Question about Multiple MoCA hubs

[Steveo_M]

Hi, I'm new here but it seems like the place form meaningful MoCA knowledge.
I have an old property with an outbuilding. Its a very old house with plaster walls and essentially concrete exterior walls. There is no ethernet cabling but coax to most rooms and connecting the other building. Its a very old house with plaster walls and essentially concrete exterior walls. I don't need the coax for old school cable and would like to use it for backhaul. I think having more than one MoCA net and keep nodes down to 6-8 per net. Is it feasible to have multiple MoCA nets attached via a switch like below?

 

[degrub]

Depending on the coax layout, number of connections made, quality of cable ( old maybe RG59 ? will probably work, RG6 preferred), you may have issues with enough signal or bad cable termination or hidden TV band splitters, etc.
If you can map out the actual physical coax layout and all the connections, we may be able to give you a better answer.

MOCA is modem to modem, either point to point or multidrop as you indicated. It is just like wifi - it is a shared time connection, so the more nodes , the less bandwidth, on average, for each node. Also, each modem introduces 2-3 msec of latency which can be important to online gamers. You will have to be careful with selection of any splitters used on the coax. TV band (< 1000 MHz ) will block moca signals. Satellite TV splitters have similar issues but at the higher end of the frequency range. MOCA is from roughly 1125 to 1675 MHz. TThe splitters, bidirectional, "designed for MOCA" should be rated for that frequency range. You can find brand recommendations in the threads here.

THere is a reference planning guide posted somewhere in the subforum that would be useful to help you figure out if you have too many connection losses for each path between modems. i'll see if i can find the link.

You can also just get a pair of moca modems and try to identify each path of coax for your map. That may also tell you where you may have cable issues - most likely termination, but also physical cable damage, or hidden splitters.

What you are proposing is fine logically. i have mine doing the same thing only with pairs of modems on a point to point star layout all connected via a switch for maximum bandwidth.

 

[Steveo_M]

Depending on the coax layout, number of connections made, quality of cable ( old maybe RG59 ? will probably work, RG6 preferred), you may have issues with enough signal or bad cable termination or hidden TV band splitters, etc.
If you can map out the actual physical coax layout and all the connections, we may be able to give you a better answer.

MOCA is modem to modem, either point to point or multidrop as you indicated. It is just like wifi - it is a shared time connection, so the more nodes , the less bandwidth, on average, for each node. Also, each modem introduces 2-3 msec of latency which can be important to online gamers. You will have to be careful with selection of any splitters used on the coax. TV band (< 1000 MHz ) will block moca signals. Satellite TV splitters have similar issues but at the higher end of the frequency range. MOCA is from roughly 1125 to 1675 MHz. TThe splitters, bidirectional, "designed for MOCA" should be rated for that frequency range. You can find brand recommendations in the threads here.

THere is a reference planning guide posted somewhere in the subforum that would be useful to help you figure out if you have too many connection losses for each path between modems. i'll see if i can find the link.

You can also just get a pair of moca modems and try to identify each path of coax for your map. That may also tell you where you may have cable issues - most likely termination, but also physical cable damage, or hidden splitters.

What you are proposing is fine logically. i have mine doing the same thing only with pairs of modems on a point to point star layout all connected via a switch for maximum bandwidth.

Thank you that helps. I considered a star configuration but decided not to because of total cost and I wasn't certain it would work. I'm guessing I'm going to need a bunch of APs to get wireless everywhere. I can always break them up if needed. High use areas will likely be on their own node. I bought a pair to start and I have a meter that will identify 18 runs at a time. Once I identify them I'll test them the best I can. Thanks again.

 

[krkaufman]

I think having more than one MoCA net and keep nodes down to 6-8 per net. Is it feasible to have multiple MoCA nets attached via a switch like below?

Yes.

Related:

• MoCA AP+clients shared network vs dedicated pairs
• splitter input-fed vs all outputs
• ———
• MoCA-compatible splitter recommendations (… and warnings)
• preferred MoCA filter: PPC GLP-1G70CWWS(Amazon US listing) … 70+ dB stop-band attenuation, spec’d for full MoCA Ext. Band D range, 1125-1675 MHz

 

[degrub]

Get a pair of the moca modems that have a diagnostic page that shows power budget to get an idea of cable runs with issues.

 

[krkaufman]

I considered a star configuration but decided not to because of total cost

Talk to dopewaffles in the Reddit HomeNetworking sub. He had a batch of Frontier FCA252 adapters he was looking to offload at pretty good pricing. (see here)

 

[Steveo_M]

One other question. I don't see a indication for a point of entry filter with the above topology, ie the cable input is segregated form the subnet via a cable modem and standard router. Is that correct?

 

[krkaufman]

One other question. I don't see an indication for a point of entry filter with the above topology, ie the cable input is segregated from the subnet via a cable modem and standard router. Is that correct?

A “PoE” MoCA filter wouldn’t be needed for securing the setup if the MoCA coax segment is physically isolated; its alternate use case is discussed in the “input-fed vs all outputs” topology comment above.