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Interested in moca - got a few questions (alien.top)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've got a new build in the UK. Rather annoyingly there is standard UK Aerial cable to various places in the house but not ethernet. This is stapled to the stud work so I can't use it to pull ethernet through.

Enter moca (I think)...

Each of the terminals has a separate line that all converge under the stairs (imagine a star-network topology).

Got a couple of questions:

I have a particular device that does not use much network < 1MB per day and doesn't require "high speed". Given this is an entirely separate line, am I ok use a cheaper, passive, 10/100 Moca 1 device here or are these fraught with problems?
For the other devices, I want as high speed/low ping as possible so will be using Moca 2.5. My question is, compared to ethernet, what am I not getting/what will be worse? (I was unable to get this answer from Google strangely - it just says its nearly-comparable to ethernet, but doesn't tell me what nearly means)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Higher MoCA standards are usually backwards compatible. If you have an older MoCA adapter, it will work. But then why not buy the latest model?
MoCA is actually a Ring Topology, even though your coax wiring are interconnected via Star Topology. It broadcasts signals across all “nodes”, and the node that needs the signal will accept and convert it back to digital for the device to consume. With that said, what you are missing is dedicated bandwidth in this case - if your main MoCA node connecting the router to the splitter is MoCA 2.5, then all your nodes within your topology will share 2.5 gbps bandwidth (more like a hub vs a switch).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (4 children)

It's cheaper, much, much, much cheaper. ~£15/pair vs. £130/pair.
Glad I asked these questions as I'm definitely missing a trick here. If I have 2 devices that I wish to connect to my network. 2 coax cables and 4 Moca devices (1 for each end of the coax), plugged into switch - how do these form a a ring network?
Presumably the conversion from signal to digital is the difference between Moca and Ethernet - is there a ping penalty to pay?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I missed answering question #2. So the Ring Topology happens when you have 1 MoCA adapter connected to the switch, then to a splitter, then all coax connected to that splitter, then to the corresponding MoCA adapter (nodes). This saves you money as you will need less MoCA adapters (i.e., for 2 nodes, you only need 3; for 3 nodes, you only need 4).

What you are planning to do is to use it as an ethernet alternative, which will be a 1:1 ethernet replacement. That will be expensive indeed, but will give you dedicated lines per node/device. If both MoCA adapters in the line are MoCA 2.5, then you have the full 2.5 gbps bandwidth at your disposal, if the device has a 2.5 NIC and your switch has 2.5 ports.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ah ok - I wasn't planning on using a splitter, I would just going to stick a device on each end.

So given this, it does make sense to go for the cheaper option as listed in [1] for one of the devices that doesn't need the bandwidth - right?

15ms ping is quite high isn't it? Unless what you are quoting is to an external server over internet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yup, up to you. 15ms is external.

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