MoCA 2.5 adapters?

[Trekker]

Agree that these are definitely better than 2.0, just that a 2.5Gbe port would have really allowed them to be in a class of their own allowing one to exceed 1Gb ethernet over cable wires.

A 2.5 Gbe port would not be that useful to me for general MoCA 2.5 use since I'm using the bridges for full duplex communication among the MoCA mesh nodes.

My new MoCA 2.5 bridges give me 2 Gbps bandwidth to each Ethernet port (1 Gbps download + 1 Gbps upload). I have some systems accessing my home server over MoCA 2.5 via a switch that also has an 802.11AC 4x4 WAP. That MoCA bridge is transferring well over 1 Gbps in aggregate when moving large files around, etc. At the same time I have other family members streaming over other MoCA 2.5 bridges as well.

The 2.5 Gbps aggregate bandwidth of MoCA 2.5 gets used up quickly compared to the 10 Gbps non-blocking throughput of an 8-port switch like a Unifi US-8-150W 8-port switch.

 

[Samir]

A 2.5 Gbe port would not be that useful to me for general MoCA 2.5 use since I'm using the bridges for full duplex communication among the MoCA mesh nodes.

My new MoCA 2.5 bridges give me 2 Gbps bandwidth to each Ethernet port (1 Gbps download + 1 Gbps upload). I have some systems accessing my home server over MoCA 2.5 via a switch that also has an 802.11AC 4x4 WAP. That MoCA bridge is transferring well over 1 Gbps in aggregate when moving large files around, etc. At the same time I have other family members streaming over other MoCA 2.5 bridges as well.

The 2.5 Gbps aggregate bandwidth of MoCA 2.5 gets used up quickly compared to the 10 Gbps non-blocking throughput of an 8-port switch like a Unifi US-8-150W 8-port switch.

True, for what these are designed for, more increased bandwidth on the backbone, a 2.5Gps port wouldn't be of much use except in single point-to-point transfers. Sounds like it is ideal for what you're using it for, and it doesn't surprise me that the bandwidth gets used quickly as it still is a shared medium.

 

[Dade49]

Agree that these are definitely better than 2.0, just that a 2.5Gbe port would have really allowed them to be in a class of their own allowing one to exceed 1Gb ethernet over cable wires.

Other than a gaming desktop PC, please point me toward a router or other device that has a 2.5 GbE adapter included. While that would be nice, 2.5 GbE is very young and not widely adopted. Please stop crying about it not having a 2.5 GbE adapter. That isn't what this is device is designed for, and very few people care. Email goCoax a product suggestion, and then let it go. I'm tired of hearing it.

 

[flyoffacliff]

Has anyone heard from GoCoax? They never responded to my email and they don't seems to have a phone number.

I think MoCa may be becoming a good option for hotels and such. Older hotels typically don't have Cat5e+ in each room, so the APs often end up in hallways, which is not ideal. And this way, they could basically run 3 to 8 APs off of a single MoCa 2.5 (with 2.5GbE) adapter in the IDF/MDF, staggering them to provide fault tolerance on the MoCa side.

But having the MoCa adapter+PoE injector at each AP is too much. Someone like Ubiquiti should integrate MoCa 2.5 into a wall mount AP with just coax and a hardwired 120v connection.

 

[Samir]

Other than a gaming desktop PC, please point me toward a router or other device that has a 2.5 GbE adapter included. While that would be nice, 2.5 GbE is very young and not widely adopted. Please stop crying about it not having a 2.5 GbE adapter. That isn't what this is device is designed for, and very few people care. Email goCoax a product suggestion, and then let it go. I'm tired of hearing it.

Anyone who's a power user is ready for the next move, which is 2.5/5G. If you're not, then that's fine--you shouldn't even be snb or even reading here.

Gocoax monitors this thread so they've heard the suggestion already and stated their current position. Those of us regulars that are advanced in networking definitely could use the feature so I will be mentioning it whenever and wherever I feel like it.

 

[Samir]

Has anyone heard from GoCoax? They never responded to my email and they don't seems to have a phone number.

I think MoCa may be becoming a good option for hotels and such. Older hotels typically don't have Cat5e+ in each room, so the APs often end up in hallways, which is not ideal. And this way, they could basically run 3 to 8 APs off of a single MoCa 2.5 (with 2.5GbE) adapter in the IDF/MDF, staggering them to provide fault tolerance on the MoCa side.

But having the MoCa adapter+PoE injector at each AP is too much. Someone like Ubiquiti should integrate MoCa 2.5 into a wall mount AP with just coax and a hardwired 120v connection.

They seem to get quite swamped each time they've got stock--they've got a hot product!

Moca is actually excellent as a backbone for hotels as I was in the hospitality industry for decades. It was not as fast as other solutions I was using at the time (VDSL ethernet extenders over phone wire), but today this would be the go to of choice. The only problem is that there may not be spare coax since a lot of the television systems in the hospitality industry have gone fully digital utilizing custom systems at the head end that fully use the coax and would probably not co-exist with moca.

However, that being said, there's always a few 'spare pairs' of coax so there should be enough for making a solid backbone. The problem is that older cabling (rg59) will not meet the spec for moca 2.5, so the results might be less than perfect--but still faster than most everything else out there.

Actually, hallway placement (or chase placement in exterior corridor properties) is quite ideal as long as the signal coverage is done well. I used to cover a building with only 3 APs--one upstairs in the center and usually 2 downstairs one on each end of a building. These were the old Meraki Outdoor OD2 which are slow by today's standards, but are still stellar at seamless roaming and automatically adjusting themselves for optimal performance. Once we installed the OD2, I never had any issues even when an OD2 failed as the others would pick up the slack. This is similar to the current products by Ubiquiti using the cloud management. It is unfortunate that Meraki went in a different direction with their product line as they were doing mesh dead perfect before mesh was even a thing. I actually pulled the whole Meraki setup when we sold the property as they were just going to throw it all away and still use it for quickly setting up a reliable mesh network in any condition (OD2s are waterproof and poe).

All of the current hospitality internet providers for the big brands have to be a 'approved vendor' now (that's just a kickback setup so the franchisors get even more money from the franchisees on top of the 10-20% of gross sales as royalties--and you wonder why rooms cost so much), so moca will probably never see the light in the 'big brand' properties, but will find themselves as a great tool for bringing high performance networking to older properties that are non-branded.

 

[Dade49]

Anyone who's a power user is ready for the next move, which is 2.5/5G. If you're not, then that's fine--you shouldn't even be snb or even reading here.

Gocoax monitors this thread so they've heard the suggestion already and stated their current position. Those of us regulars that are advanced in networking definitely could use the feature so I will be mentioning it whenever and wherever I feel like it.

I think I'll go visit some Android forums and suggest the new Samsung comes with a 2.5 GbE adapter. Or maybe the next smart fridge. Or the next model of Tesla. Yeah. Let's continue to complain that the Tesla Model 3 doesn't have 2.5 GbE. Maybe we should demand 5 GbE instead. We're 'power users' after all, so we've gotta complain why these companies can't be cutting edge and make things the way we want them. Your post count doesn't infer that you're an expert if your posts aren't all that intelligent to begin with. Those of us in the industry are building networks with 40 GbE. MoCA 2.5 has a specific niche market, albeit an important one. Maybe we should discuss how the current goCoax adapters perform, instead of complaining about what they can't do. Go ahead and continue to suggest they do something they weren't made to do. I'm sure it will be effective.

 

[Samir]

I think I'll go visit some Android forums and suggest the new Samsung comes with a 2.5 GbE adapter. Or maybe the next smart fridge. Or the next model of Tesla. Yeah. Let's continue to complain that the Tesla Model 3 doesn't have 2.5 GbE. Maybe we should demand 5 GbE instead. We're 'power users' after all, so we've gotta complain why these companies can't be cutting edge and make things the way we want them. Your post count doesn't infer that you're an expert if your posts aren't all that intelligent to begin with. Those of us in the industry are building networks with 40 GbE. MoCA 2.5 has a specific niche market, albeit an important one. Maybe we should discuss how the current goCoax adapters perform, instead of complaining about what they can't do. Go ahead and continue to suggest they do something they weren't made to do. I'm sure it will be effective.

Yes, please do go and post somewhere else. And take that attitude with you on the way out.

 

[krkaufman]

Your post count doesn't infer ...

Good thing, else his post count would be sentient.

 

[Samir]

Good thing, else his post count would be sentient.

LOL!

 

[flyoffacliff]

They seem to get quite swamped each time they've got stock--they've got a hot product!

Moca is actually excellent as a backbone for hotels as I was in the hospitality industry for decades. It was not as fast as other solutions I was using at the time (VDSL ethernet extenders over phone wire), but today this would be the go to of choice. The only problem is that there may not be spare coax since a lot of the television systems in the hospitality industry have gone fully digital utilizing custom systems at the head end that fully use the coax and would probably not co-exist with moca.

However, that being said, there's always a few 'spare pairs' of coax so there should be enough for making a solid backbone. The problem is that older cabling (rg59) will not meet the spec for moca 2.5, so the results might be less than perfect--but still faster than most everything else out there.

Actually, hallway placement (or chase placement in exterior corridor properties) is quite ideal as long as the signal coverage is done well. I used to cover a building with only 3 APs--one upstairs in the center and usually 2 downstairs one on each end of a building. These were the old Meraki Outdoor OD2 which are slow by today's standards, but are still stellar at seamless roaming and automatically adjusting themselves for optimal performance. Once we installed the OD2, I never had any issues even when an OD2 failed as the others would pick up the slack. This is similar to the current products by Ubiquiti using the cloud management. It is unfortunate that Meraki went in a different direction with their product line as they were doing mesh dead perfect before mesh was even a thing. I actually pulled the whole Meraki setup when we sold the property as they were just going to throw it all away and still use it for quickly setting up a reliable mesh network in any condition (OD2s are waterproof and poe).

All of the current hospitality internet providers for the big brands have to be a 'approved vendor' now (that's just a kickback setup so the franchisors get even more money from the franchisees on top of the 10-20% of gross sales as royalties--and you wonder why rooms cost so much), so moca will probably never see the light in the 'big brand' properties, but will find themselves as a great tool for bringing high performance networking to older properties that are non-branded.

I've never seen those VDSL units in a commercial environment, but I guess it would be a good solution too. Oh wow, that's impressive, but changes like the shift to the 5Ghz band, as well as higher client densities today would make that difficult at best. But I agree 1 AP per room is way overkill. I have found MoCa works very well over legacy RG59 cable due to it's higher power level relative to cable TV systems. I would probably take tri(or quad) shield RG59 over dual shield RG6 for a MoCa system if I had to choose.

I was doing a job not long ago on calibrating an analog head-end at a hotel. Getting all the modulators right was mission impossible. I imagine it's the fancy video on demand systems using those high frequencies that interfere with MoCa. Gotta be a way to blackout some frequencies with these systems in the configuration. Remember the OnCommand systems that were big in the early 2000s and used those weird remotes? Seems to me like less hotels are using these systems due to the rise of consumer electronics like smartphones.

As a field tech working for one of these vendors, I don't have any say-so in this, but once I get into network engineering, maybe things will change.

 

[Samir]

I've never seen those VDSL units in a commercial environment, but I guess it would be a good solution too. Oh wow, that's impressive, but changes like the shift to the 5Ghz band, as well as higher client densities today would make that difficult at best. But I agree 1 AP per room is way overkill. I have found MoCa works very well over legacy RG59 cable due to it's higher power level relative to cable TV systems. I would probably take tri(or quad) shield RG59 over dual shield RG6 for a MoCa system if I had to choose.

I was doing a job not long ago on calibrating an analog head-end at a hotel. Getting all the modulators right was mission impossible. I imagine it's the fancy video on demand systems using those high frequencies that interfere with MoCa. Gotta be a way to blackout some frequencies with these systems in the configuration. Remember the OnCommand systems that were big in the early 2000s and used those weird remotes? Seems to me like less hotels are using these systems due to the rise of consumer electronics like smartphones.

As a field tech working for one of these vendors, I don't have any say-so in this, but once I get into network engineering, maybe things will change.

They worked AMAZINGLY well since the wire they were running over was water logged 30-year old 100 pair category nothing wire--and I still had a solid 11Mbps+. The units were capable of more, but the Meraki's wired mesh backbone topped out at 11Mbps so I couldn't test any higher (the Meraki's were also the gateway/routers).

It was a super-impressive system that was multi-wan and self healing and mesh all at the same time with a cloud based management. Our property had 4 buildings and a T1 coming in, in one building and a cable modem in another. Each Meraki attached to each of those acted as the router/gateway and then the second port was connected to our wired backbone that consisted of fast ethernet switches in each building connected to the Meraki APs in that building, and then those mini-lans all connected via the vdsl boxes. The Merakis used their own protocol and communication over that ethernet lan so nothing else was connected except the Merakis, but they were super smart determining what was their closest gateway, fastest gateway, and wireless link backup--all automatically. And it worked very well. By the time our cable modem needed rebooting because it stopped responding, the Merakis would already have switched to the T1 and the cloud system would have sent an alert to my phone. And on the occasions when the vdsl boxes stopped working between the T1 and cable modem, the buildings kind of paired off, each using the closest internet connection. I even had an AP die at one point and one building was actually able to make a link wirelessly across to another building. I have no idea why Meraki moved away from this system because if it existed today it would absolutely decimate anything that has the word 'mesh' in it.

Oh man, yeah that's a lot of channel modulators and you probably had a huge rack of direct tv receivers too? My uncle's property had 3 racks of that stuff because he couldn't get cable from across the street. Personally, I think Internet at hotels is the new 'direct dial phones' and 'color television' from back in the day and I think a good solid Internet would maybe even eliminate the need for television service versus just a monitor for guests to hook up to. Marriott about a decade back foresaw some of this and had a 'port panel' at the desk that connected to the tv so you didn't have to get to the back of the tv, but it was too ahead for its time. Maybe in about 2 years the same thing might fly this time. And you're absolutely right--using all the coax in the walls to make a solid gigabit network and then just have a roku in each room that is in guest mode will be the wave of the future at smaller properties. And the companies that will provide these setups will make some big bucks too as eliminating multi-thousand dollar monthly cable bills will make the roi on such a system very, very quick.

 

[gocoax]

those are MOCA 2 bonded rates, not faster.

For MoCA 2.0 bonded, yes, you can see such result. But it only support one direction at same time. For example, you connect two PCs with MoCA, PC A and B. If you run iperf3 Server and Client at two PCs, run the test A to B and B to A at the same time. Each PC works as iperf3 server and client at the same time.
You will see the significant difference between MoCA2.0 bounded and MoCA 2.5.
If the performance of PC is good enough, you can get about 1Gbps + 1Gbps. But for MoCA2.0 bounded, you only can get about 1Gbps with the two directions together.
Please try and share the result.

 

[gocoax]

I've been planning a MoCA network for some months and researching, but I've only had WiFi and powerline adapters before today.

Concerning the iperf3 results, I am just happy to see my first MoCA network blowing away my previous powerline adapters and hitting the NIC's 1Gbps limit.

I don't currently have enough systems set up to test the MoCA network's ability to exceed the 1Gbps limit on the ethernet ports, but @gocoax posted a link further back in the thread with data and videos on a setup testing multiple simultaneous maxed 1Gbps streams that demonstrate these adapters are capable of the 2.5Gbps they advertise:
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...moca-network-setup-5675388.html#post120932968

Concerning the PHY rates--the rates I've seen advertised on MoCA 2.0 bonded threads are far, far less than 3500+ Mbps. Those demonstrate MoCA 2.5 speeds, do they not?

First, MoCA 2.5 uses 5x 100MHz channels,
Next, let me try to explain the difference between PHY rate and real traffic rate. You can treat MoCA as Wi-Fi, both of them use OFDM. They share the same media, air or COAX. They use TDMA. They have too much overhead and waiting time when do transferring. For example, 2x2 802.11ac 80MHz bandwidth, the PHY rate is 867Mbps, but when you test the real traffic, the highest value is about 630Mbps, about 70% of PHY rate. For MoCA 2.5, if you use 70%, multiply by PHY rate, you will get the real traffic rate, about 2.5Gbps. That is the source of MoCA2.5 speed.

 

[gocoax]

Has anyone heard from GoCoax? They never responded to my email and they don't seems to have a phone number.

I think MoCa may be becoming a good option for hotels and such. Older hotels typically don't have Cat5e+ in each room, so the APs often end up in hallways, which is not ideal. And this way, they could basically run 3 to 8 APs off of a single MoCa 2.5 (with 2.5GbE) adapter in the IDF/MDF, staggering them to provide fault tolerance on the MoCa side.

But having the MoCa adapter+PoE injector at each AP is too much. Someone like Ubiquiti should integrate MoCa 2.5 into a wall mount AP with just coax and a hardwired 120v connection.

Hello, We are here.
Which email address did you use? Please send email to sales@gocoax.com, We are happy to answer your question.
Also you can send message to me via SNBfroum.

 

[gocoax]

Anyone who's a power user is ready for the next move, which is 2.5/5G. If you're not, then that's fine--you shouldn't even be snb or even reading here.

Gocoax monitors this thread so they've heard the suggestion already and stated their current position. Those of us regulars that are advanced in networking definitely could use the feature so I will be mentioning it whenever and wherever I feel like it.

I agree 2.5GbE ethernet port is much better.
Let us do a detailed discussion. I will explain why we don't select 2.5GbE ethernet port.
First, MoCA 2.5 can provided 2.5Gbps real traffic bandwidth over the media. for MoCA, the maximum devices are 16, all the devices share the 2.5Gbps. For example, if you have two adapters connected to PC A and B. A and B do transmission at the same time, you use 1Gbps(A to B) and 1Gbps(B to A). Total 2Gbps bandwidth is used, very near to the 2.5Gbps. If you have 3 adapters, definitely, you can use all the 2.5Gbps bandwidth over MoCA. So from a practical point of view, 1GbE ethernet port is enough.
If we upgrade to 2.5GbE port, the cost will increase about $3 each device. We don't want the customer to take the rising cost.
In the future, the MoCA3.0 will support up to 10Gbps, we will upgrade the ethernet port 2.5G/5G/10GbE. That will be much reasonable.
Hope this can give you more clear answer.
Thanks.

 

[krkaufman]

First, MoCA 2.5 uses 5x 100MHz channels, ... the real traffic rate, about 2.5Gbps.

700 Mbps PHY rate nets ~500 Mbps effective throughput.

So it seems that MoCA 2.5 is about the same as MoCA 2.0, except that MoCA 2.5 allows use of 5 channels versus just 1 or 2 channels with MoCA 2.0. But does MoCA 2.5 have the same performance boost (or hit, depending on your perspective) as MoCA 2.0 when it comes to an isolated setup with just 2 MoCA nodes (i.e. “TURBO” mode), as compared to a setup with 3 or more MoCA nodes?

 

[gocoax]

700 Mbps PHY rate nets ~500 Mbps effective throughput.

So it seems that MoCA 2.5 is about the same as MoCA 2.0, except that MoCA 2.5 allows use of 5 channels versus just 1 or 2 channels with MoCA 2.0. But does MoCA 2.5 have the same performance boost (or hit, depending on your perspective) as MoCA 2.0 when it comes to an isolated setup with just 2 MoCA nodes (i.e. “TURBO” mode), as compared to a setup with 3 or more MoCA nodes?

Correct, MoCA 2.5 only increase the channels numbers than MoCA 2.0.
There is a mode in MoCA 2.0 called Turbo mode, which exists when there are only two MoCA devices present. When this is recognized, some of the overhead transactions are removed thereby giving a 12% increase in PHY rate.
But for MoCA 2.5, there is no such mode.

 

[Trip]

@gocoax - Are you aware of the possibility of integrating long-reach power over coax (PoC) with MoCa 2.5, in much the same way Planet has done with 100Mb EoC?
https://www.planet.com.tw/en/produc...oe-solution#power-over-coaxial-managed-switch
If so, any plans to create such a product?

I'm considering re-purposing up to 10 runs of coax for a residential client, and it would be great if I could home-run all the links into a coaxial switch with PoC to power the remote adapters. This would allow for full bandwidth on each individual link with half the amount of adapters and a centralized point of management.

As things currently stand, if I wanted full bandwidth on each of the 10 links, that would require 20 total adapters, plus discrete 12V power at each end.

 

[gocoax]

@gocoax - Are you aware of the possibility of integrating long-reach power over coax (PoC) with MoCa 2.5, in much the same way Planet has done with 100Mb EoC?
https://www.planet.com.tw/en/produc...oe-solution#power-over-coaxial-managed-switch
If so, any plans to create such a product?

I'm considering re-purposing up to 10 runs of coax for a residential client, and it would be great if I could home-run all the links into a coaxial switch with PoC to power the remote adapters. This would allow for full bandwidth on each individual link with half the amount of adapters and a centralized point of management.

As things currently stand, if I wanted full bandwidth on each of the 10 links, that would require 20 total adapters, plus discrete 12V power at each end.

Hello Trip, Thanks for your input.
In fact, we have studied this for a while. found it is impossible for MoCA. their products are for Point to Point scenario. There is no splitter in the coaxial network. Splitter will block the power transmission. So we have to use dedicated power adapter for each MoCA adapter.
For your case, I think maybe MoCA access is an option, or you just use the planet solution.
You can check MoCA access via the following link.
http://www.mocalliance.org/access/index.htm