[SOLVED] Moca's got me pulling my hair out. Need help with network setup.

[dandlewood]

Hey guys,
I'm working on project in a large home (11,000 Sq. Ft, built 1990) and have been pulling my hair out. We are using Deco M9's as the mesh network and are trying to use the existing coax as a backhaul. The connection for the coax is flaky, at best. I would love if anyone had some ideas on what I could be doing wrong or on how to improve the setup.

Setup:

Main cable line with PoE filter plugged into 16x coax splitter
15 coax runs all tied back into a 16x 1000 mhz splitter.
1 coax directly into the splitter with the main Moca adapter that is connected to the fiber router.
3 adapters in the house connected with 1-2500mhz splitters (the other side of the splitter is connected to cable boxes)


Even though the house is large, the setup seems simple enough that I shouldn't be having issues. The only thing I can think of at this point is that the 16x 1000mhz splitter isn't leaving enough bandwidth for Moca with the Comcast signal interfering. BUT.... Most people seem to say that 1000 mhz is plenty for Moca to do it's thing even with cable. Is there anything glaringly obvious I'm missing? There was a drop amp in between the main cable line and the splitter, but I eliminated that to reduce variables (and the Comcast seems to be running fine). Any advice is appreciated.

 

[popatim]

how old is the cable itself? You'd be surprised at how much degradation old corrosion covered ends can cause.

 

[SamirD]

Sounds like my parent's house (circa 1995).

I think there's two things potentially hurting you at this point--the fact that the cable is probably the basic rg59 with nearly no shielding, and that the splitter is causing issues.

The best way to test this is to check each leg individually using a moca adapter on each end and seeing what type of bandwidth you get via iperf. Then you know if particular segments are just not going to work with moca well and not run moca on those legs.

The one time I did this in one of the rooms where the stupid contractors forgot the ethernet cables in the crawl space, I discovered that the cable wire they terminated in the room also was never terminated. The contractors for these type of wiring jobs during new constructions are the absolute worst. I still have about 20 jacks to re-punch down because they left 2-3" of untwisted wire. If we didn't have some 400Mhz rated installed, I'm sure normal the 100Mhz wire available at that time wouldn't even get a link moreless 100Mbps, some even get 1gbps.

Another idea is that there may be telephone wire in each room that potentially could be twisted pair cat5 as it was common enough for contractors to use that for phone at that point in history. If so, you got a chance to potentially get gigabit working on it, even if it is daisy chained--just unchain each and have two jacks. This won't give you a home run from each place, but you will be able to still run ethernet equipment to every room.

 

[dandlewood]

Sounds like my parent's house (circa 1995).

I think there's two things potentially hurting you at this point--the fact that the cable is probably the basic rg59 with nearly no shielding, and that the splitter is causing issues.

The best way to test this is to check each leg individually using a moca adapter on each end and seeing what type of bandwidth you get via iperf. Then you know if particular segments are just not going to work with moca well and not run moca on those legs.

The one time I did this in one of the rooms where the stupid contractors forgot the ethernet cables in the crawl space, I discovered that the cable wire they terminated in the room also was never terminated. The contractors for these type of wiring jobs during new constructions are the absolute worst. I still have about 20 jacks to re-punch down because they left 2-3" of untwisted wire. If we didn't have some 400Mhz rated installed, I'm sure normal the 100Mhz wire available at that time wouldn't even get a link moreless 100Mbps, some even get 1gbps.

Another idea is that there may be telephone wire in each room that potentially could be twisted pair cat5 as it was common enough for contractors to use that for phone at that point in history. If so, you got a chance to potentially get gigabit working on it, even if it is daisy chained--just unchain each and have two jacks. This won't give you a home run from each place, but you will be able to still run ethernet equipment to every room.

Thank you both for replying. The cable is original with the house, so it's about 30 years old. I'll have to see what I can discover about the telephone wiring, thank you for that tip. I ordered a pair of 8 way 5-2300 mhz splitters (can't really find any 16 way splitters in that range) so I will try that setup on Monday. Do you think it would be better to plug the moca coax into one of the 8 way switches or merge it with the signal going to both splitters? My goal is to have Moca available in most rooms for hardline connections so I would like to ensure all rooms have good connectivity.

As a side note, I know this is a strange situation, but there is a single lan cable going from the router, through the basement, up the side of the wall and going into a bedroom on one extreme side of the home. It's possible to use this lan cable to provide the moca connection if that benefits it in some way. It doesn't logically make sense to me to have two entries into the network from the ISP, but I've been wrong before.

 

[kanewolf]

Thank you both for replying. The cable is original with the house, so it's about 30 years old. I'll have to see what I can discover about the telephone wiring, thank you for that tip. I ordered a pair of 8 way 5-2300 mhz splitters (can't really find any 16 way splitters in that range) so I will try that setup on Monday. Do you think it would be better to plug the moca coax into one of the 8 way switches or merge it with the signal going to both splitters? My goal is to have Moca available in most rooms for hardline connections so I would like to ensure all rooms have good connectivity.

As a side note, I know this is a strange situation, but there is a single lan cable going from the router, through the basement, up the side of the wall and going into a bedroom on one extreme side of the home. It's possible to use this lan cable to provide the moca connection if that benefits it in some way. It doesn't logically make sense to me to have two entries into the network from the ISP, but I've been wrong before.

A 16x splitter has a 14dB loss. Then you add another 3.5dB loss with the additional splitters. I would start by getting rid of as may splits as possible. Maybe you can pull one coax to allow TV and MOCA to be segregated.

 

[gggplaya]

MOCA for ethernet is generally 1150-1500 mhz. Splitters don't drop the connection right at 1000mhz, it's like a bell curve and attenuates the signal rapidly above 1000mhz. You may have enough of a signal at 1150mhz to get a flaky channel connection.

You need full range splitters, or you can use the splitter you have for TV if you get a 4 way full range splitter. Run your main cable line into the 5 way 5-2300mhz splitter. Run 1 cable to your router and Moca adapter(2 way full range splitter at the router). Run your 3 lines from the 5 way splitter to the 3 MOCA adapters in the house. Run the last cable from the 5 way splitter and feed it into the 16 way splitter for TV service. If tv signal is degraded, I would reduce it to a smaller splitter count to match the number of remaining outlets.

With everything being digital now, you're better off making every cable outlet MOCA compatible in case you need ethernet in each room. So your double 8 way splitter 5-2500mhz idea is probably the way to go.

For reference, D1 to D8 channel frequencies for MoCA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance

 

[dandlewood]

MOCA for ethernet is generally 1150-1500 mhz. Splitters don't drop the connection right at 1000mhz, it's like a bell curve and attenuates the signal rapidly above 1000mhz. You may have enough of a signal at 1150mhz to get a flaky channel connection.

You need full range splitters, or you can use the splitter you have for TV if you get a 4 way full range splitter. Run your main cable line into the 5 way 5-2300mhz splitter. Run 1 cable to your router and Moca adapter(2 way full range splitter at the router). Run your 3 lines from the 5 way splitter to the 3 MOCA adapters in the house. Run the last cable from the 5 way splitter and feed it into the 16 way splitter for TV service. If tv signal is degraded, I would reduce it to a smaller splitter count to match the number of remaining outlets.

With everything being digital now, you're better off making every cable outlet MOCA compatible in case you need ethernet in each room. So your double 8 way splitter 5-2500mhz idea is probably the way to go.

For reference, D1 to D8 channel frequencies for MoCA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance

Yup. Here's the resolution in full for anyone who may have similar issues:

Here is the map (all splitters 5-2500):

Cable Source ->PoE > 2 way splitter ->2 8x splitters

Swapping in the 5-2500 splitters (I used the BAMF splitters from amazon) stabilized my MOCA Connection. I have been monitoring it since yesterday via Deco's remote monitoring software and it has been rock solid.


Some notes:

1) Strangely enough, the house was wired with RG6, so I was able to eliminate RG59 as being part of the issue.

2) When I tried putting an amp between the PoE and the splitter my cable tv would not work (but MOCA did)

3) When installing a backhaul, don't forget to set your mesh nodes to AP instead of router. I skipped this step and it caused me such a headache.

Thank you all for the help, it has been much appreciated.

 

[SamirD]

Awesome! Thank you for the details on the working setup. Very cool you found rg6 in the walls.