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I get your issues in general, but don't know how you survive without a wifi router. Every device in my house (phones, game consoles, tvs) all have wifi, whether I stream content or not.
Not a problem for me. Only one tv (by choice) and no mobile devices other than a very compact iPhone SE (which I rarely use for internet and never for email though I do have unlimited data.) Texts and media messages are unlimited also. No gaming consoles (my son is long gone to his own house and tech toys, LOL.) When I am working on the computer the last thing I want is the tv or other distraction on. I like quiet, LOL. Likewise when I am watching tv that's the only thing I want to pay attention to. My phone goes into Do Not Disturb mode from 9 pm until 9 am also. The only calls that are allowed to come through are from two or three people who would not call outside those hours unless it was an emergency.
Last edited by BBCjunkie; 10-07-2019 at 04:38 PM..
The cable modem and the tv are not related at all unless you have Altice boxes. Otherwise, just split the cable outside to tun around your house to the new area. The cable guys run it up by the gutters.
The cable modem and the tv are not related at all unless you have Altice boxes. Otherwise, just split the cable outside to tun around your house to the new area. The cable guys run it up by the gutters.
What you just said sounds interesting, but I can't understand it at all. Can you expand? Tks.
The cable modem and the tv are not related at all unless you have Altice boxes. Otherwise, just split the cable outside to tun around your house to the new area. The cable guys run it up by the gutters.
This is outdated info. Since going digital, nothing will work off a cable alone without a modem and set top box. The modem is what unscrambles the digital signal. Used to have "cable ready" TVs you could plug into, but that's a thing of the past.
Simple explanation: Modem gets you on the internet (which connects you to your carrier). Translates the digital signals from the carrier to your tv boxes (and router, if you use wifi). A ROUTER transmits the wifi signal throughout the home/office (network). These days, you basically need both (or all three), which you can rent from them or buy your own compatible ones.
The Altice One box is a modem, set top box and router combined. It's nice and all but is an average modem and weak router. To actually get speeds advertised, must go back to old boxes (Samsung/Sci Amer), get a modem and a better router (tri or quad band). What they supply free or cheap is always just that. To max out, gotta upgrade hardware one way or the other.
The cable modem and the tv are not related at all unless you have Altice boxes. Otherwise, just split the cable outside to tun around your house to the new area. The cable guys run it up by the gutters.
The modem and TV cables are "related" in the sense that they both originate in a single Optimum COAX cable run from the pole to the house, at which point (either on the exterior of the house or, as in the case of the last house we owned, through the exterior siding and into the garage) it goes into a splitter as you say. From the splitter there are individual COAX cables that go to the individual modem(s) and/or tv box(es.)
The situation you describe (COAX cable run along the roofline across the length of the house) is what we have here. The COAX goes down the opposite end of the house, through the exterior wall, and directly into the back of their cable box. What I was considering was to replace that existing cable box with a second modem so that I would then have broadband (for streaming) going into the tv instead of a cable tv signal, at which point I would no longer be paying them for cable tv, just for internet. But doing that would be more expensive per month. In other words going from tv-plus-internet to internet-plus-streaming-to-tv would cost more.
The only OTHER way to get hardwired broadband into that tv would be to run a 100 ft ethernet cable (an RJ45 cable, not a COAX cable) along the interior house floors from the existing modem in the office room to the back of the tv in the family room. That's not practical. To do it via the replace-cable-box-with-modem method would be $350/year more expensive (and I would lose several channels that I regularly watch now.)
Since going digital, nothing will work off a cable alone without a modem. The modem is what unscrambles the digital signal. Used to have "cable ready" TVs you could plug into, but that's a thing of the past.
Actually I would refine that to say: You can get OTA tv channels from Optimum without a cable box, if you connect their tv coax directly to the television without first going into the box. I did that earlier this year when I wanted to find out whether a broken/pixelated signal problem we were having on all channels was originating in the cable box itself or in the cable leading into it. (Why trek to the Optimum store if I didn't have to? lol) If the problem was the cable box, the picture coming through the COAX would be fine. If the problem was in the COAX or the splitter or Optimum's line from pole to house, the picture would still be broken up. It wasn't, so ergo, problem was indeed the box despite the fact that I'd already done the usual reboot-the-box nonsense. That will fix some issues but not all.
Naturally all the non-OTA channels coming through the COAX to the tv were scrambled without having the cable box connected. But the digital OTA ones were fine: 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 21, MeTv and a few others. Those aren't scrambled even though they are digital. Obviously one has to be paying Optimum for some kind of tv service, even if it's only Broadcast Basic, in order for the signal to be sent by them to the customer's location.
(ETA: Our tv is an LG OLED bought in late 2015)
Last edited by BBCjunkie; 10-08-2019 at 11:14 AM..
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