[SOLVED] Setting Up Moca Using DSL but No Cable TV

[tesoro8282]

Hi Everyone,
I currently have DSL for internet in a house that doesn't have ethernet wired. The rooms do have coax outlets though, which are unused because I do not have cable TV. I've been managing so far using wifi, but would like to use wired connections to get better video streaming quality. I've tried using powerline adapters but speeds have been worse than my wifi. So I'm trying to get Moca setup instead. The issue I ran into is how the coax cables behind the walls are connected (or not). The cables from each room seem all run independently to a point outside the house - so if I have 6 coax outlets in the house, there are six open ended cables sticking out of the side of the house. I'm guessing the last owner used to have cable and when they stopped service, the technician just removed all the connectors.

Question is - what is the proper way to connect these together so that a moca adapter from one outlet in Room A can talk to another moca adapter connected to an outlet in Room B? Do I connect those 6 wires coming out of the house to a 6-way moca bi-directional splitter? In this case where I don't have cable TV, is the "IN" port left alone in the splitter? I do see an external coax wire coming out of the ground outside which I assume would be the incoming signal from Comcast which would feed into the splitter if I had service with them. I don't know enough about Moca's to know if just connecting to the "OUT"s on the splitter will work. I can provide more details on specific hardware but I think my question is more general coax wiring 101, so specifics won't yet matter. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[bill001g]

You could use a splitter to connect them all together but if you only have 2 rooms I would just use a simple barrel connector for 2 cables.

It depends what powerline units you purchased the newer av2- ones are much better than the older av200 and av500 units.

 

[tesoro8282]

Thanks. I'd like go with a larger splitter because if this works out with between two outlets, I'd like to roll it out to more coax outlets. If I want to expand to 4 outlets, is the right way to get a 4-way splitter and connect all 4 wires to the outputs of the splitter and leave the input not connected to anything?

I used what I thought was one of the fastest powerline adapters - Netgear PLP2000.

 

[bill001g]

I guess it depends on what you think is too slow they should easily keep up with DSL. Even the fastest powerline do not get over 200mbps. Moca is not a lot faster than that and like powerline the more units you run the slower the overall network is because they share the bandwidth.

 

[bdginmo]

Can you pull those 6 open ended cables inside the house? Using a splitter on the inside is going to be better than the outside.

Use a MoCA certified splitter. There are plenty of them available. Normal splitters will usually work but getting the certified ones guarantees quality frequency and port-to-port isolation characteristics. They also sell MoCA certified splitter/amp combos which might be necessary with 6 coax runs.

The goCoax MoCA adapters are getting great reviews. It's the only MoCA 2.5 adapter available to consumers right now. A quality coax run that isn't excessive in length can achieve over 900 mbps in the real world.

MoCA is usually a faster and more reliable option compared to powerline adapters so it's good that you are at least considering it.