Because electrical, cable, and phone services all come in on overhead wires, they can act as an antenna for lightning. So, it is important to have adequate grounding capacity to dissipate the surge into the earth. If you have had a new service panel installed in the past ten years, you should have two grounding rods installed outside. Older panels may only be grounded by one rod – or have no outside rod at all – so you may want to add additional rods for protection.
Inside the telephone interface box, there is a lightning arrestor on the company access side. To protect your phone lines, connect a 10-gauge or heavier wire from the arrestor to the ground rods for your electrical service panel. (You may have to contact your phone provider to get into that side of the box.)
And, while you’re at it, install a coax grounding connector on the TV cable on the outside of the house and route a wire to the ground rods. The whole idea here is to divert any surges directly to the earth instead of allowing them to come into the house.