cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/63691946
Looking for advice on setting up a new whole home network and the direction to take of MoCA over existing cabling vs running new Ethernet Cat6A:
Recently in a new space that has an existing HomeConnect CSMAPDU9VPI with coax cables run throughout the home, which seems like a great candidate to just use MoCA and get up and running faster:
But I am also interested in “future proofing” the network setup and replacing the coax cables that are already run with Cat6A Ethernet, all connecting to a central 10G switch / homelab setup.
Is it worth the effort to re-run all of the cables and swap out the wall plates or just go with the simple thing an run with a MoCA setup? I’d really prefer to not spend on one setup with the plan to update in the future, but maybe that’s the compromise solution to get setup and running sooner.
The CSMAPDU9VPI is currently completely isolated from the cable line to the modem (picture above is old and shows a cable connected to the IN port, this cable is no longer connected) so I don’t think I have to worry about interference with my DOCSIS 3.1 service / modem.
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I’ve been running MoCA in my home for the last ~5 years and it seems to be doing just fine. Even in my last house with older coax run I was able to get ~1Gbps to my endpoints. The latency difference hasn’t been a problem for me, even with 3-4 adapters in use.
It’s not quite as nice as having cat6 run everywhere, but unless you’re trying to like edit 4K video off a NAS or something that needs a ton of bandwidth it should do just fine.
FWIW, I use these adapters from GoCoax, but there are other good ones out there too: https://www.amazon.com/goCoax-Adapter-Ethernet-Bandwidth-existing/dp/B09RB1QYR9
Good timing: I just installed several adapters, as I had areas in my home with poor wifi signal and my house is unfriendly to running new Ethernet cables, but has a coax connection in almost every room. I am shocked by how good it is, even over my house’s ancient coax, which was installed by careless morons. I’m getting 930Mbps running iperf to another machine on my lan. I did make sure to replace the multitude of splitters in my house with MoCA rated ones, but those are cheap. If you currently have a cable provider make sure to install a POE filter where the line enters your home so you’re not sending your signal upstream.
Pros of MoCA:
-Easy to implement
-Don’t have to run new lines
-Reliable
-Up to 2.5gbps
Cons:
-Each run needs an moderately expensive adapter on either side, which also needs power
-Cable management at the endpoints can get messy
If you have one or two endpoints where you can tuck away some boxes, MoCA’s probably fine. If you want to wire up every room in your house, buy a roll of cat-6 and bite the bullet
Other con: Unless you have a new home with pristine wires, the speeds of MoCa can vary anywhere from 2.5Gpbs to 6Mps. It also gets very tricky if you have still cable TV in your home because many of the set top boxes use MoCa and they directly interfere with using it for internet (though you can sometimes get it working with filters, my experience was poor). MoCa is still far better than something like Powerline adapters, which are another option for not having to run new cables/lines.
On my coax network, which is also completely isolated from any TV or internet signals, I was not getting the advertised 2.5gbps and I was getting about 4ms of latency, and they would very occasionally disconnect. I don’t know if that’s typical or if my MoCA adapters were bad.
Even if they’re all working perfectly, unlike on switched networks like Ethernet, the signal between device A and device B also uses bandwidth on the connection to device C. I don’t know if there’s some trick with different channels to lessen this effect, but there’s no switch in your MoCA network and all cables will carry all data destined for any endpoint at the same time.
I ended up replacing the most heavily used MoCA link with essentially this exact setup, including replacing the included 1gbps modules with 10gbps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2FbzCyiNr4 Besides being over 4x faster, I don’t need to deal with ensuring that latency sensitive wireless devices are connecting to the access point on the same side of the MoCA link as the other device.
I use MoCA at home, 1 GBit. It works pretty well, and I get almost full speed.
Every now and then I have some blip and have to power cycle on one of the coax-to-Ethernet connector, so that’s annoying. It’s like twice a year, so not a huge problem.
The biggest drawback is high latency. It’s milliseconds instead of microseconds in the house. I guess it’s buffering and framing, so maybe unavoidable.
I also do see some small packet loss. Less than WiFi, but not zero like you’d see from a proper Cat6 cable.
Maybe just but a pair of MoCA adapters to try in your setup?
Depending on how the cables have been put in, it can be fairly easy to replace an existing run by tying the new cable to the old one and pulling it through.
If you can reasonably easily get to the runs, put in the Ethernet beside the cable. It will be more reliable, future proof and cheaper. If it’s a major pain in the ass, MoCA will be fine.
MoCA is honestly really great. I’ve been running 4 MoCA nodes (2.0 and 2.5) in my house for 10 years now, over pretty shitty RG58 cabling and a bunch of splitters, quite long runs too, along with 1 gig DOCSIS 3.1 modem sharing the same cabling, and it has been absolutely bulletproof and reliable (especially compared to the powerline ethernet I was using before, which was absolutely terrible). Plenty of bandwidth for full duplex 1 gig - really the only downside compared to 1 gig ethernet is a few extra ms of latency.
Running ethernet cables everywhere would be very expensive in my situation, and while I considered it a few times to get more bandwidth between my main computer and the NAS which sits in my homelab in the basement, I still find it hard to justify the cost. If I were to pull the trigger now, I think I would go with fiber (or maybe both) - but I would have to replace so much stuff to get up to 10 gigs, all my homelab equipment is 1 gig only, server nics, NAS nics, switches, etc… it would not be cheap, beyond even just the cost of running the cables. So I am just sitting back and waiting to see how the technology evolves for now.
I certainly wouldn’t remove existing cables, that’s effort for little to no gain.
Surprisingly, there’s very little anymore that exposes the bandwidth difference between wireless and wired, and I run a media server at home.
I see the performance difference when copying files, but that’s about it.
I have multiple local devices streaming video (over wifi), while the devices that really need a wired connection get one via a single cable and small switches.
For example there’s a cat5e running to a 5 port gigabit switch behind the TV. So the TV gets a drop and anything else I may need there (Apple TV, dedicated media PC, etc) can use the switch.
Currently have 3 of these switches, with about 10 devices directly wired, but only 3 runs from the primary switch.
NAS sits next to my server, so they’re on the same switch with just patch cables. Pretty much everything else get wifi if it supports it.
You are probably fortunate enough to live in an area with not a lot of wireless interference, or don’t have a lot of wireless devices on your network, or all your devices are rather modern.
You can have good wireless…it won’t be as good as wired, never will or can be. By it’s very nature it has to be a shared medium, which by it’s very nature must be half duplex. Then there is the matter of sharing time with other stations on the same channel (and not necessarily on your network or under your control).
But for most things it can easily be “good enough”. Certainly wouldn’t run a server on wireless. Generally worse performance for realtime voice/video/gaming as well, because latency and jitter matter, and by having to share the channel with other stations, jitter is a fact of life.
And unsteady wireless is the #1 cause of VPN complaints in my office. By a very wide margin. Miraculously the problem always goes away as soon as they plug in.
But for casual web browsing, occasional large downloads (there’s a reason mobile apps don’t really show you how many B/s your transferring), streaming media…yeah, wireless can easily be good enough.
I have 53 nearby wireless networks. Lots of interference.
Channel scan charts just look like a bunch of color mixed together.
I used to modify my access points to use non-standard channels to help.
Still, other than copying media files, it’s fine.
In theory, yeah, modern WiFi and gigabit Ethernet are about the same speed. But WiFi will always be less reliable, the bandwidth is shared rather than per device, and if you have neighbors you will lose some to interference. Also, cat6 can get you to 10 gigabit, so is much more future proof.
True.
It really depends on a lot of “what ifs”.
I’ve been through the cabling thing in multiple places since 1996…
Today I run cable as-needed. If wi-fi gets it done, I’m not putting in the effort for cable.
If wifi isn’t getting it done, I’ll run a single cable for the location with issues, and drop in a gigabit switch (if needed).
The days of running cable “just in case” are in the past, for me.
