Digging 400' Trench for cable

[bdhsfz6]

Had a similar experience with our local cable company. Their requirements were much the same as the ones you describe. To avoid the hassle and expense, I elected to install satellite TV & internet instead. It works great, we get more channels for less money without doing any digging.

This option isn't available everywhere though depending on whether or not you have a clear view of the sky. Might be something to consider though.

 

[Tinhack]

There used to be a rodent-proof cable used for phones. That's what was installed way back when they ran my 400ft. line about 25 years ago. They did it with a vibratory cable installer. The cable has some sort of bitter jell just under the outer jacket. It's supposed to be to rodents like the worst bitter alum is to us. Just a small taste deters gophers and such. Ask if their direct bury cable has that. Otherwise, 2" conduit is needed so they can't get their mouth over it to bite it.

 

[Tinhack]

I elected to install satellite TV & internet instead. It works great, we get more channels for less money without doing any digging.

Works great until you have rain clouds in the way. I have DirecTV and it goes into satellite search mode during rainstorms. As few as we have, it's still an aggravation.

 

[LD1]

Works great until you have rain clouds in the way. I have DirecTV and it goes into satellite search mode during rainstorms. As few as we have, it's still an aggravation.

I have direct TV and we get some pretty good storms in the midwest here.

I have issues with satellite reception maybe twice a year only on the worst of storms.

 

[bdhsfz6]

Works great until you have rain clouds in the way. I have DirecTV and it goes into satellite search mode during rainstorms. As few as we have, it's still an aggravation.

I suppose this depends on where you live. Here in Northeast PA, we have many cloudy/rainy/snowy days and the Dish TV reception is rarely affected. It looses reception perhaps 2 or 3 times per year and never lasts more than a few minutes. Yes, it can be annoying at times but around here, it's the best choice. My next door neighbor has cable and it goes out far more often, sometimes for days.

Again, this depends on your location and the quality of the companies providing the service. YMMV.

 

[circlelake]

Today its cable and tomorrow it will be fibre. Plan on upgrading to fibre and install conduit.

 

[JJT]

All my neighbors have switched to fiber, with free installs. They use a vibratory plow, it goes 6-12" deep, direct burial, 100'+ in an hour. I'm the lone holdout, I'm still on dsl. I'll probably make the switch in the spring. I wish we had a choice of providers, the local teleco has a monopoly. The nearest cable is 10 miles away.

 

[deezler]

First of all, F%^& Comcast. Evil, corrupt, incompetent monopoly of a company who routinely violates their promises and raises rates on customers without justification. Our internet service with them is lightning fast (~600mBpS) but they just jacked the monthly bill from $117 to $147 and say there is nothing we can do about it. Infuriating. We never really wanted cable TV service or a phone line from them, but it all comes on the same coaxial cable together and they play games with the pricing to make you combine services. It's all the same data to them, and a coaxial cable is pretty future-proof as far as data bandwidth and available services go.

ANYWAY, I had the same exact scenario as you when we built our house some 800 feet off the road. Comcast initially quoted us FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS to bring service to our house. Our only other option is AT&T phone line, IE DSL at 6mB, which also would have had some infrastructure expenses to bring in. After two months of arguing with managers in our local comcast office, they finally said the same: "if you get us a 2-ft deep trench, we'll lay the cable and install service for your for free". I was not ever considering fussing with conduit for 800 feet - the direct burial cable they supply (Around 0.5" diameter, hard to bend) works great and has no issues. My neighbor has a garden that my trench ran through for 100 feet and he did plow the cable up once! He was terrified because he though it was our electrical service, but no, just the comcast coax. The fixed it the next day for free, all good since. Bob added a foot of soil to this area and vowed not to plow there any more.

So I rented an excavator (bobcat E35) with a one foot trenching bucket and started digging. It was a little sketchy since I had to dig directly adjacent to our primary underground electrical service, but thankfully that trench was 6+ feet deep. I had to go ~700 feet from my neighbors backyard pole, behind his pole barn, through his garden, down a steep 35 foot hill, around some big trees, and to behind my house where they put the pedestal. From the pedestal to the house they just pushed a small coax line into the dirt, I've had to repair that part also after my front loader snagged it (why do I keep digging and landscaping this area? my wife would sure like to know).

In conclusion, F%$k comcast, may they rot in hell, and good luck to you.

 

[LD1]

All my neighbors have switched to fiber, with free installs. They use a vibratory plow, it goes 6-12" deep, direct burial, 100'+ in an hour. I'm the lone holdout, I'm still on dsl. I'll probably make the switch in the spring. I wish we had a choice of providers, the local teleco has a monopoly. The nearest cable is 10 miles away.

Fiber just came to our area last year and is pretty expensive in my area. ~$140/mo. But alot of the neighbors have switched.

I was still just at $45/mo for dsl. They claimed fastest I could get was 6mbps over the old copper. Which is fine, we dont stream...just brows the web, emails, ocassoin youtube video and never had any problems.

Last few weeks have been REAL slow. To the point where webpages wont even load without timing out.

Logged into router...only connected at 1mbps. Tried rebooting several times and couldnt ever get any faster. I kept holding out on DSL because I though the more people that switched and got off it, it would get better. But it just kept getting worse.

So I finally switched to T-mobile. We have good 5G in our area.

On fiber, my neighbors get 200mbps down and 100mbps up. 5G varies but the slowest Ive seen it in my first week now is 80 down and 30up. And just did a test now and got 167 down and 60up.

So @$50/month.....I really dont see my self doing fiber for the time being, especially at almost triple the price.

 

[RichNJKubota]

Wow! Lots of excellent info!

We currently have DSL and it's been fine for years but now both my wife and son are working from home and that DSL wire is smoking So we need something faster. I called the local telco about faster DSL and we are at the max right now. But they did tell me that they are running fiber and they will get to out area but won't give me a timeline.

We just got Starlink and have the dishy installed on the roof. Works great but it has a downside. The IP address they give you is private - not public. And this is where I have a problem. We have several servers running here for our personal cloud (files, pics, address, etc). These servers need a public IP address so when we are not at home we have access to our data. I found a way around the private IP address by putting an old laptop at a relatives house(fast cable internet) and then use a reverse tunnel to access our servers from the relatives public IP address. For those that want to dive into this here's an example:

LTE and Starlink ISP - How to access to your LAN from outside

LTE and Starlink ISP - How to access to your LAN from outside. Lars Kienle©

di-marco.net

I started the process of getting cable here a couple years ago because I could see the writing on the wall. And the writing was correct. We need a faster internet connection.
For the time being we'll be using starlink. Then moving to cable internet and moving to fiber when it arrives. Hence the use of the conduit. I could just skip the cable and wait for fiber but I still need to dig a trench for the fiber. So might as well just do it now.

I'm OK with the trench being 2' deep since that will keep the wire/conduit out of the way of any normal farming activity. I don't think I'll run into any underground tile drains as we bought the property from a relative of the farmer that owned the place all his life and we went over the history of the land and any drains in this area.

I'm in total agreement with those that have issues with comcast. I could write a book about all the 'discussions' with comcast. I still don't know if they will do what they have agreed to do - but I will give it a try and perhaps it will happen. But in the end I'll have one and maybe 2 conduits run from the house to the pole at the street and hopefully this will suffice for any future wire/fiber runs.

Cell signal here is weak and I've thought about getting internet via cell phone. The antenna would have to be on the peak of the roof to get a good signal. This is perhaps an option if I find the right equipment. But the cell internet also gives you a private IP address....