Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Problem with Spectrum Cable knocking out or damaging your home network

A number of household in our region are experiencing one or more of the following, especially when it is raining or going to rain in the area:

  • The entire house network goes down.
  • Network components are damaged:  routers, TVs, receivers (requiring total replacement or servicing)  The damage seems almost random, with some devices on the network, such as the cable modem, unaffected.  With routers, maybe only one port is damaged, along with the ports of devices attached to that port via ethernet.
  • Surge protectors "flip," but the surge is not detected as "incoming" from the power outlets.
  • TV reception is erratic.
  • Phone performance is erratic.
Here is what is happening:  The cable to your house is serving power to your house network components (via cable and then out through the ethernet cables) that is at the very high end of what is acceptable.  When it is going to rain or is raining in the area, the temperature naturally drops by, say, 8 degrees F.  This affects the cable power into your house, raising the effective power over what your house components can handle. The result is the list above.

Solution:  If you have the above symptoms, Spectrum service needs to be called.  The service person needs to measure the cable power.  If it is too high at your house, ie at the high end of normal then s/he will have to insert a device at the connector to your house that will lower the power further down into the safe range.

Note that, as of today, Spectrum is aware of the problem and they may change the power at a central level.  I'm not sure that will work because everyone has a different distance to the house and different cables to the house.  Lowering the power at a central point might impact those with long distances or small cable sizes.  Also, those who have had the power lowered at their house may find the signal power lowered too much.  We'll see.

Please communicate this to your friends and neighbors.    

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