Moca needs diff circuit than cable modem?

[zamslam]

I bought ActionTec moca adapters. I have Comcast voice/tv/internet

Room A in our house has

Coax jack [coax] Cable Modem
Cable modem [ethernet cable ] Wireless Router
Cable modem [phone line] Phone jack for digital voice
Wireless router [ethernet] powerline adapter that works poorly

Other rooms have Coax jack -> stb/tivo/tv etc. For example
Coax Jack [coax] Tivo
Tivo wireless adapter [ethernet] tivo.

I want to replace wireless with moca. My home is big enough that wireless router in room A doesn't have a strong signal throughout the house, and a repeater doesn't seem to work well.


If I

Go to room A and connect

Coax jack -> Moca Box

Go to room B and connect

Coax jack -> Moca Box

Neither box's "coax" light turn on.

I intended in room A to further add:
Moca [ coax ] Cable Modem
Moca [ ethernet ] wireless router

But that's not going to work because the 2 moca boxes don't talk.

If I connect two boxes boxes in any other rooms but room A, the coax light does come on.

If I connect the two moca boxes directly together with a coax cable, the coax light does come on.

I spent roughly two hours on the phone with ActionTec tech support, and was ecscalated to a supervisor. He assured me the problem is that I can't send both digital data intended for my Cable modem over the same circuit as my TV uses for video. He insisted that though his box has a coax out and an ethernet out, only one can be used at a time, depending on whether or not I connected the box to my "cable modem" circuit or "tv circuit". That seems crazy on a device that says it's for "Homes with cable tv". He insisted that really meant "for homes with coax wiring that could be used for either "tv" or "data" but not both.

He said the circuit with my cable modem has "digital data" that "overwhelms" the "analog" tv data. I think I have "digital cable" but am out of my depth.

I seem to recall the Comcast guy asking which room we wanted the Cable Modem in because that somehow had a different circuit.

I found a comcast-looking box in our garage, that had something like

One box, power, "rf" in, 4 coax outs with cables leading to two different two way splitters ( I think it's an amp) , and one three way splitters. Everything said "1000Mhz". I thought the problem may be that I need to replace some or all of these 1000MHz jobbies with 2GHz jobbies (or something like that but this guy said no no no, my use case (one adapter with coax in connect to wall, coax out connected to tivo, ethernet out connected to tivo) isn't supported.

Here are my options as I see them

1) Try and replace all the jobbies with higher frequency jobbies. This may be expensive. Actiontec support says won't help. The fact that other rooms can connect to each other suggests may not be needed. I hate to through good money after bad.

2) As comcast to come out and install another jack in room A "for TV", which is on the "other" circuit? I don't really know how many circuits I have and which can really send high bandwidth signals to which. Not sure how much this costs.

3) 5GHz N wireless router in room next to A. Put one moca box in that room, presumably moca boxes in other rooms can then talk to it (other than room A). Might work but kills me to think that this thing is really designed to need this.

4) ???

Support said something about something would work better if my cable was "modulated" and not broken into analog / digital sub-circuits.

Googling seemed to show plenty of folks that connected their cable modems on the same circuit. The support dude said the picture at http://www.actiontec.com/products/datasheets/ECB2200 MoCA Network Adapter Datasheet.pdf shows no video/data over the same coax.

Any idea?

 

[thiggins]

I suspect you are losing too much MoCA signal because the two outlets you are trying to connect are separated by too many splitters and the fact they are attenuating the MoCA signal because they are rated only to 1 GHz.

Splitters should be rated for at least 1.5 GHz for MoCA to work. It is possible for MoCA to work with lower frequency splitters if the cable runs are short and you have maybe one splitter.

2 GHz splitters are not expensive. Search Amazon and you'll find plenty.

You only need to replace the splitter(s) that are handling the MoCA signal. All you need to do is move the cables for the outlets you are trying to use to the same splitter.

 

[devnull]

Your system should work fine with CATV and Moca on the same coax. Cable TV uses frequencies under 1Ghz while Moca uses above 1Ghz.

I recommend either replacing the splitters or adding diplexers.

I use Holland Electronics parts. For a splitter, I use their model number GHPNA-4. I also use model number DPD2 diplexers. You can buy them at Amazon for pretty cheap.

Diplexers are usually used in satellite setups to split the TV frequencies (5-1000 mhz) from the satellite frequencies (1000-2000 mhz) and send them out separate ports. They also can recombine the signals. Moca operates on 1150-1500mhz so diplexers work equally well for Moca. Here is a diagram of how you would set up the Diplexers.