Costs for custom cable TV runs?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Anyone have any experience with having the cable company connect their place with a custom line? I’m thinking of a backbone within a mile of a residence, and I have a friend who might buy a house if he can get the cable company to connect (fiber). He needs hi-speed Internet services for a home business; satellite won’t work well due to latency concerns, and DSL or wireless is not available. Besides, cable offers TV and phone along with Internet.

Charter Communications has a history of quoting outrageous charges for special wiring. My WAG is they just don’t want to connect outside of the prime, more populated areas and they deliberately quote punitive figures. But I’m not sure what a reasonable one would be, and I’d like to approach them with the knowledge. Sometimes companies like this can be persuaded (I have a little experience with this, so it isn’t impossible to twist their arms a bit).

Let’s assume they can string fiber on standard power line poles, so they don’t have to trench. What would be a reasonable charge per mile to recoup their cost? They will be getting a monthly fee for the use of the service, so it would be reasonable for them to require a minimum contract time.

2

My shop is in an old factory that is being subdivided. I had to get cable run from one part of the building to another. Time Warner quoted me an outrageous price for the new line, but they waived the installation cost once I agreed to a multi-year (I think it was two) contract.

As I recall, the quote was $1800 for about half a mile of cable. Indoors. Seemed like a lot to me.

3

Sure does, but I’ll bet much of that was labor.

That makes the quotes I’ve heard from Charter thru the rumor mill look expensive – $4000 for a quarter mile. But I’m not sure I trust the rumors. And there’s no way you can call up Charter and say, “Hey, give me a ballpark figure.” They want specific specs before they’ll even talk to you, and months before they get around to preparing an actual estimate.

4

Trenching would be a one-time expense; with this they will have to pay rent to the power company that owns the poles, every year forever. Not necessarily any cheaper.