Home network setup help

[NotANetworkPro]

Hi everyone!

I’m absolutely new to networking and hoping to set things up our new home to allow the family to work and play without seeing dreaded buffering or latency problems in the years to come!

Unfortunately the house is not wired for Ethernet but it does have coax wired to the basement and first floor areas already. The coax runs are stapled behind drywall so not that helpful for pulling Ethernet direct lines to these same spots. They do all run to a closet under the stairs where they meet with the incoming RG6 line from the ISP.

Am I setting this network up for success? Should I use MOCA adapters? If I added MOCA adapters to increase speeds where would they need to be placed in this set up? Should I relocate the modem to the network closet in the basement? Are there any other ideas I should consider to help realize the faster internet speeds I am already paying for?

Thank you all very much for reading and for your help!

 

[krkaufman]

the house is not wired for Ethernet

Any phone lines? ‘gist: Depending on when installed, Cat5+ cabling may have been used for the phone outlets and could be repurposed for networking.

Should I relocate the modem to the network closet in the basement?

For a cable modem setup with a MoCA network present, this would be optimal to future-proof the setup for DOCSIS 3.1+, allowing the modem a direct, unfiltered connection with the ISP. Or, if available, a second coax line between the closet junction and some room would allow the modem to be installed elsewhere while accomplishing the same isolation.

Related: DOCSIS encroachment on the MoCA [Band D] frequency range

If I added MOCA adapters to increase speeds where would they need to be placed in this set up?

It depends on the topology you’re looking to implement, which depends on your throughput and budget requirements. Your choices are:

• a MoCA access point+clients topology over your coax plant (example), or use
• dedicated pairs of MoCA adapters for each coax segment (example); or
• a mix of both.

Aside from obvious cost differences, one of the main differentiating factors is that MoCA is a shared medium, half duplex, so the max available throughput is shared by all the active connections, with transfers competing for the available bandwidth like an Ethernet hub of old. For MoCA 2.5, the max shared throughput is 2500 Mbps, so a pair of isolated MoCA adapters would effectively have 1.25 Gbps symmetrical throughput (perhaps capped to 1 Gbps symmetrical w/ GigE network connectivity only), or up to 2500 Mbps unidirectional absent other traffic (and with the requisite 2.5 GbE network gear). Most find the cost/performance tradeoff of using an access point+clients setup acceptable.

 

[drinkingbird]

Hi everyone!

I’m absolutely new to networking and hoping to set things up our new home to allow the family to work and play without seeing dreaded buffering or latency problems in the years to come!

Unfortunately the house is not wired for Ethernet but it does have coax wired to the basement and first floor areas already. The coax runs are stapled behind drywall so not that helpful for pulling Ethernet direct lines to these same spots. They do all run to a closet under the stairs where they meet with the incoming RG6 line from the ISP.

Am I setting this network up for success? Should I use MOCA adapters? If I added MOCA adapters to increase speeds where would they need to be placed in this set up? Should I relocate the modem to the network closet in the basement? Are there any other ideas I should consider to help realize the faster internet speeds I am already paying for?

Thank you all very much for reading and for your help!

Your current setup looks good, at least based on what you have available (if you had a second coax line I'd home run the modem to the first splitter, but you don't). Are they all 2 port splitters? If not, reduce them to 2 port to reduce signal loss, since you only need 2 ports on each.

Technically you could replace the 2 basement splitters with a 3 port that has one -3.5 port and two -7, but internally, it is literally exactly what you have now, two 2-port splitters in series, so unlikely to make any difference (a tiny bit less noise maybe, not enough to worry about).

MOCA is only needed if you want hardwired ethernet between the two floors, is that needed? If you're using wireless for everything, looks like you're set up as good as you can be with the existing wiring. Personally I'd want the router on the 3rd floor probably but as long as you have good signal everywhere, not something to worry about (especially if you don't have coax to 3rd floor). But MOCA will steal bandwidth from your modem too, depending on your speed tier and DOCSIS technology in your area, may or may not be a problem (at least currently).

If your modem has poor signal from the cable company, moving it to the basement and the 1st splitter could help, but then you need to run MOCA up to the router since the router in the basement will not give good wireless coverage to the upper floors probably. In reality if your cable can't handle the -7db drop of those two dual port splitters, they need to come out and check the lines to your house and the node on the street. Moving modem to the basement would gain you potentially 3.5db but unless you're below -10 right now, that won't make any difference.

 

[krkaufman]

View attachment 51916

FYI… MoCA adapters with an RF pass-through port would simplify the setup *IF* the CATV set-top boxes do not also require MoCA connectivity. (The pass-through port severely attenuates signals at MoCA frequencies.) Otherwise, lacking pass-through or if the STBs require MoCA, use splitters designed for MoCA 2.x, like the Antronix MMC1002H-B series, right-sized to minimize losses.