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.