Home Networking Alternatives
If your home was built before 2000, chances are it was not pre-wired with CAT-5 wiring capable of supporting Ethernet networking. You may have lucked out if CAT-5 was used for the telephone infrastructure, but even then, a lot of the wiring was done serially versus home run style used for modern networking, so it was difficult to re-purpose.
What you do have is many cases is RG-6 coax cable often in a home run style supporting Cable or Satellite TV.
Over the years there have been multiple alternatives developed to traditional wired Ethernet for the home, one of the first was WiFi and about the same time was Powerline networking that would utilize your homes copper Romex wiring.
When your networking demands were mostly focused on simple Web Browsing and Email, many of those alternatives would work. But those demands have changed, now a lot of folks like to stream all types of media from simple photos and home movies to music and HD movies and many of those alternatives simply don't cut it.
And even though WiFi has continued to increase bandwidth and range though its generations, the challenge has been consistency of experience when streaming. Any of you that have tried to create a whole home wireless network know exactly what I am talking about. The impact of walls, appliances, bathrooms, etc can wreak havoc with a wireless network. So you end up buying range extenders or bridges trying to make it work. Even the newest 802.11ac devices that promise 1Gbps bandwidth often have a really hard time supporting that in a range much beyond 30 ft in a typical house.
The reality is nothing beats wired infrastructure for supporting consistent high speed Ethernet networking. But for most folks to retrofit their house is often times a painful and expensive experience. So how do you support high speed ethernet without CAT-5, 5e or 6 wiring.
Well the answer maybe MoCA, or Multimedia over Coax Alliance. MoCA is an "industry" alliance initiated in 2004 of around 20 - 30 companies with 1.0 of the standard released in 2006. Today were are at release 2.0 of the standard.
So what is MoCA ? It's basically Ethernet over Coax and it's actually a throw back to the early days of Ethernet. Back in the early and mid 80's before CAT-5 cabling became all the rage, most early Ethernet networks were built on Coax Cable. There was thick or thin coax, but effectively it is the same technique used by MoCA. A MoCA "adapter" simply performs a layer 1 media conversion from Coax to CAT-5.
What this provides is up to 175Mps of Ethernet with 1.1 standard gear and as high as 800Mbps with 2.0 standard gear on your existing Coax Infrastructure.
So specifically focused at the retrofit market of those pre CAT-5 homes.
So if you have a home run based Coax infrastructure in your house you can run not only cable or satellite TV, but also high speed Ethernet on the same Coax wire and have a distributed network in your home. In fact this is way that many of the cable and satellite providers support "Whole house" DVRs and the like.
I have DirecTV and as a part of the service, they installed what is called the Cinema Connection Kit (CCK) also sometimes called DECA or Directv Ethernet Coax Adapter. CCK/DECA does not strictly following the MoCA standards, even though DirecTV is a member of the alliance, but it does it's job well.
This small CCK device has a power supply, Coax and Ethernet connections and is connected to my router. All of the DirecTV devices in my home use that adapter to connect to the internet. That is how DirecTV supports OnDemand and DirecTV Cinema movie streaming. And this is a in a home built in 1985 with RG-6 cabling. I have 3 HR24 HD DVRs and Four H25 HD STBs running on it with no problem.
But I also have AppleTVs, XBox, Blu-Ray players, etc, etc that also have Ethernet and/or Wireless connections. So how do you get those on that network. Well the answer is easy, you buy additional CCK/DECA or MoCA adapters and add them to the locations where you need to inject Ethernet onto Coax. This approach is not documented by DirecTV but it does work fine.
MoCA adapters are made by Motorola, Actiontec, DLink, Netgear and others available everywhere from Best Buy to WalMart. DirecTV CCK/DECA are easily available on Amazon.
So here is a sample configuration. In one room I have a DirecTV HR24 DVR along with an XBox 360, AppleTV, Yamaha AV Receiver and Samsung TV that all have Ethernet connections. To add those additional devices via wired connections, I purchased the following:
1. A DirecTV MSPLIT2R1-03 Coax Splitter - 4 Pack for $11 from Amazon
2. A DirecTV DECABB1MR0 DECA Adapter. $13.99 from Amazon.
3. A Linksys SE2800 8 Port 1Gbps Ethernet switch - $49 on Amazon.
I connected all 4 devices, Xbox, ATV, Yamaha and Samsumg TV along with the DECA Adapter to the Switch. I connected the Coax end of the DirecTV DECA and HR24 to the Splitter and then connected the Splitter to the Coax outlet on the wall. Now, when the 4 devices boot up, they can "see" the Ethernet connection and they communicate over Coax to the CCK that was already installed and connected to my router. They get an IP address from the Router and have full access to the internet. And even though the DECA is a 1st generation device that only supports 175Mbps, it is plenty fast enough to support any form of streaming from any of those devices and is much more reliable than the wireless connections I used to have.
You can replace the word DECA with MoCA in this scenario and do the same thing. In fact manufacturers like Motorola sell the Surfboard SBM1000 Video Streaming system, that includes 1 MoCA Adapter with a built in 4 port switch as well as a 2nd single port device for connection to your router.
So a few considerations you need to concern yourself with before you run out and start buying MoCA devices:
1. Check and make sure the MoCA devices are compatible with your Cable or Satellite system. For example DISH does NOT support MoCA.
2. Same when buying splitters, make sure you are purchasing ones that support the frequency ranges required by your provider. The best way to check is to look at the ones your provider has used in your installation - they typically have at least one or two.
3. Some older home cable installations used a "tap" method for installation. Meaning, instead of the home run method were each location had it's own cable run back to a central location, Tap installations support several locations on a single coax length of cable using a T style Tap connector to present a Coax connector in the room.
You can easily tell this by examining the Coax faceplate. If the connector is built in to the faceplate - more often then not you are okay - but if the connector is not connected to the faceplate and the faceplate simply has a center hole, then chances are that the T-Connector is behind that plate. In this case I would recommend purchasing additional splitters and modern faceplates and replacing the Tap connectors.
Bottom line - if you are frustrated with trying to stream media from the internet over WiFi and have a good Coax Cable installation, then look into MoCA. You'll really be able to improve the reliability of your connections, have a better streaming experience and actually free up WiFi bandwidth for your portable devices.
What you do have is many cases is RG-6 coax cable often in a home run style supporting Cable or Satellite TV.
Over the years there have been multiple alternatives developed to traditional wired Ethernet for the home, one of the first was WiFi and about the same time was Powerline networking that would utilize your homes copper Romex wiring.
When your networking demands were mostly focused on simple Web Browsing and Email, many of those alternatives would work. But those demands have changed, now a lot of folks like to stream all types of media from simple photos and home movies to music and HD movies and many of those alternatives simply don't cut it.
And even though WiFi has continued to increase bandwidth and range though its generations, the challenge has been consistency of experience when streaming. Any of you that have tried to create a whole home wireless network know exactly what I am talking about. The impact of walls, appliances, bathrooms, etc can wreak havoc with a wireless network. So you end up buying range extenders or bridges trying to make it work. Even the newest 802.11ac devices that promise 1Gbps bandwidth often have a really hard time supporting that in a range much beyond 30 ft in a typical house.
The reality is nothing beats wired infrastructure for supporting consistent high speed Ethernet networking. But for most folks to retrofit their house is often times a painful and expensive experience. So how do you support high speed ethernet without CAT-5, 5e or 6 wiring.
Well the answer maybe MoCA, or Multimedia over Coax Alliance. MoCA is an "industry" alliance initiated in 2004 of around 20 - 30 companies with 1.0 of the standard released in 2006. Today were are at release 2.0 of the standard.
So what is MoCA ? It's basically Ethernet over Coax and it's actually a throw back to the early days of Ethernet. Back in the early and mid 80's before CAT-5 cabling became all the rage, most early Ethernet networks were built on Coax Cable. There was thick or thin coax, but effectively it is the same technique used by MoCA. A MoCA "adapter" simply performs a layer 1 media conversion from Coax to CAT-5.
What this provides is up to 175Mps of Ethernet with 1.1 standard gear and as high as 800Mbps with 2.0 standard gear on your existing Coax Infrastructure.
So specifically focused at the retrofit market of those pre CAT-5 homes.
So if you have a home run based Coax infrastructure in your house you can run not only cable or satellite TV, but also high speed Ethernet on the same Coax wire and have a distributed network in your home. In fact this is way that many of the cable and satellite providers support "Whole house" DVRs and the like.
I have DirecTV and as a part of the service, they installed what is called the Cinema Connection Kit (CCK) also sometimes called DECA or Directv Ethernet Coax Adapter. CCK/DECA does not strictly following the MoCA standards, even though DirecTV is a member of the alliance, but it does it's job well.
This small CCK device has a power supply, Coax and Ethernet connections and is connected to my router. All of the DirecTV devices in my home use that adapter to connect to the internet. That is how DirecTV supports OnDemand and DirecTV Cinema movie streaming. And this is a in a home built in 1985 with RG-6 cabling. I have 3 HR24 HD DVRs and Four H25 HD STBs running on it with no problem.
But I also have AppleTVs, XBox, Blu-Ray players, etc, etc that also have Ethernet and/or Wireless connections. So how do you get those on that network. Well the answer is easy, you buy additional CCK/DECA or MoCA adapters and add them to the locations where you need to inject Ethernet onto Coax. This approach is not documented by DirecTV but it does work fine.
MoCA adapters are made by Motorola, Actiontec, DLink, Netgear and others available everywhere from Best Buy to WalMart. DirecTV CCK/DECA are easily available on Amazon.
So here is a sample configuration. In one room I have a DirecTV HR24 DVR along with an XBox 360, AppleTV, Yamaha AV Receiver and Samsung TV that all have Ethernet connections. To add those additional devices via wired connections, I purchased the following:
1. A DirecTV MSPLIT2R1-03 Coax Splitter - 4 Pack for $11 from Amazon
2. A DirecTV DECABB1MR0 DECA Adapter. $13.99 from Amazon.
3. A Linksys SE2800 8 Port 1Gbps Ethernet switch - $49 on Amazon.
I connected all 4 devices, Xbox, ATV, Yamaha and Samsumg TV along with the DECA Adapter to the Switch. I connected the Coax end of the DirecTV DECA and HR24 to the Splitter and then connected the Splitter to the Coax outlet on the wall. Now, when the 4 devices boot up, they can "see" the Ethernet connection and they communicate over Coax to the CCK that was already installed and connected to my router. They get an IP address from the Router and have full access to the internet. And even though the DECA is a 1st generation device that only supports 175Mbps, it is plenty fast enough to support any form of streaming from any of those devices and is much more reliable than the wireless connections I used to have.
You can replace the word DECA with MoCA in this scenario and do the same thing. In fact manufacturers like Motorola sell the Surfboard SBM1000 Video Streaming system, that includes 1 MoCA Adapter with a built in 4 port switch as well as a 2nd single port device for connection to your router.
So a few considerations you need to concern yourself with before you run out and start buying MoCA devices:
1. Check and make sure the MoCA devices are compatible with your Cable or Satellite system. For example DISH does NOT support MoCA.
2. Same when buying splitters, make sure you are purchasing ones that support the frequency ranges required by your provider. The best way to check is to look at the ones your provider has used in your installation - they typically have at least one or two.
3. Some older home cable installations used a "tap" method for installation. Meaning, instead of the home run method were each location had it's own cable run back to a central location, Tap installations support several locations on a single coax length of cable using a T style Tap connector to present a Coax connector in the room.
You can easily tell this by examining the Coax faceplate. If the connector is built in to the faceplate - more often then not you are okay - but if the connector is not connected to the faceplate and the faceplate simply has a center hole, then chances are that the T-Connector is behind that plate. In this case I would recommend purchasing additional splitters and modern faceplates and replacing the Tap connectors.
Bottom line - if you are frustrated with trying to stream media from the internet over WiFi and have a good Coax Cable installation, then look into MoCA. You'll really be able to improve the reliability of your connections, have a better streaming experience and actually free up WiFi bandwidth for your portable devices.
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