just didn't know removing the security terminator to get in the box was legal. I didn't feel like cutting the cables & making a mess crimping on new ends, so i popped the box open.

[Jacob S]

The cable company never hesitated to use the wire I used for customers I previously installed satellite for so I do not hesitate to use their wire if it is RG-6.

[88fan]

As a former cable co. tech, the cable company owns from the pole to the groundblock. From the groundblock inside is your property. However if you opened the side of the cable box that is locked, that is indeed illegal. Depending on your cable company, and how nasty they could be, they could charge you with damaging their property. If you opened the side that said customer access, then you are fine. Most cable companies do occasional audits of disconnected accounts to make sure the customer hasn't reconnected themselves on their own, especially in apartments. I wouldn't lose any sleep over what you've done because you are not stealing their service, but just don't damage anything that they could try to make you pay for.

[James Long]

It has been five months since I cancelled Comcast High Speed Internet ... they still have not bothered to come out and pull my drop off at the pole.

My inside wiring was from the ground block outside of the house down into the basement to where I had the modem on a shelf. No TVs were connected (I have antennas and E* for video service). And now I have telco DSL for half the cost so bye bye Comcast ... thanks for taking TWO MONTHS to cancel the billing ... pull the drop off the pole any time.

And thanks for the 100ft of RG-11 abandoned in my back yard. You couldn't be bothered to clean up your mess.

JL

[Jacob S]

I wonder if some of the cable companies do not come out to disconnect so that they can still try to charge you for the service when/if they come back out to check to see if you are still watching the cable service.

[Regular Member Incognito]

7 years ago I made the switch to E* and told the Cable Co to disconnect me. They did after about a month. About a year later they upgraded all the distribution boxes to accommodate the digital transition and Internet. After that work they left with my service turned back on. :) I haven't called to complain and suspect I'll never let them know of their error. I don't feel like I'm stealing service because they hooked me back up by mistake. I'm already paying for the channels through satellite and get my locals OTA. Is that bad?

[Bobby94928]

7 years ago I made the switch to E* and told the Cable Co to disconnect me. They did after about a month. About a year later they upgraded all the distribution boxes to accommodate the digital transition and Internet. After that work they left with my service turned back on. :) I haven't called to complain and suspect I'll never let them know of their error. I don't feel like I'm stealing service because they hooked me back up by mistake. I'm already paying for the channels through satellite and get my locals OTA. Is that bad?

So, you go into a store and purchase an item for $9.50. You give the salesperson a 20 dollar bill. You get change of $20.50 instead of $10.50. Gosh the salesperson made a mistake and you walk out of the store very happy that you got your item and 50 cents to boot. Is that bad????

[ypsiguy]

It has been five months since I cancelled Comcast High Speed Internet ... they still have not bothered to come out and pull my drop off at the pole.

My inside wiring was from the ground block outside of the house down into the basement to where I had the modem on a shelf. No TVs were connected (I have antennas and E* for video service). And now I have telco DSL for half the cost so bye bye Comcast ... thanks for taking TWO MONTHS to cancel the billing ... pull the drop off the pole any time.

And thanks for the 100ft of RG-11 abandoned in my back yard. You couldn't be bothered to clean up your mess.

JL

I'd take the 100ft of coax to their office, chew them out and leave it. Then I have zero love for Comcrap. They are very ungrateful people when u decide to cancel them. How dare you? :lol:

[garypen]

So, you go into a store and purchase an item for $9.50. You give the salesperson a 20 dollar bill. You get change of $20.50 instead of $10.50. Gosh the salesperson made a mistake and you walk out of the store very happy that you got your item and 50 cents to boot. Is that bad????
That would be bad. It wouldn't be illegal, though. Personally, I would return the overage, since there is a good chance it would be taken from the underpaid cashier's paycheck.

OTOH, his cable company is giving him the service. He didn't request it. They gave it to him. If they want to give away service for free, that's their issue. It costs them no more than if they weren't giving it to him. He is not actively pirating the signal, so he is not stealing it.

Good for him.

[James Long]

7 years ago I made the switch to E* and told the Cable Co to disconnect me. They did after about a month. About a year later they upgraded all the distribution boxes to accommodate the digital transition and Internet. After that work they left with my service turned back on. :)
How did you know it was on? In my situation I would have to take measures (extend their cable into my distribution) in order to know what was on that cable. But with cable disconnected, why were you looking?

The $9.50 sale with $20.50 change example is similar to that in that the person taking the benefit KNOWS that they are getting a product they didn't pay for. But the similarity breaks down when one considers that they ASKED for the $9.50 sale - you didn't ask for cable to be turned back on. (Although just like you accept the terms of a credit card or other contract by USING the card or service, you are accepting cable being turned on by tuning to their channels.)

It all comes down to if you can live with yourself. Some people can walk into a store and shoplift thousands of dollars worth of stuff and still feel good about themselves. Rationalization works for them. And after all, Walmart charges extra for their products to cover losses to shoplifters - so in reality all the merchandise that leaves the store is paid for ... just some of it is paid for by others.

If it were me, I'd disconnect the cable at the most convenient location and use the service path I had paid for. It may not "cost" my cable company much more to serve me than not to serve me, but I'm not paying - so why watch?

JL

[88fan]

It is not most cable company's policy to remove existing drops, unless they are falling down or you call to request the removal of the drop. Little inside tip, if you really want it removed from your property, just cut it off your house and call the cable co. for having a downed drop on your property and you want it removed. They have to come out and remove it then.

[James Long]

When the previous owners of my house cancelled cable and moved the cable company came out, put up a ladder, disconnected the drop from their distribution line and wire tied the end about a foot away, and put a protective terminator on their access box.

When I had the cable modem installed the installer reversed the process, dropping the protective terminator on the ground, cutting the end off of the drop to my house and putting on a new F connector (the old one was exposed to the elements for over nine months) and screwing the F connector into the distribution box on the cable.

At that point a full bandwidth cable signal was available to my home, of which I only subscribed to high speed internet. Therefore the inside wire ran to the cable modem and no where else. I was considering adding the "lifeline" TV channels but DSL became available for half of the cost of cable internet with (or without) lifeline so I ordered it gone.

But the lazy cable company still has not come by to reverse the process, disconnecting my drop from their distribution network. I'm not asking them to remove the drop (although they might as well, since I'm not going to use it). Just to complete the disconnect as ordered. I'd disconnect it myself, but they'd probably charge me with tampering with their service.

And yes, it did take the company TWO MONTHS to stop sending me bills. Although the internet service died the moment I made the cancel call, it took two months for the billing computer to accept the fact.

But nevertheless I'm doing my part. My inside wire is tucked up in a loop in the basement rafters with no TVs (or modems) connected.

JL

[Mike D-CO5]

Funny, I have Road Runner with Time Warner Cable, and I tried to get the basic cable channels turned off and save a whole 3.00 . When ever they put a block on my cable line to filter out the basic channels and just allow the cable modem access it made my internet connection crap out. After a call to the cable company to come out and fix it, the guy came out and just took the filter off and said "You got free extended basic cable. Don't tell anybody." I have Dish AEP with distants and super stations so I don't watch the crappy cable channels, but I do still have them run to through my house to all my tvs just for my locals . And to thank I paid for the basic channels all these years and now I get them for free.

On a side note I use my Terk 44 antenna for better picture quality for my stand alone Tivo for my local news casts . The combination of cable and Tivo was to much. The picture is already degraded with Tivo and with the crappy grainy picture of the cable it was almost unwatchable. The picture quality with the ota antenna and the Stand alone Tivo is as good as my satellite distants and super stations.