Charlie the Phone Guy

I was referred to Charlie by my electrician, who said Charlie could help de-​uglify a forest of wires on the outside of my house. Did he ever! My original thinking was that Charlie would advise me on how much conduit I would need, and where to put it, but he did something even better: he traced all of the wires to their points of service and endings (inputs and outputs) and determined that the vast majority were in fact out of service and disused — which meant it was safe to hack away at them with wire clippers and remove them. In one case, we tore off an old box of cabling that hadn’t been used in years. In another, he told me which company to call to have an old, potentially unsafe wire removed without charge. Thanks Charlie! As of December 2015, he charged a flat rate of $ 120/​hr plus parts for «wire rearrangement.» Charlie only charged me for the time spent working, not assessing, and I felt it was a bargain compared with the aesthetic improvement. Would definitely call him again.

I wanted to see if I could get Ethernet wiring added in my house. WiFi doesn’t travel well around walls and even with good WiFi signal, network drives weren’t as responsive as with direct wired connection.
Charlie said that he does not pull wires behind walls, but since the house had telephone wiring to several rooms he said that he could try to convert them to Ethernet. Scheduling was easy and he arrived on time. We spent the first 2 hours figuring out the existing telephone wiring of the house by tracing the wires. There were about 8 outlets. So this took time to open the outlets connect the tracer and walk back and forth (across rooms, up and down attic, in and out the house to the phone box outside) to identify the next connection. If you already have a wiring diagram for your phone lines, you could avoid this.
Even though telephone requires only 2 wires, fortunately the cable that was used had 6 wires. 100Base-​T Ethernet requires only 4 wires. The phone lines had only 2 of these wires spliced. Charlie spliced all 6 wires at all such places. Now we had cables throughout the house with 3 pairs of wires.
For the next 2 hours he converted the outlets from phone jacks to Ethernet jacks (RJ45) and finished up. Internet speed test at the extreme end of the house showed over 80Mbps on 15 year old phone lines! Intranet speeds are likely a bit higher, but I didn’t do an intranet speed test.
WiFi:
round-​trip min/​avg/​max/​stddev = 2.152÷2.867÷3.204÷0.404 ms
Ethernet:
round-​trip min/​avg/​max/​stddev = 0.864÷1.057÷1.358÷0.130 ms
He charged $ 120 /​hour and a little extra for parts. For just under $ 500, now I have Ethernet throughout the house! I connected another WiFi router at the other end of the house, disabled DHCP, configured the same SSID and password. Now my smartphones and notebook computers smoothly switch between the two WiFi access points depending on which signal is better.
Excellent service with excellent outcome.

If you want a capable, intelligent and affable gent to fix your phone problem, then Charlie is your guy. I would not hesitate to hire him again or refer him to friends.

Charlie is very sweet and fixed the ethernet at our business very quickly. He also explained what he was doing which was very helpful. We would definitely call him again!

This guy knows his stuff. I called to see if he was able to set up four lines in our new office and right off the bat he was able to explain what needed to be done. He knew the equipment well (Nortel phone system) and taught me a few new tricks despite me having used this system for 10+ years.
He showed up on time, got us live faster than I could have hoped for, and the fee was more than fair. I highly recommend Charlie if you need help.

I found Charlie through Unilocal.We had truly ancient phone equipment. He helped me buy what I need online, and when it came, he installed it quickly and efficiently. He was a great teacher about how to get the most out of it. And, he charged very reasonably. My husband and I could not recommend him more highly. didib Pacific Heights. thank you, Charlie.

I found Charlie, like most people, through Unilocal.
I emailed him about the problem with my phone (landline) and internet. He set up an appointment to come out to take a look.
Charlie is a very nice, knowledgeable guy. He is easy to talk to and not in a hurry. Lucy really liked him! During his visit we had to make a call to COMCAST/​XFINITY to supposedly ‘clear’ the system, as Charlie couldn’t really find anything wrong.
As it appears, I’m going to have to follow up with COMCAST as the issue is not resolved. Not Charlie’s fault. Unfortunately now I have to deal with COMCAST.
I rate Charlie 5 out of 5, for sure!!!

We live in an old house and due to the construction of the house it is filled with dead/​weak wifi spots from the router on the main floor.
Charlie was able to use old cables in the wall to get a direct ethernet link to our office on the second floor which boosted our signal from 10mbps through weak wifi link to 180mbps. Game changer.
He was able to squeeze us in same day and I’m thrilled to be able to use the full internet speed of my package. Would highly recommend Charlie to anyone with telco/​internet needs.

My House was built in 1908 and the phone wiring is the original. So when I had some work done in the basement and the lovely contractors severed the phone lines and sheet rocked what was left… I felt like I was SOL.
Att was no good as they did not want to take any liability (so much for mega corps). That is when I found Charlie the Phone Guy via Unilocal… and ta da Unilocal did me right. Charlie is really a great and pleasant guy that knows a vast amount about Telecom stuff. It took him two hours and me just going screw it rip out the dry wall, but we got it all resolved.
If you need telecom stuff Charlie is your Phone Guy!!!

Charlie is super nice and punctual.
Then Charlie impresses me even more with his knowledge and experience. He asked so many important questions that didn’t even come to my mind. I know I’m no expert in the phone and wiring arena but I do have years of IT experience. Charlie is just that much more experienced to think of potential issues and he suggested possible remedies.
Charlie explains things in a way I understand easily. When he does say something I don’t understand and I stop him to ask, what is that, he explains it. No fuss. He’s patient and non-​judgmental.
5 stars without any hesitations.

As with others, I found Charlie via Unilocal.AT&T had made a mess of the phone wires inside my condo. They also missed appointment after appointment. Frustrated I found Charlie. Not only was he able to assist later the same day, he solved the wiring problem in no time flat. He also advised regarding home networking. He did a fantastic job and I highly recommend his services to anyone who needs a phone \ wiring problem solved.

Found Charlie on Unilocal and called him for a cat-​6 run to a theater room in my house that is a complete dead zone (due to steel and concrete construction).
He came a few days later, arrived early and ready to get the job done. Needless to say, this was quite the job as it involved a pretty long run of cable through a couple of levels of roof outside– not for the faint of heart!
He did a clean job on the holes he had to drill and navigated the cable into a cabinet requiring some quite patience on both our ends. He made sure I was plugged in and working and even managed to play with my puppy a bit in between. A fellow dog lover is always welcome in my house!
Highly recommended for any phone/​cable/​ethernet runs you might need! It doesn’t get any better than Charlie!

Based on Unilocal I contacted Charlie today to see if he could do a phone system installation, I left him a phone and email message. He was kind enough to return my call promptly, despite not being able to do this job, and give me a good recommendation for a company that could. I contacted his suggestion and they were indeed capable and competent as Charlie had indicated.
When you give great customer service to a non-​customer, that’s 5 stars.

Charlie installed a brand new phone jack in our apartment which had nothing. The phone closet was full of a tangled giant nest of phone wires and equipment from decades ago, but charlie had excellent knowledge of everything and installed it smoothly and quickly. He came out to finish the installation when AT&T didn’t come, which was very classy.
Prompt
Professional
Affordable
Knowledgable
What more could you ask? I would not hesitate to recommend him to anyone needing anything phone related.

I really trust charlie and have used him in the past. He’s a great guy and does great work.

We contacted Charlie to run some Cat6 and co-​axial cable through a few rooms in our home in North Oakland back in November. We had an appointment with Comcast coming up and I’ve seen how they drill through walls and floors with little concern. I wanted to get a professional wiring job setup for our living room and home office and found Charlie through his stellar Unilocal reviews.
I called him and he scheduled me for an appointment within a few days (he’s a pretty popular dude). Anyway, he showed up, was extremely friendly and made quick work of our wiring issues. He took great care listening to my concerns about how I wanted this to be a nice looking job and he delivered perfectly.
I’d highly recommend him for anyone looking to wire their homes with data (Cat 5e, Cat 6, Cat 6e, cable, etc).

Probably one of the classiest contractors that I’ve ever met!
He gave me the best deal and even refunded me for items that I did not need.
Wish I could have given him more stars!

You will not regret calling on Charlie to resolve your issues.
Charlie will not only repair problems within his scope of capabilities, but
he can sometimes attempt and resolve issues beyond his
duty. Communication is on point with Charlie throughout your ordeal.
Charlie is a keeper!!!

Great guy.
Charlie just came out to my place. The electrician that wired the condo never finished the ethernet terminals in the smart box. There was ethernet terminals all around the condo, but he was lazy and never finished them in the box. Oh well!
I called Charlie in the morning and he arrived (PROMPTLY) three hours later. 45 minutes later… all my ethernet terminals work and I have a central hub for my router and modem.
Nice guy and loves dogs too.

Absolutely great. It’s no mistake that Charlie has so many positive reviews. He is fantastic! Very responsive, pleasant, and prompt.
Soon upon discovering our nightmarish phone line (or lack there-​of) situation, I went online searching for anyone who could help end our Comcast-​bound torment. We were willing to explore whatever possible to keep from paying that company anything. I still have no idea what key words I typed into Unilocal but the search lead me to Charlie the Phone Guy.
He first came over to assess our situation and did an incredibly thorough job looking at everything to give us the best and clearest options on how to proceed. We had a couple hurdles to cross before we could get any work done, but Charlie was incredibly understanding, left us his card with some info, and plenty of food for thought.
About a month later, our hurdles were crossed, our thinking was over, and we happily called Charlie back, set up a time to get started. He came, got our phone line situation resolved exactly as he said he would and it was done! Everything turned out looking wonderful and if we had additional phone line issues, we’d be happy to call him again.