MoCA network set-up issues

[Joe Mills]

I am hoping that one of you experts can assist me in getting my moca network set-up at home. Sorry for the longer post, but I wanted to give as many details as possible. I have recently moved into a new house that only has coax run to the rooms. The house also has two detached garages that have coax run to them.

I am having issues getting a wifi signal from one end of the house to the other and I want to have internet in both garages. I investigated the powerline adaptors, but I have a whole house surge protector on both meters at the house. From what I have read, the powerline adaptors don’t play well with the surge protectors, so that leaves moca as the best option. After some reading online, they seem easy enough to set up. However, after messing with the adaptors for about two weeks now, I am frustrated and stumped. This is by no means my field of expertise, but I am normally good at reading and figuring these sorts of things out. Not this time.

So……here are the details. I have Comcast/Xfinity with internet, cable and two phone lines. This is the X1 platform. I have a pair of Actiontec ECB6200’s for the moca devices.

I have a PPC-9M-U/U splitter where the cable comes into the house. From what I have read, there is a built-in POE filter and it says moca compatible on the label. There is a power inserter for this splitter located inside the house. I have not determined which coax line coming into the house plugs into what output of the splitter, but that was on my list of things to do. Here are pics of the splitter and power inserter.

One line coming off the splitter comes into our den and goes through a splitter. I originally used the splitter Comcast provided.

From the splitter in the den, one coax line runs to the cable box and the other line runs to my moca device. The coax then runs from the moca device to the Comcast gateway. Below is a pic of the model gateway. I logged into the gateway originally and moca was enabled. I haven’t checked recently.

Everything to this point seems to be working. The internet, both phone lines and TV work perfectly.

I then tried connecting the other moca device to all of the coax connections in the house and garages and it isn’t working at any location. I ran coax from the wall jack to the moca decive “coax in” and then cat5 from the device to a laptop or my Arlo camera base station. So far I have gotten no internet connection. The power and coax lights on both adaptors are lit up.

I have read that the splitter you use can affect the connections, so I swapped out the Comcast splitter for the one that came with the moca devices, but still no luck. Here is the latest splitter I am using.

I have not tried all the coax wall jacks yet with the second splitter, but I figured that if one isn’t working, none of them would. The one location I tried last night was coax coming off the power inserter. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but thought I would mention it. Thank you in advance for any assistance.

I did try one experiment. In the den where the splitter is located, I unplugged the coax from by cable box and plugged it into the second moca device. I was able to connect to the internet through the second moca device. This at least told me that my moca decives are working.

At this point, I am stumped and would love any assistance. This is my first attempt at any network of this type, so I am hoping that I am missing something obvious. Please don't assume I understand something that may be obvious to you guys. Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer.

 

[degrub]

step 1: make a drawing of the cable layout with all devices starting at the customer termination box
this will help you and us.

Any device not labeled explicitly MOCA 2 or having a frequency pass band of up to at least 1675 mhz will not allow MOCA2. It will only allow MOCA 1 or 1.1. They also have to be labeled bidirectional.

Since you could get out, it is likely there is a block, probably internal, in the amp - ie it is not bidirectional between the output ports on the amp.

i believe your ISP has setup drawings for customers wanting to implement MOCA across their equipment. It takes some digging to find it and i do not have a link as it has been a few years.

Also, their MOCA level may be 1.1 unless it explicitly says 2.

 

[Joe Mills]

I'll have to work on a drawing of the layout of the house. At the moment it is pretty simple with a single cable box and TV in the house.

Just curious, I understand that the speed of the network is limited by it's slowest part. Will a 2.0 device work with components that are 1.1? Or will it just be limited to 1.1 speeds. Speed isn't really a concern of mine at the moment since I really only need the internet connectivity in the detached garages for smart switches and security cameras.

step 1: make a drawing of the cable layout with all devices starting at the customer termination box
this will help you and us.

Any device not labeled explicitly MOCA 2 or having a frequency pass band of up to at least 1675 mhz will not allow MOCA2. It will only allow MOCA 1 or 1.1. They also have to be labeled bidirectional.

Since you could get out, it is likely there is a block, probably internal, in the amp - ie it is not bidirectional between the output ports on the amp.

i believe your ISP has setup drawings for customers wanting to implement MOCA across their equipment. It takes some digging to find it and i do not have a link as it has been a few years.

Also, their MOCA level may be 1.1 unless it explicitly says 2.

 

[Joe Mills]

I did just read on the PPC entry splitter tech page that it is MoCA 2.0 compatible.

 

[tannebil]

I’m not an expert although I have MoCA 2.0 bonded running with Xfinity at a couple of houses so I do have examples to work from. That said, there seems to be different ways to do things with coax so just because my setups do thing one way, it doesn’t mean it’s the only way.

If the gateway has MoCA capability and it is enabled (there should be a light on the gateway), don’t connect an Actiotec in the den. The gateway already provides Ethernet ports for connections in the den. You only need an Actiontec in rooms where you want to add a wired network connection. If you connected the Actiontec in the den to the gateway with an Ethernet cable, you’ll loop the network (which is flaky bad). Disconnect the Actiontec in the den and test with just one Actiontec. It should work in all the other rooms except the one with the power injector (which is only rated to 1000mhz).

The ECB6200 is a 2.0 bonded adapter and I’m guessing that your gateway is a TG1682G (the label looks just like mine, check the label on the bottom for the model) which is only 2.0. That shouldn’t be an interoperability problem but it means it runs at half speed (but still very fast). Once you have things working, if you feel the need for speed, you can turn MoCA off on the gateway and just use the Actiontecs. Basically, you just disable MoCA on the gateway, connect the coax port of an Actiontec to the splitter in the den, and connect the Ethernet port on it to a port on the gateway.

 

[Joe Mills]

Thanks for the response. I didn't realize that I could use just a single Actiontec with moca enabled on the gateway. I'll give it a try this weekend.

 

[Joe Mills]

Tannebil-you are my hero! I removed the actiontec adaptor from the den and it magically worked. An added bonus is that I have one less adaptor that I have to buy since I don't need one in the den. Thanks again.

 

[tannebil]

No problem. Glad it worked.