New to MoCA, no clue what I'm doing. Trying to make my first MoCA network.

[Rob Q]

I would like to make a MoCA network that connects my Tablo (in the basement - rec room) to the router upstairs (M1 red line) and connect an access point in the living room (AP2) to the upstairs router (M3 yellow line) but I have no clue what parts to get or how to set it up. I was told to get the MoCA 2.5 adapters, so I might get this.... ScreenBeam MoCA 2.5 Network Adapter for Higher Speed Internet, Ethernet Over Coax - Starter Kit (Model: ECB6250K02). To join the coax from the room with the router, to the living room coax line, I would use this... VCE Coaxial Cable Connector, RG6 Coax Cable Extender F-Type Gold Plated Adapter Female to Female for TV Cables,2 Pack. I don't think I'll need a filter because the main cable line to the modem I won't even be touching, as it and the coax to the Tablo will be isolated. Any help would be greatly appreacted, and try to keep it very simple, just list the parts and say... just use this.

 

[Rob Q]

Or would I be better off and get a Mesh system and connect it to my main router and place a node in the basement for the Tablo and another node in the living room?
I've learned that a WiFi extender is bad because they'll cut the speed down in half.

 

[degrub]

If i understand your sketch correctly =

Red and Yellow are isolated runs of coax - correct ?

Green is ethernet ?

What is blue ? Is this an OTA TV signal to each TV through existing coax ?
What is a TABLO - is it a TV signal converter to digital (ethernet) box for streaming from an antenna ?

What is the mess in the snip below where all the colors meet supposed to be - it looks like ethernet, 2 coax cables, and ?
What is it you want to do ?

 

[degrub]

If what i assume above is correct, and you do not need to send OTA TV signal across the coax in the house, then simplest and highest bandwidth solution is 2 pairs of MOCA 2.5 modems (one for RED, one for yellow), a 5 port gigabit unmanaged switch ( for the snip above),.
If you need ethernet to TV3, then just add another pair of moca 2.5 modems.

If you need to send TV signal over the coax that MOCA is using, you will need to select MOCA modems with a separate coax port for TV signal. Actiontec 6200 moca2 modems are an example. Many of the MOCA 2.5 modems DO NOT HAVE this feature. You can use a moca2 rated splitter just ahead of the moca modem if you need to send TV signal to the TV on a separate piece of coax instead of using a moca modem with a built in diplexer.

 

[Rob Q]

If i understand your sketch correctly =

Red and Yellow are isolated runs of coax - correct ?

Green is ethernet ?

What is blue ? Is this an OTA TV signal to each TV through existing coax ?
What is a TABLO - is it a TV signal converter to digital (ethernet) box for streaming from an antenna ?

What is the mess in the snip below where all the colors meet supposed to be - it looks like ethernet, 2 coax cables, and ?
What is it you want to do ?


View attachment 62094

Green is ethernet, yes. Red and yellow are isolated runs of coax, so you are correct there.
The blue is just how the coax is now, 3 TV's attached to a splitter (output) but I've removed the antenna feed from the input and connected it to the Tablo. That's a network DVR with an ATSC 1.0 tuner.
And yeah, I suck at making drawings. haha!

What I would like to do it use the coax that's going through the floor in my bedroom and connect it to the line going to the living room, that would convert it over to an Ethernet cable. Then I would connect one Moca adapter to the one end of the cable and connect it to the main router, and the other end, which would be in the living room, would provide internet access through the coax jack in the wall, through the Moca adapter. This way I don't have to count on the weak WiFi signals to do the job.

Also, I would like to have one line going from the main router in my bedroom, to the basement where the Tablo (DVR) is. I would connect the Moca adapter to an ethernet cable and plug it in the Tablo.

So, bottom line is that I just want to provide internet to the more areas of the house through the existing coax.

Hope that helps.

 

[Rob Q]

If what i assume above is correct, and you do not need to send OTA TV signal across the coax in the house, then simplest and highest bandwidth solution is 2 pairs of MOCA 2.5 modems (one for RED, one for yellow), a 5 port gigabit unmanaged switch ( for the snip above),.
If you need ethernet to TV3, then just add another pair of moca 2.5 modems.

This was what I was leaning towards, yes. Could I eventually add an 2 way splitter? So, the input would be the line running to the adapter with the router, output 1 would be the line going to the living room, and output 2 would be the line going down to the Tablo DVR's ethernet port in the basement?

But with a splitter, I'd get a loss of 3.5dB per port, yes? What could I do to compensate?

 

[degrub]

Moca modems have plenty of signal budget, so a 3 or 4 outlet port + 1 inlet port would be no issue as long as the cable is in good shape for the higher frequency moca signal. Key is to use MOCA 2 or 2.5 certified splitters and cap the Inlet port with a moca POE block. Each moca node added to a shared coax line has to share the total bandwidth of moca. MOCA is not different than wifi in that regard. So a 4 node moca layout would, on average, see each node have about 1/4 the total bandwidth. If a good coax cable and splitter, the each node would see a little less than 600 Mbit/s bandwidth available.

RG6 is the preferred commonly installed coax for moca. RG59 (older catv installations) will work usually. Just slightly higher losses. All coax must be 75 ohm impedence which the above two are. All unused coax ports must be capped with 75 ohm termination caps. The moca POE block will need a cap on the side away from the splitter inlet port.

If you use a pair of moca modems on each coax segment and join them on the ethernet cable side through a switch, each moca node pair would see the full bandwidth - 2.5 Gbit / 2 = ~ 1.1 Gbit/s of available bandwidth which matches up well with using Gbit/s switches and ethernet ports. It costs a little more - a 3 coax segment layout would use 6 moca modems + switch (connects to router via switch) versus 4 moca modems + a 4 output/1 input splitter + moca POE filter. The independent pairs of moca modems do make troubleshooting cable or modem issues easier and less complicated.

If you go the splitter route for joining the segments, you have a choice of balanced ( all same signal loss) or unbalanced ( N ports same loss + 1 lower loss). If all your cable runs are about the same length, i would go for balanced.

if i remember correctly, moca modems have about 40 dB of signal budget. You have to count up all the connections at -3.5 roughly per connection + connection loss at splitter for each path from each modem. So always minimize splitters and barrel connectors in the moca path. Usually, not an issue, but we have seen a few posts here that seemed to find just enough signal loss to make moca iffy in one room while the rest of the house was ok.

 

[degrub]

And if you game or use other latency sensitive apps, each pair of moca modem in the signal path introduces about 2-3 ms of latency. i get 3 ms when i ping my router over 1 pair of moca modems with Gbit ethernet.