Do you need help changing coax cables to a home MoCA network?
Do you need help changing coax cables to a home MoCA network?
Hey everyone, I'm trying to make my house network stronger. My goal is to wire almost every room hardwired, but without digging new holes in the walls right now. My house was built back in 2006, so I thought it would be easy like just changing phone lines. But no, the builders used old Cat 3 cable for phones (I guess they didn't know what modern standards looked like).
My second best idea is to use the existing coaxial cables and turn them into data cables using MoCA. I'm not really sure how this stuff works or why it's done that way, but I need some help from people here who are experts in Sub. Also, I don't have cable TV right now, so I won't start one soon. But I do have Spectrum internet (I plan to switch to local fiber later when they build).
Here is how my current setup looks: Spectrum Coax comes into the outside of the house. A splitter splits it: 6 DB OUT and 2.8 DB OUT. The 6 DB runs straight up to an upstairs bedroom, which has a coax faceplate. The 2.8 goes down to the basement where an 8-way amplifier is sitting. From there, everything spreads out to different rooms via cables coming from the wall.
My plan is: Cut off the original splitter so the main line goes into the basement. Put my ISP modem on the main coax line and set the WAN port for it. Then run a wire from the router's LAN port all the way up through an MoCA adapter that connects to a new 4-way splitter inside the house. Finally, put regular switches or devices in those rooms connected by the MoCA adapters.
Will this work? Is there another way I should set everything up? Can I just plug a cable into the 6 DB OUT part of the old splitter and stop using it? Here are some pictures and simple diagrams to help explain... https://imgur.com/a/eNzS78e
I wasn't entirely sure about your diagrams until I saw them, but your final plan will be an optimal Moca install. Your Moca devices will share the total bandwidth, which shouldn't be too much if you buy newer units based on the 2.5 Moca standard. It's best to cap off any unused coax connections, especially outside where water and dirt can get in. Since the splitter now only has two wires, you could also just replace it with a simple barrel connector instead.
As long as every MOCA gateway connects to the same splitter, which must support MOCA, you should do fine. Just keep in mind that MOCA works only one device at a time and its speed is shared among all devices. It's basically inside regular Ethernet but still a great choice if running real wires isn't possible.