Cable & Wiring...

Met with the cable & wiring folks at Structured Cable on Friday (9/14) & the meeting went much better than I expected.  I expected to be bombarded with High-Tech features and over the top prices but the prices were reasonable (in my opinion).  I took a good friend with some knowledge of the industry to the meeting & he would probably beg to differ. Most of the things I wanted to add he'd shake his head at and insist that I would come out a lot cheaper doing it myself.  Luckily, I have a week to finalize my options but so far I think I made good choices. 

I've included the prices in case anyone in the local market is curious as to how much these options run. 

The Standard Package includes 4 single port jacks of your choice in any location.  I chose the following:
 
3 cable jacks (Master, Bedroom 2 & Bedroom 3)
1 phone jack for the 1st floor office

Extras:

• (3) Additional Cable Jacks for the Family Room, Basement & 4th Bedroom ($149 each)
• Basic Security System with 60 Month Monitoring Contract ($299 installed and $26.50 per month for 60 months)
• The Security System includes 1, Master Control Panel, 1 Interior Siren, 1 Standard LCD Keypad, 1 Motion Detector, 1 Smoke Detector with Monitoring. 3 Door Contacts & 24 Hour Monitoring via a land line. 
• If you don't plan on having a land line there is a $175 fee for adding the GSM (radio)monitoring and the monthly fee increases to $38.50.  This is a cool feature however because you have the ability to add the Total Connect Service which allows you to control & monitor the system remotely from your smart phone or computer. 
• Prewire for 5.1 Home Theatre Speaker System ($595)
• Media Closet  in Basement ($895)
• This includes a 50 foot HDMI Cable, Infrared Sensor Kit w/ 3 Flashers, 1 Multi-Media Jack & a 4 Shelf Audio/Video Rack.  I like this feature because it allows us to mount the television and have all of the "tv equipment" out of sight.  
• (2) HDMI Wiring behind the TV to below for the Living Room and Master ($165 each)
• (3) Power surges behind the TV's in the Master, Family Room & Basement ($75 each)

Other fancy features that they offered where a central vacuum system for around 3k, intercom system throughout the house (didn't inquire about pricing), music throughout the house around $2,300, upgraded options for mounting televisions and tricking out your security system. 

They will even mount Televisions that you own ($465 if you don't have the mounts) and you can purchase TV's and Theatre Systems from them directly. 

Another "decisions" appointment down, One more to go (flooring).