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RG 59 Causing Comcast Outage over Numerous City Blocks?

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dijohnson

Technical User
Jun 23, 2007
4
US
A customer of the company I work for had a Comcast installer claim that an RG59 cable caused outages over entire city blocks. This sounds completely crazy to me but has anyone ever heard of such a thing? He claims the cable caused a city wide broadcast storm...

 
The cable probably won't cause a problem, however a poor termination certainly can. It can allow foreign signals into the cable system (ingress) that can cause significant issues, especially with cable modem traffic.
 
I doubt it.
RG59 in only used from the tap to the house. I do not know the spec on the cable that goes from tap to tap in the yards, but that cable is larger than your thumb in diameter. If a single rg59 cable shorted or was poorly installed the worst it would do is effect the other users on that tap. Usually about 4-6 houses per tap here in Houston.
I was a contract installer for Comcast most of last year, and I never had an issue with an install that was caused by another line to another house, it seemed pretty much bullet proof.

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)
 
I can believe it if it was thinnet coax. The actual specs are for 59AU and one segment with the wrong cable can cause signals to get screwed up.

I added one computer at the end of my thinnet network (several years ago) using 5 feet of AU and other machines on the network disappeared. Turned out I had some 59U in place, sold by Office Depot for thinnet, but not shielded the same, and I didn't notice it while the network was working.

Any computer on a thinnet network with the wrong cable would be capable of creating a broadcast storm that could feed back into a broadband network.

The problems are the result of signal reflections from impedence mismatch. Just moving the cables can sometimes cause nodes to disappear. I've fought a couple of those.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
Sometimes a tech will try to "scare" you into leaving installs alone. Especialy Cable installers are quite possesive of their work and frown upon people installing their own cable. I can see a bad install causing some issues with signal quality, but shutting down a whole block not likely (although not impossible).
 
Servamatic,
You are right, thinnet was 58. I can imagine that impedence mismatches on 59 would do the same thing. All it would take is a kink somewhere in the length.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
Ooops, I misspoke.

Comcast uses RG6 to supply the home from the tap to the house. From there I have seen customers use anything and everything to hook up their tvs. RG6, 59, 58, speaker wire, etc. RG59 will work for basic cable but not for internet and HD services. And again, not effect your neighbors.

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)
 
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