MOCA newbie and our home network

[Sven Golly]

For those who've been following my saga on routers, I'd like to ask some questions. We had a network wiring consultant look at our setup today and he proposed considering using MOCA to get more throughput to our home offices and possibly our home theater. Our problem is that the in-wall wiring was basically CAT 5 (not 5e) and is essentially repurposed POTS telephone line. Also, some of the lines were (per the guy who originally converted the telephone lines to Ethernet) questionable in terms of quality and may have been stapled causing breakage.

Reviewing getting CAT 6 to our critical locations (two home offices plus home theater / media center) will be tough. The home theater may be doable (downstairs and could be accessible) but the location of the main can for cable coax and phone lines is at one end of the house (upstairs master BR) while the home offices are at the other end and there's no easy access via the attic to any of the existing drops. What we DO have is COAX going to each home office and the home theater. The COAX is occupied by a TV settop box in one home office and a DVR at the home theater.

I don't know a thing about MOCA compatibility with our Spectrum DOCSIS 3.1 modem but the relevant specs seem to be as follows:

Downstream:

• Frequency Range: 258MHz-1218MHz
• Capture Bandwidth: 1.218GHz
• Modulation: 64 or 256 QAM and OFDM: up to 4096 QAM

Upstream:

• Frequency Range: 5MHz ~ 42MHz/85MHz switchab
• Modulation: QPSK or 8/16/32/64/128 QAM and OFDMA: up to 4096 QA

Here's a diagram of the mess.

Any thoughts are welcome! Note that I have to keep the 2.4 & 5 bands separate since our cams get confused if they share an SSID. Also, as it stands, I'm really not using anything on the 5ghz band except for cell phones & things that don't require 2.4. All the brown items are 2.4 only. Home Office 1 has the set top box, TV and Fire Stick.

 

[L&LD]

I vote do Cat6, or don't do anything at all.

Bite the bullet and do it once, but do it right.

I would run multiple Cat6 runs everywhere you can. Options in the future are priceless, vs the cost to redoing it then. (Or, having to work around the limitations you create (at usually suboptimal levels).

With a home theater, two offices and other connected needs, along with the questionable wiring already confirmed within the home, the cheapest way to a solid and reliable network is to do it right. From the beginning.

There is no time better than now. Future work is always more expensive.

 

[OzarkEdge]

For those who've been following my saga on routers, I'd like to ask some questions. We had a network wiring consultant look at our setup today and he proposed considering using MOCA to get more throughput to our home offices and possibly our home theater. Our problem is that the in-wall wiring was basically CAT 5 (not 5e) and is essentially repurposed POTS telephone line. Also, some of the lines were (per the guy who originally converted the telephone lines to Ethernet) questionable in terms of quality and may have been stapled causing breakage.

Reviewing getting CAT 6 to our critical locations (two home offices plus home theater / media center) will be tough. The home theater may be doable (downstairs and could be accessible) but the location of the main can for cable coax and phone lines is at one end of the house (upstairs master BR) while the home offices are at the other end and there's no easy access via the attic to any of the existing drops. What we DO have is COAX going to each home office and the home theater. The COAX is occupied by a TV settop box in one home office and a DVR at the home theater.

I don't know a thing about MOCA compatibility with our Spectrum DOCSIS 3.1 modem but the relevant specs seem to be as follows:

Downstream:

• Frequency Range: 258MHz-1218MHz
• Capture Bandwidth: 1.218GHz
• Modulation: 64 or 256 QAM and OFDM: up to 4096 QAM

Upstream:

• Frequency Range: 5MHz ~ 42MHz/85MHz switchab
• Modulation: QPSK or 8/16/32/64/128 QAM and OFDMA: up to 4096 QA

Here's a diagram of the mess.

Any thoughts are welcome! Note that I have to keep the 2.4 & 5 bands separate since our cams get confused if they share an SSID. Also, as it stands, I'm really not using anything on the 5ghz band except for cell phones & things that don't require 2.4. All the brown items are 2.4 only. Home Office 1 has the set top box, TV and Fire Stick.
View attachment 46954

I added a MOCA 2.5 wired backhaul to my AiMesh. I was able to dedicate a coax segment to the DOCSIS3.x modem link to avoid any interference between MOCA and cable modem signaling. Otherwise, you may need to configure the MOCA adapters to avoid your DOCSIS signaling frequencies, now and future.

If your tel/Ethernet wiring is damaged, your coax may also be damaged... only use the coax segments you need to hopefully avoid any unhealthy cabling/transmission characteristics.

OE

 

[Samir]

You may need to research this further, but a lot of times ISP equipment connected to coax is already using moca or has the capability, and/or can run over ethernet. So for example, in the case of the dvr box, you may be able to put a moca adapter to get ethernet to it and then connect it via ethernet instead.