Can Verizon CR1000B work with other brand MoCA adapters?

[StR]

I am considering connecting the two floors of my home via the existing coaxial cable using MoCA.
For that, I am considering using Verizon's CR1000B router that was given to me for free with the Verizon Fios installation as a MoCA adapter, so that I can buy just one other MoCA adapter.
I was wondering if people have tried any other brand adapters with CR1000B (or any other VZ routers, including CR1000A), and whether they play alone fine?

What brand(s) adapters would you expect to work with CR1000B?

Yet another option is to use CR1000B on the other floor as a MoCA-connected AP. Would it work as such?

 

[tgl]

MoCA is standardized, so theoretically you can mix brands, except for one thing: there are two different signalling frequencies in the spec, and a lot of gear (including Verizon's IIRC) is hard-wired to use only one of those frequencies. So in reality it's at best a 50/50 shot whether two different makes of MoCA adapters will interoperate. If you want to go that route, you'd be well advised to get your other MoCA adapter from Verizon.

Also, while there's not a lot of info in Verizon's manual about that MoCA port, I suspect that it's the older MoCA 2.0 standard which is limited to 1Gbps or so. If I were you I'd spring for MoCA 2.5 adapters (2.5Gbps), which were going for about $150 a pair last I checked. (Even if your LAN is otherwise just 1Gbps, I'd recommend this because the extra speed helps make up for MoCA being only half-duplex.) I've had decent results with both the ScreenBeam ECB7250 units and the ASUS MA-25 units, with a slight edge to the former because they boot up faster.

I wouldn't bet on being able to get any use out of the CR1000B as an AP. I have the CR1000A which is allegedly functionally identical, and I gave up on it after awhile because its configurability is so minimal. It seems like nice kit hardware-wise, but the firmware is mighty dumbed-down.

 

[krkaufman]

there are two different signalling frequencies in the spec, and a lot of gear (including Verizon's IIRC) is hard-wired to use only one of those frequencies. So in reality it's at best a 50/50 shot whether two different makes of MoCA adapters will interoperate.

What?!?! Can you be more specific?

Pretty much all retail MoCA 2.5 adapters interoperate, including the MoCA 2.5 adapters offered direct from Frontier (and available via eBay at $30 per); and so all are compatible with the built-in MoCA 2.5 LAN bridges available in the Verizon CR1000A/B units.

• MoCA adapters, grouped by throughput

As for using the CR1000A/B units as APs, they can likely be dumbed-down to effectively just APs w/ MoCA bridges as has been possible with older Verizon routers, but there’s also the CE1000A, an extender(AP) with built-in MoCA bridge.

 

[krkaufman]

Yet another option is to use CR1000B on the other floor as a MoCA-connected AP. Would it work as such?

If you already have a primary router with a built-in wireless access point, yes, it would seem to make more sense to install a standalone MoCA 2.5 adapter at your primary router as, effectively, the MoCA access point to which the CR1000B-as-AP could link via MoCA.

Exactly what adapter to buy may also depend on your subscribed throughput and whether you have 2.5 GbE gear.

 

[tgl]

What?!?! Can you be more specific?

Well, I may have misinterpreted what I read in the user manual for the ASUS MA-25 units, but those things have a mode switch that changes the frequency range. Re-reading it now, it looks like the mode is just a small adjustment to avoid overlapping DOCSIS signals, not a completely separate band as I thought I'd remembered. But wikipedia's page about MoCA shows multiple frequency bands, of which the ASUS units claim to use only the D band.

Having said that, I have experimental evidence that not all makes of MoCA adapters interoperate. I've got three pairs of those things in my house at the moment, and I found that one set would communicate with one of the other pairs but not the other. (I've not tried the third combination.) The failing test was between an ASUS unit and an MDSLink unit, and I have to admit it did not occur to me to flip the ASUS's mode switch to see if that'd help.

 

[tgl]

I took another look in my CR1000A's user manual, and this time I found where it says

MoCA LAN: 1125 – 1675 MHz
2500 Mbps

So I have to take back the claim that it's not MoCA 2.5. I'm still suspicious about interoperability, though.

I also remain dubious that you can get it to act as a plain AP without routing features. I see no discussion of such a thing in the manual, nor do I remember ever having seen a setting for that in the web configuration pages. (I don't have the thing connected up at the moment, so I can't do a fresh search.)

 

[krkaufman]

But wikipedia's page about MoCA shows multiple frequency bands, of which the ASUS units claim to use only the D band.

Extended Band D, even, being MoCA 2.5, the default frequency range of pretty much all retail MoCA 2.5 adapters.

But, yeah, the adapters need to be configured for the same operating frequency range to link.

Re-reading it now, it looks like the mode is just a small adjustment to avoid overlapping DOCSIS signals,

Yes, but just DOCSIS 3.1 “initial rollout” frequencies (through 1218 MHz) if in use; or if a DOCSIS 3.1 modem sensitive to MoCA signals is present.

• DOCSIS encroachment on the MoCA [Band D] frequency range

As mentioned in the above, the ability to shift the operating frequency to avoid present D3.1 signals is of minimal benefit absent availability of a “PoE” MoCA filter with a similarly shifted pass-band.

I have experimental evidence that not all makes of MoCA adapters interoperate.

There are definitely incompatibilities, but I can’t recall any between MoCA 2.5 devices. (ex: WCB6200Q bonded MoCA 2.0 device is incompatible with MoCA 2.5 nodes)

I also remain dubious that you can get it to act as a plain AP without routing features.

Great googly moogly…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fios/comments/w8042p/cr1000a_router_as_access_point_mode_only

 

[tgl]

Well, you can certainly turn off its DHCP server, but the recipe described there sounds like you end with double NAT, ie the VZ box is still going to act as a firewall (which means you'd better have an additional DHCP server downstream of it). I suspect this explains the its-not-working complaint at the end of the reddit thread. I've not seen any setting that persuades it to just act as a bridge without routing/firewalling.

 

[krkaufman]

Well, you can certainly turn off its DHCP server, but the recipe described there sounds like you end with double NAT, ie the VZ box is still going to act as a firewall (which means you'd better have an additional DHCP server downstream of it). I suspect this explains the its-not-working complaint at the end of the reddit thread. I've not seen any setting that persuades it to just act as a bridge without routing/firewalling.

You don’t connect any of its WAN ports.

And a Reddit comment saying that they can’t get it to work isn’t evidence that it doesn’t work.