installation questions

Unfortunately, it sounds like your friend got the short end of the stick. The install up to the hook up of the CCK sounds typical. The installer will generally run the line outside the house to a point where they can punch into the house. In this case, it was where the cable company had their cable coming in. I believe he should have resealed the hole though to make it waterproof.

As for the CCK, that should have been hooked up. Even if he could not have gotten it to work via wifi, it could still be hard wired to a router if it was nearby. If the CCK had been connected, your friend could order PPV via the remote as being connected via the Internet is a valid replacement for lack of a landline.

If your friend had an HR34 installed, they can just run an Ethernet cable to the jack on the HR34 then. The HR34 has the ability to act like a CCK.

Your friend can also contact Ellen Filipiak <[email protected]>, VP of Customer Service, and explain his issue with the install. Her office is very proactive in resolving issues.

- Merg

I just rolled over and took a look at his install and I would be pretty pissed off if it was mine.

Mounted dish on roof with 2 lines coming off, ran down corner of sliding glass door frame to under deck. Lopped off one of the lines and left bare wire exposed, ran other line to a 2 way splitter. Ran 1 line off splitter into another splitter and 2nd line into external wall punch to get to old existing WOW drop in one bedroom. This wall punch is the one where WOW had silicone on the existing line, D* tech yanked out the WOW line and just ran his in existing hole without replacing silicone, this is also the line that is under the deck then up between two deck planks and screwed to the planks and up to drop. Mind you there was a WOW line already here, he could have just used that line which is ran very clean and is hidden in the track on the siding under the deck.

2nd line off this first splitter is ran into another splitter which enters garage wall. Inside the garage wall the tech pulled away all the pink fiberglass insulation and left hole in wall exposed both inside and outside garage, this line runs into a downstairs rec room which is also an existing WOW drop, D* tech used another splitter in garage to get to this existing drop.

2nd line off the 2nd splitter ties into existing WOW lines outside the home which runs into the house to main living room where the HR34 is hooked up at.

In all I counted 3 splitters used between inside and outside the home, not to mention the bare exposed 2nd line coming off the dish which is just hanging below the deck. Also the existing WOW lines are cut in multiple places and if the tech pulled any lines out he just threw them on the ground leaving a mess wherever he was working. The line that runs up onto the deck boards is not clean and sticks out so the dogs have attempted to chew on it already and my friend tripped over it when he was coming out on to the deck from the sliding glass door that the line is next to.

He is still awaiting reply from Ellen's team on how to proceed from here. I also got to listen to the voicemail the tech left him about calling him directly to come install the CCK after he calls and orders a new one from D*. Not a very pleasant experience for a first time customer and makes me feel bad for even recommending D* to him.

"The Merg" said:

I believe the policy is that they should have tried the CCK in hardwired mode. I know in the past that the policy was to run a coax to where the router is so that it could easily be connected.

- Merg

Click to expand...

The policy is to always use a wired CCK unless there is not an open port or we have been denied access to the router.

At one point we could leave a CCK not connected. They changed policy so we can't. They then changed it so we could again, and changed the metrics so it was beneficial to the tech to do so. They then changed it so we couldn't leave it again, and changed the metrics to heavily penalize the tech if he left it. We were only ever required to prep the run if we were leaving a CCK.

We are not allowed to touch any router configuration pages. We are required to troubleshoot until it works. With a wired CCK, if it has a green Clink light and is not working we are to swap it with another one, swap the Ethernet cable, and swap the port. If it still isn't working, there isn't anything else we are allowed to do, and thus the CCK gets deleted.

Overall he had a shoddy install, and would seem the tech did not do all he could to get everything working, and installed well. I'm not defending the tech here. I'm just trying to shed some light on the policies.