Activating an Additional Outlet in a Dorm

[Jonathan Kramer]

Note from Jonathan: This is a message I received via email. It will be of interest to others here.

Lauren: I'll answer your questions inside the body of your message:

Hello,

I am new to the forums, and not sure where is the best place to post my thread, so I figured I would start with an email to you, the administrator

Here is my dilemma: I am a student living in an apartment complex (with a number of rooms "owned" by the school for student housing) that already has cable in the living room ONLY. The cable is currently going through a cable box. There appears to be cable hookups in the bedrooms, but they are not active, when I plugged my tv into them, no channels appeared.

I have tried using a splitter with the cable in the living room to get cable into the bedroom also. (4 girls living together, you can never all watch the same thing!) I got one of two results: #1: I can only watch ONE station ... the station that is being watched out in the living room.

No doubt you were connected to the OUTPUT side of the converter, so that's why you only received the same channel as in the living room.

#2: I get only local channels (ie: normal tv) but NO cable channels at all. (I must state that I am not looking for premium channels, I would like to just get basic cable.)

Now you were connected on the input side of the converter (the correct side), but all of the non-basic channels are scrambled. This is very common, and why you'd be limited to the basic tier of non-scrambled channels.

I am even willing to pay for cable, but Time Warner will not let me create a second account on the apartment, and the apartment complex will not budge on letting us add it to the bedroom, because "they can't grant those kind of exceptions".

Time Warner's contract with the school may prevent them from providing individual services, such as what you've requested. As for the school, since they pay the bill to Time Warner, they can limit the outlets they have activated in any unit.

Thus, I have to resort to other options. Is there any possible way to get cable into one of the bedrooms, and also be able to watch separate channels???

Lauren, the only way to legally do what you're interested in doing is to set up an account with TWC elsewhere, and with their permission, take the converter to your dorm. It's unlikely they'll give permission. From a technical perspective, even if you set up the account elsewhere and take the converter without telling TWC, the system may well detect a converter in the wrong portion of the system, and then deactivate. That won't do you any good.

I should also note that I am not very electronic saavy, so I appreciate simpler terms in explanations!

I wish I had a better answer for you, but when you're in a dorm, it's like being in a hotel room. The owner (here, the school) can limit what you do in and on their property, and Time Warner most likely won't interfere by 'helping you out' in this area.

Thank you so much for your time, and I apologize if this email got sent to the wrong place! I'm just extremely desperate here, and this is like my last hope.

Lauren


Good luck! =Jonathan=

[bnaivar]

If I may chime in on this one.

I am the Video Manager at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Until they lost the bid to provide cable TV service to the dorms we got our cable TV service from Comcast. Our contract with Comcast allowed the students to do just as you have suggested and let them get customized converters. However, it may not be allowed by Time Warner to do the same thing. It all depends on the contract that the cable provider has with the College.