[Rob]

If you ask the installer nicely, he might be willing to just leave you with a very very long lenght of cable, connected at one end to the cable system and the other end to your nice "shiny" new STB. He might well be happy as he doesn't have to spend time running the cable round the house, clipping it, etc. You'd have the cable all premade, and you can then just route it how you want at a later date. In the short term it can be coiled up out of the way, and if when you do route it there is excess length just leave that excess coiled in your loft. Biggest advantage you don't have to worry about putting the correct ends onto the cable, as the installer would have done that bit to leave the STB in working order.