Video conference hiccups - MoCA problem?

[mobidutch]

I am experiencing occasional hiccups / freezes during conference calls with my home network over MoCA.

I live in an apartment building that provides Gigabit Internet. It has a wireless access point in each unit (IBT U6-IW-US) with 4x GbE RJ45 ports. I am getting 925Mbps up and down over wired connections to my laptop, versus around 350Mbps over wireless. So obviously, a wired connection has my preference.

I decided to utilize the coax outlets in the apartment for a wired connection to my home office desk with 2x Motorola MM1025 MoCA 2.5 adapters, like this:

IBT Access Point - MoCA Adapter - Coax outlet - Coax cable behind walls - Coax connector - Coax cable behind walls - Coax outlet by desk - MoCA Adapter - Computer

All other coax outlets, including the 'incoming coax cable' from TV/Internet provider are disconnected. Also, I exclusively use CAT8 ethernet cables.

When I disable WiFi on my laptop and connect directly to the MoCa adapter, I am getting the 925Mbps speeds, but am occasionally experiencing hiccups. These hiccups do NOT happen when I connect directly to the access point (either wired or wirelessly).

What could be causing this? Thank you for reading...

 

[OzarkEdge]

I am experiencing occasional hiccups / freezes during conference calls with my home network over MoCA.

I live in an apartment building that provides Gigabit Internet. It has a wireless access point in each unit (IBT U6-IW-US) with 4x GbE RJ45 ports. I am getting 925Mbps up and down over wired connections to my laptop, versus around 350Mbps over wireless. So obviously, a wired connection has my preference.

I decided to utilize the coax outlets in the apartment for a wired connection to my home office desk with 2x Motorola MM1025 MoCA 2.5 adapters, like this:

IBT Access Point - MoCA Adapter - Coax outlet - Coax cable behind walls - Coax connector - Coax cable behind walls - Coax outlet by desk - MoCA Adapter - Computer

All other coax outlets, including the 'incoming coax cable' from TV/Internet provider are disconnected. Also, I exclusively use CAT8 ethernet cables.

When I disable WiFi on my laptop and connect directly to the MoCa adapter, I am getting the 925Mbps speeds, but am occasionally experiencing hiccups. These hiccups do NOT happen when I connect wirelessly to the access point.

What could be causing this? Thank you for reading...

Can you test with a temporary/healthy coax cable not run inside walls? This would rule out the coax inside the walls.

OE

 

[drinkingbird]

Can you test with a temporary/healthy coax cable not run inside walls? This would rule out the coax inside the walls.

OE

As well as possible unknown splitters hiding somewhere, or connections to the cable plant that you're not aware of (i.e. you think it is a dedicated run but it isn't really).

 

[drinkingbird]

I am experiencing occasional hiccups / freezes during conference calls with my home network over MoCA.

I live in an apartment building that provides Gigabit Internet. It has a wireless access point in each unit (IBT U6-IW-US) with 4x GbE RJ45 ports. I am getting 925Mbps up and down over wired connections to my laptop, versus around 350Mbps over wireless. So obviously, a wired connection has my preference.

I decided to utilize the coax outlets in the apartment for a wired connection to my home office desk with 2x Motorola MM1025 MoCA 2.5 adapters, like this:

IBT Access Point - MoCA Adapter - Coax outlet - Coax cable behind walls - Coax connector - Coax cable behind walls - Coax outlet by desk - MoCA Adapter - Computer

All other coax outlets, including the 'incoming coax cable' from TV/Internet provider are disconnected. Also, I exclusively use CAT8 ethernet cables.

When I disable WiFi on my laptop and connect directly to the MoCa adapter, I am getting the 925Mbps speeds, but am occasionally experiencing hiccups. These hiccups do NOT happen when I connect directly to the access point (either wired or wirelessly).

What could be causing this? Thank you for reading...

In addition to what OE said when you're connected directly run a continuous ping and see if you're seeing latency spikes or packet loss. If so you at least have an explanation. If it happens with a known good piece of coax, then it is an issue with the adapters. If not, then something in your wall, or one of your couplers/connectors, etc.

Of course there is always the potential that it is totally unrelated to MOCA and your laptop just needs driver update or a better wired adapter. Also test a direct connection to their AP with just ethernet. If you still have the problem then either their AP has an issue or your laptop does.

I guess I sort of put that backwards. Start with a direct ethernet test to their AP. If all is good, test with a known good piece of coax and your moca adapters, so on and so forth.

 

[mobidutch]

I appreciate both your lightning fast replies and suggestions!

When it comes to wired connections, I am starting to wonder if the Thunderbolt docking station I am using with my M1 Macbook may be the culprit. I ordered an Anker 2.5 Gbps USB-C to Ethernet adapter from Amazon that I can try tomorrow. If that shows the same hiccup issues, I'll follow both your suggestions concerning an external coax cable connection test (bypassing in-wall coax) and run the ping test.

I'll post my findings. Thank you!

 

[tgl]

Yeah, you should absolutely not rule out the docking station. I went through about three different docking stations and USB-C-to-Ethernet dongles before I found one that reliably gave good performance with my Mac laptops. Hard to tell if that was more the dongles' fault or more Apple's fault, but it was definitely an issue. (This goes back to the USB-C-only Intel models, it's far from a new thing with the M1s.)

If you do decide that the MoCA adapters are probably the issue, I've had good luck with ScreenBeam ECB7250s, which I bought on the recommendation of some other folks here. But follow the other respondents' debugging suggestions to try to narrow down the problem scientifically before you spend money.

 

[mobidutch]

If you do decide that the MoCA adapters are probably the issue, I've had good luck with ScreenBeam ECB7250s, which I bought on the recommendation of some other folks here. But follow the other respondents' debugging suggestions to try to narrow down the problem scientifically before you spend money.

Interesting... I actually started with the ScreenBeam adapters you mentioned, because they are significantly cheaper compared to the Motos. But because I experienced these hiccups, I figured let's give the Motorolas a try. Alas, no difference...

I will also spend some time working off my Intel-based home computer rig tomorrow instead of my MacBook. Let's see if the hiccups are consistent...

I'll report back.

 

[tgl]

Interesting... I actually started with the ScreenBeam adapters you mentioned, because they are significantly cheaper compared to the Motos. But because I experienced these hiccups, I figured let's give the Motorolas a try. Alas, no difference...

Oh, that's very important data! Seems to rule out the MoCA adapters as such, or at least move them way down the suspect list.

 

[mobidutch]

Agree. Tomorrow I will receive a 2.5Gbps USB-C ethernet adapter to try instead of my docking station. If that does not solve the issue, next test is to remove my QNAP switch (4x2.5Gbps + 2x10Gbps ) from the equation too and directly plug my MacBook into the MoCA adapter via a CAT8 cable and the new 2.5Gbps USB-C ethernet adapter. If I’m still having issues at that point, there must be something fishy going on with the coax cables in the wall.

Instead of this entire wired setup, perhaps I should also try a WiFi 6 wireless bridge to place by my desk and pair that with the IBT wireless access point. I doubt i will get me 1Gbps speeds, but it should work OK.

 

[degrub]

Moca modems should introduce about 2ms of lag per modem. So you should see around 4 ms lag. This is always there.
the moca modems may not have been designed with cat8 in mind, unless they are providing a 2.5 GHz or higher ethernet connection

 

[degrub]

When you direct connect by lan to the AP, you eliminate the 2.5 Gb/s to 1 Gb/s conversion somewhere along the chain from the macbook TB4/3 ? connection and it is 1Gb/s from the macbook TB4/3 ? Are you still connecting through the docking station at that point or are you using an Apple ethernet adapter?

my guess is a buffer is getting full and a lot of retransmits are happening further slowing it down. Just a thought.

 

[mobidutch]

Moca modems should introduce about 2ms of lag per modem. So you should see around 4 ms lag. This is always there.
the moca modems may not have been designed with cat8 in mind, unless they are providing a 2.5 GHz or higher ethernet connection

Hold on... CAT8 might not be my best option here? I was under the impression that even though I don't NEED the bandwidth supported by CAT8, it won't hurt. I have SO many old cables (CAT and USB) of which I don't recall the rated speed that I decided to opt for overkill. Are you saying CAT8 could be detrimental to my situation?

When you direct connect by lan to the AP, you eliminate the 2.5 Gb/s to 1 Gb/s conversion somewhere along the chain from the macbook TB4/3 ? connection and it is 1Gb/s from the macbook TB4/3 ? Are you still connecting through the docking station at that point or are you using an Apple ethernet adapter?

my guess is a buffer is getting full and a lot of retransmits are happening further slowing it down. Just a thought.

I decided to save myself the cost of this whole MoCA setup + additional switch. I configured my 'old' WiFi6 router (ASUS RT-AX86U) as a wireless bridge connected to the IBT Access Point, and connected my laptop and home computer to the bridge via CAT8 cables. As expected, I am not getting the wired speeds of around 900+ Mbps up and down, but around 600Mbps down, 800Mbps up. That's acceptable to me. And so far no weird 'hiccups'.

 

[drinkingbird]

Hold on... CAT8 might not be my best option here? I was under the impression that even though I don't NEED the bandwidth supported by CAT8, it won't hurt. I have SO many old cables (CAT and USB) of which I don't recall the rated speed that I decided to opt for overkill. Are you saying CAT8 could be detrimental to my situation?


I decided to save myself the cost of this whole MoCA setup + additional switch. I configured my 'old' WiFi6 router (ASUS RT-AX86U) as a wireless bridge connected to the IBT Access Point, and connected my laptop and home computer to the bridge via CAT8 cables. As expected, I am not getting the wired speeds of around 900+ Mbps up and down, but around 600Mbps down, 800Mbps up. That's acceptable to me. And so far no weird 'hiccups'.

Cat 8 is fine, just overkill.

 

[mobidutch]

Reviving old thread. I decided to give this another try to see if I can narrow down the cause of the hiccups.

I am wondering what is actually happening during these hiccups. I highly doubt there is an issue with the ethernet cables, and my ethernet adapters have never given me problems on other networks. It 'feels' like the MoCa adapters are choking at the MoCa protocol level, almost as if their 'link' is interrupted and they need to re-establish a solid connection. However, I would expect the MoCa adapter LEDs to give me an indication that a link was interrupted. They stay solid green.

It was mentioned before that the coax couplers might be an issue. How would a coupler potentially cause these brief hiccups/interruptions?

 

[mobidutch]

I should add... my coax cables are disconnected from other apartments, so I am not using (or in need of) a PoE filter. I am using a single, direct coax cable between two outlets, which are completely disconnected from other outlets.

 

[degrub]

If you can lay hands on a couple 5 port Gbit unmanaged switches, put one between your mac/PC and the moca modem. If that doesn't solve the "hiccups" (whatever that is - did you find if it was latency spikes or packet drops or ???), put another 5 port Gbit switch between the wireless receiver and the moca modem.

 

[mobidutch]

If you can lay hands on a couple 5 port Gbit unmanaged switches, put one between your mac/PC and the moca modem. If that doesn't solve the "hiccups" (whatever that is - did you find if it was latency spikes or packet drops or ???), put another 5 port Gbit switch between the wireless receiver and the moca modem.

I currently have a switch between the MoCa adapter and my laptop & PC, but not between the internet router and the other MoCa adapter. However, the router has a built-in switch, so that should be sufficient as a buffer.

I am going to try one other coax cable directly between the MoCa adapters, just to test if the coax cable in the walls may be the culprit. To be continued…

 

[mobidutch]

To test if the coax cable in the wall may be causing issues, I tried a brand new 10ft coax cable to directly connect the 2 MoCA adapters point-to-point.

That delivers good speeds at about 960Mbps, but I am STILL experiencing the occasional hiccups. During a conference call, the audio will occasionally break up, or sometimes the call drops completely. Takes about 20-30 seconds for things to go back to normal. The LEDs on the ScreenBeam MoCa adapters stay solid green when that happens.

At this point, I can only conclude that these ScreenBeam MoCa 2.5 adapters suck. I'd like to try the Motorola MM1025 adapters, but they are difficult to find. Back to wireless, for now...

 

[tgl]

FWIW, I've not seen any comparable misbehavior with my ScreenBeam MoCA 2.5 adapters. Maybe you got a lemon? Also, I wouldn't discount the possibility that this is a weird sort of incompatibility with the directly-connected equipment, because I have seen other misbehaviors that went away once I found a switch model the adapters liked. @degrub 's suggestion of inserting a different switch is still worth trying.

 

[mobidutch]

Certainly good advice, thank you. I did actually try Motorola MoCa adapters also, besides a different switch. Same result. I can’t pin down where the problem is really originating from. Ten years ago I used a whole-house MoCa network, and it worked great. This time… I can’t figure out what’s causing it.

Maybe the Ubiquiti access point in my apartment has some weird MoCa incompatibility on its LAN ports. My TV talks to it just fine though (via LAN port).