Forget CAT5e/6 cabling, went the MOCA route and here is my experience (Long Post)

[gigahertz20]

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-MCAB1...5NMI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334456132&sr=8-1

I just wrote this review to put on Amazon so it's worded for there. I wanted to copy and paste it on here in case anybody was ever thinking of using MOCA adapters instead of wiring their home for CAT5e/6 which can be a real pain especially if all you're trying to do is stream or something else that doesn't require gigabit networking speeds.

I just setup my Netgear MOCA adapters 2 weeks ago and these Amazon reviews were so helpful that I had to leave my own review. Also, just as a note the company selling these through Amazon right now and the one I bought these adapters through is called "Adams Cable Equipment," they did a good job of packing and shipping these out to me. But just to let everybody know, they do charge a restocking fee of around 20% or so if you buy these and open them and find out they don't work with your home/apartment. Since these adapters can be iffy depending on the cable wiring/splitters/signal boosters a.k.a. amplifiers in your home, you better be sure they will work before you buy or just take the gamble.

I finally got these MOCA adapters to work but I couldn't get them to link to each other at first and thought the problem was most likely the signal booster (amplifier) that Comcast installed because of the poor signal our house receives. I couldn't open the Comcast cable box on the side of the house since they have it locked down with a special locking mechanism. So I called Comcast and they sent out a tech and I first asked him if he could just install a diplexer to route the signal around the amplifier and showed him the diagram that another poster on here made (link at the bottom of this review) but Comcast cable guys don't carry any of that stuff since it's considered Satellite gear and they also don't carry any splitters rated higher then 1000MHz. Anyways, he unlocked the cable box and unhooked the booster from the system and then went and made sure the speeds of our cable modem and TV picture was not affected. The signal was fine so we didn't even need the booster installed I guess.


I went and tried to link the MOCA adapters again but it still wouldn't work, I had one installed between my cable modem and router and the other one I was walking around the house with and plugged it into the coax outlet ports to see if the link light would come on but it wouldn't. The tech mentioned I should plug the adapter into a coax port that I know receives a cable connection. I figured all of the coax ports in the house were wired to receive a signal so it shouldn't matter, but I followed his advice and unplugged a TV that was connected to a coax port on the wall and then plugged in the MOCA box and the link light finally came on.

So I think the whole time I was plugging my 2nd MOCA adapter into open coax outlets in the house that were not wired to receive a signal. I probably didn't even need the signal amplifier to be removed, I talked to another tech and he mentioned the amplifiers Comcast installs are passive (not active) so MOCA adapters should still work with them. I'll never know now though since the amp is disconnected.

I've done several speed tests using LanSpeedTest (free utility) and get around 50 Mbit/s read and 70 Mbit/s write between my desktop (that is directly wired to my router) and the destination folder is one I picked on the USB hard drive that is connected to my WDTV Live Streaming media player that is located upstairs and is networked using MOCA (I also have a WDTV Live downstairs). I did some network file transfers and I was getting around 6MB/sec to 9MB/sec depending on the destination. I saw the faster speeds when I transferred files from my computer TO the USB hard drives attached to my media players. I know these MOCA adapters can get to around 10-12MB/sec and I'd like to get that speed but not sure what to do in order to get those. I tried changing the splitter in the cable box to one that goes to 2000MHz instead of 1000MHz but the speeds stayed the same.

Anyways, my whole purpose for buying these adapters was for streaming and they do that fine. Most of my movies are 720P/1080P 4-12GB h.264 mkvs and they stream fine except my older WDTV Live was having issues. For whatever reason, it cannot stream movies without issues from the USB hard drive attached to my upstairs WDTV Streamer (Newer Version). I replaced the old WDTV Live with the newer Streaming version and it works fine now. If you are reading this and wondering what the hell a WDTV Live Streamer is, there is a link below. If you have a large collection of media downloaded from torrents or usenet then it really is the easiest way to play back everything through your TV/Home Theater.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digita...4455239&sr=8-1


Anyways, to get back to my speeds I'm seeing. They might be lower because of the longer runs of coax cabling in the house I'm at. Or maybe the splitters Comcast installed, like I mentioned before I replaced the 1000MHz splitter in the cable box but that didn't matter, but most likely there are more splitters in the attic since that is where all the coax cable goes to from the cable box. So I went up there to look around but the stuffing they put up in the attic for insulation is several feet thick and it would be a huge pain to try and follow those coax cables to see if they are attached to any lower frequency 1000MHz splitters. My main goal was to get fast enough speeds for streaming and that works fine so I'm gonna leave the splitters alone. There are several reviews on here where people mentioned you have to replace your splitters for higher frequency ones to get these MOCA adapters to work but that wasn't my experience.



SUMMARY:


For those people that have a signal amplifier installed in their house by the cable company, it may or may not cause problems with these MOCA adapters. If you buy these adapters and the link LED light won't come on then most likely it's the amp and you either need to route the signal around it using diplexers or remove it.

If you are cable/satellite technology inclined and know that you have an amp in your house, then I would suggest you go to the Amazon post linked to below and read it, the guy made a diagram on how he connected diplexers to route the MOCA signal around the amp. Also, read through these Amazon reviews, there are tons of explanations on how people got these adapters to work with their setup. I read through every single one since I knew my house had an amplifier in it. If you aren't splitter/diplexer savvy then call your cable company and see if you can't get a free service call, tell them the amplifier they installed is preventing you from setting up a home network or something. I also made a post on Craigslist before I got these adapters asking for people who knew about this stuff in case I ran into trouble installing it, that way I could just hire them to do it. I got 2 people that responded that were familiar with doing this kind of stuff. But it turned out I didn't even need them since Comcast sent out a guy for free and I needed him anyways so that he could unlock the cable box on the side of my home.

Also, don't worry if your home has splitters in it that only go up to 1000MHz. These MOCA adapters will most likely still work fine even though the frequency they operate at is higher then that. I guess it depends on the splitters that were installed in your home, if they can pass that higher MOCA freq. or not. If they don't you can always just lower the frequency to something less then 1000MHz used by these MOCA adapters. Just read the user manual to figure out how to open the utility to access the interface and change the settings. I 'll upload pictures of that to the Amazon gallery. Just so you know, if you have to lower the frequency to something less then 1000MHz that means you'll have to change the setting to "All Pass" mode which disables the Coax out port on the device. So anything plugged into it will not receive a signal, you'll have to use a splitter.

Diplexer Post:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3KCL6T...tag=&linkCode=

Diplexer diagram:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2773/4300803761_f849850507_o.jpg

BTW I purchased 200Mbps and 500Mbps ethernet over powerline adapters from Netgear and Zyxel and the speeds were horrible compared to what I'm seeing with these MOCA adapters. So if you want to network stuff and want the fastest speeds possible, yet not have to worry about wiring your home with CAT5e/6 cabling, then MOCA adapters are your only option. The price for four of these adapters is one hundred fifty, so four 500Mbps powerline adapters are not only more expensive but also slower. So it's a no brainer to try these MOCA adapters out first if you have the patience to get them to work if they don't at first.

I also e-mailed Netgear to see if these devices have a newer firmware since I couldn't find anything on their site since these MOCA adapters are discontinued, here is a link to the product page with the user guides/firmware. Latest firmware version shows 1.56.24.02 and that is what all my devices showed.

http://support.netgear.com/app/products/model/a_id/2684



FUTURE OF MOCA:

If you go to the Wikipedia page for MOCA you'll see that the new MOCA 2.0 standard was passed in June of 2010 and will allow for much faster speeds. "MOCA 2.0 offers two performance modes, Basic and Enhanced, with 400 Mbit/s and 800 Mbit/s net throughputs (MAC), using 700 Mbit/s and 1.4 Gbit/s PHY rates, respectively."

So it will be interesting to see how new MOCA 2.0 products perform if they ever come out, I just hope companies don't abandon it. These Netgear MOCA adapters have been discontinued for awhile now and you can't really find any MOCA products on other sites, everything seems to be discontinued. I'm guessing companies don't want to have to deal with product support for these MOCA devices since if they don't work in your home, there is no easy fix. You can't tell your average consumer to install diplexers or remove the cable amplifier to their home, most people have no clue when it comes to that stuff.

It seems everybody wants to use powerline adapters since they are easy to install, so that's what companies are pushing now for networking besides wireless products. Powerline adapters are easy to install, just plug into your electrical outlet. But they can be slow and there are tons of factors that affect their performance even more so then MOCA, with powerline you have to worry about AFCI circuit breakers, washers, dryers or any other device that can cause electrical noise. Even an innocent cell phone charger can cause problems, read this if you are thinking about going the powerline networking route.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...ways-to-boost-powerline-network-speed?start=1

 

[gigahertz20]

Also, forgot to mention that smallnetbuilder has a review of these units and the conclusion they made is the reason I purchased them. The price mentioned in the review is no longer relevant since you can now buy 4 adapters for $150. Cheaper then buying four 500Mbps powerline adapters and MOCA is way better.

Conclusion:

"Simply put, MoCA is the only "alternative networking" technology that I have laid hands on that can reliably stream HD video—even 1080p. Of course, my limited test enviroment in no way presented a difficult test environment. But then again, my wireless environment is clean and so is my powerline. And neither of those technologies have been able to do what the NETGEAR MCA1001s did. Which makes me wonder why NETGEAR is the only company that is putting a MoCA product into retail? Is there some nasty secret that I haven't found? Or do companies fear that consumers will balk at the almost $200 price tag for a pair of MoCA adapters? Or is there more profit in selling wireless and powerline products?
I don't know the answers to those questions. But I do know this. If you need to get an HD capable Ethernet outlet somewhere, can't or don't want to run Ethernet, but have TV coax between the locations where your Ethernet is and where you need it to be, then go get a NETGEAR MCAB1001 kit. You may not like the price. But you'll love the performance."

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...tgear-moca-coax-ethernet-adapter-kit-reviewed

 

[imagoon]

MOCA is great if you don't have access to pull cat5/6. However I wired my entire house with cat5e for less than $150 in supplies. It really depends on what you have and need.

 

[wirednuts]

i dont see why it wouldnt work... coax cable destroys cat5/6 in terms of performance. actually there is no other type of copper cable that can perform as well as coax. i always though that in-wall networking should be coax and then all patch cords use cat5/6

 

[imagoon]

i dont see why it wouldnt work... coax cable destroys cat5/6 in terms of performance. actually there is no other type of copper cable that can perform as well as coax. i always though that in-wall networking should be coax and then all patch cords use cat5/6

MOCA can only use a certain band, so the speed is artificially limited to make it work with existing cable systems. The biggest issue with cable is the current system is all shared cable (like ethernet in 1980's was IE thicknet / thinnet) so you get the same issues had then with issues as collisions increase etc. Now if there was a MOCA switch and it was "unrestricted" (IE a dedicated cable) it would likely be way faster than existing 1 gig twisted pair but at this point MOCA is only hitting 1 gig on a shared medium where the phy costs are above the current cost of a 10gig twisted pair phy.

 

[crosshairs]

i dont see why it wouldnt work... coax cable destroys cat5/6 in terms of performance. actually there is no other type of copper cable that can perform as well as coax. i always though that in-wall networking should be coax and then all patch cords use cat5/6

I was under the impression that COAX maxed out at 100 Mbps..With my FIOS connection when I went from a 35/35 plan to a 150/50 plan they had to come out and run cat 6 from the ONT to my router as the COAX would not do anything over 100 Mbps

 

[imagoon]

I was under the impression that COAX maxed out at 100 Mbps..With my FIOS connection when I went from a 35/35 plan to a 150/50 plan they had to come out and run cat 6 from the ONT to my router as the COAX would not do anything over 100 Mbps

Current MOCA PHYs are doing 500mbps to a 1 gig.

 

[gigahertz20]

I was under the impression that COAX maxed out at 100 Mbps..With my FIOS connection when I went from a 35/35 plan to a 150/50 plan they had to come out and run cat 6 from the ONT to my router as the COAX would not do anything over 100 Mbps

Check out the new Moca 2.0 version as discussed at the bottom of my OP.

If you go to the Wikipedia page for MOCA you'll see that the new MOCA 2.0 standard was passed in June of 2010 and will allow for much faster speeds. "MOCA 2.0 offers two performance modes, Basic and Enhanced, with 400 Mbit/s and 800 Mbit/s net throughputs (MAC), using 700 Mbit/s and 1.4 Gbit/s PHY rates, respectively."

Also, the new standard extends the operating freqs. to 500 MHz through 1650 MHz.

http://www.mocalliance.org/MoCA_2/index.php

 

[Brovane]

i dont see why it wouldnt work... coax cable destroys cat5/6 in terms of performance. actually there is no other type of copper cable that can perform as well as coax. i always though that in-wall networking should be coax and then all patch cords use cat5/6

Not sure about that one considering Cat-6A you can do 10GBASE-T up to 100meter. If I was wiring a house I would run Cat-6A cabling all things considered.

 

[crosshairs]

Check out the new Moca 2.0 version as discussed at the bottom of my OP.

If you go to the Wikipedia page for MOCA you'll see that the new MOCA 2.0 standard was passed in June of 2010 and will allow for much faster speeds. "MOCA 2.0 offers two performance modes, Basic and Enhanced, with 400 Mbit/s and 800 Mbit/s net throughputs (MAC), using 700 Mbit/s and 1.4 Gbit/s PHY rates, respectively."

Also, the new standard extends the operating freqs. to 500 MHz through 1650 MHz.

http://www.mocalliance.org/MoCA_2/index.php

Good info, thanks for the link......Looks like I have some catching up to do...

 

[imagoon]

The biggest thing about MOCA is that it shares with cable typically, and is often not electrically compatible with SAT lines. Comcast at the moment in some areas uses up to around 950mhz so that drops 450 Mhz of range right off the range. Also most cable installs still use 1Ghz splitters. In some cases these might not be simple plug an go since to get 1650mhz working, you have to use at least 1750mhz splitters. Powered splitters also tend to wreck the signals. Another issue that I have seen pop up is the signal can go backwards out to the cable plant. I have seen postings where people can't get the adapters to sync and they finally determined that they were trying to connect to the neighbors unit that elected itself as the master. They shared a node on the cable endpoint.

Basically MOCA is like any other shared medium, "results will vary." Twisted pair is dedicated so the connections will often be more consistent.

 

[ScottMac]

Each cable type also has its own issues with regards to noise immunity, how well it handles different types of noise (common mode versus differential), and what installation requirements are necessary for maximum performance of the chosen application.

Coax, especially coax that hasn't been properly installed (correct grounding technique, for example) is subject to differential noise, which most networking gear is not equipped to handle.

UTP is more likely to propagate common mode noise, which is easily handled/filtered by most modern Ethernet transceivers.

 

[JackMDS]

The worst thing in technology is to be fan-boy of something without real understanding of the technology behind it and the implication of using it.

Scott's post above (as well as few remarks made by others) are few technology facts that speak for themselves.

You can use your regular car to brink home from Home Depot a bag of cement that you need for one time repair, but you are not going to use regular car if you are really in the construction business.

MOCA is better than Powerline Network, MOCA can be of practical use as an add on solution for some Home users.

However if One' s intention is to wire a house for network purposes using only coax and MOCA instead of using Network hardware is a little too far.

Keep in mind that No matter what the future is Based on Devices that are cable free.

Laptops, Tablets, Phones, etc. So No matter what we will need Wireless agents.

 

[gigahertz20]

The worst thing in technology is to be fan-boy of something without real understanding of the technology behind it and the implication of using it.

Scott's post above (as well as few remarks made by others) are few technology facts that speak for themselves.

You can use your regular car to brink home from Home Depot a bag of cement that you need for one time repair, but you are not going to use regular car if you are really in the construction business.

MOCA is better than Powerline Network, MOCA can be of practical use as an add on solution for some Home users.

However if One' s intention is to wire a house for network purposes using only coax and MOCA instead of using Network hardware is a little too far.

Keep in mind that No matter what the future is Based on Devices that are cable free.

Laptops, Tablets, Phones, etc. So No matter what we will need Wireless agents.

I have a feeling MOCA is dying out and will be gone out of the consumer market soon. The few companies that had MOCA products out have discontinued them mostly. So MOCA products will probably remain with cable companies that install them in customers homes when setting up whole home DVR solutions and other things of that nature.

The future is wireless, but I wonder if wireless will ever reach the speeds/reliability of a gigabit network. For larger homes where the wireless signal has to penetrate through all kinds of materials, I don't see how wireless will ever reach close to wired gigabit speeds unless you stand right next to the signal source.

Wireless 802.11ac looks to provide a nice boost though:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5292/80211ac-gigabit-wifi-primer

 

[ScottMac]

I have a feeling MOCA is dying out and will be gone out of the consumer market soon. The few companies that had MOCA products out have discontinued them mostly. So MOCA products will probably remain with cable companies that install them in customers homes when setting up whole home DVR solutions and other things of that nature.

The future is wireless, but I wonder if wireless will ever reach the speeds/reliability of a gigabit network. For larger homes where the wireless signal has to penetrate through all kinds of materials, I don't see how wireless will ever reach close to wired gigabit speeds unless you stand right next to the signal source.

Wireless 802.11ac looks to provide a nice boost though:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5292/80211ac-gigabit-wifi-primer

I believe it'll take a while to get rid of MOCA and HPNA (another networking protocol over coax or UTP). The reason I say that is because it's a very convenient way for a provider to network a home. CableTV has been around long enough that most homes in the US have some coax installed into popular living areas of the home.

A provider can use MOCA or HPNA to implement that existing coax to distribute networking back to their gateway device (AT&T U-verse uses HPNA, usually over coax, from their Residential Gateway to the set-top box, I believe Verizon uses MOCA, for example). It saves a great deal of tech time to NOT have to pull new cabling, though they frequently will if requested or the cable is in-use by another application (like satellite for foreign language programming).

By using an HPNA or MOCA bridge / transceiver, other Ethernet-based hosts can also communicate through the same line, but with a good chance of degradation of the (voice, video) signal, again depending on application and traffic generated.

 

[wirednuts]

Not sure about that one considering Cat-6A you can do 10GBASE-T up to 100meter. If I was wiring a house I would run Cat-6A cabling all things considered.

i just mean the physical medium itself. i dont know if there is networking gear that uses coax cable (prob in industrial applications) but as to the physical limits of what coax can do vs cat6a or any twisted pair cable is no contest. coax carries a larger signal further due to its supreme interference tolerances.

at least that is was i was told in the courses ive gone through... the only reason we use UTP cables for networking is cost and its flexibility/size (because networking gear is many times portable or moved around)

i would imagine if they could make moca for cable systems that are not being used by anything else you would see 10Gb speeds without issue

 

[gigahertz20]

I believe it'll take a while to get rid of MOCA and HPNA (another networking protocol over coax or UTP). The reason I say that is because it's a very convenient way for a provider to network a home. CableTV has been around long enough that most homes in the US have some coax installed into popular living areas of the home.

A provider can use MOCA or HPNA to implement that existing coax to distribute networking back to their gateway device (AT&T U-verse uses HPNA, usually over coax, from their Residential Gateway to the set-top box, I believe Verizon uses MOCA, for example). It saves a great deal of tech time to NOT have to pull new cabling, though they frequently will if requested or the cable is in-use by another application (like satellite for foreign language programming).

By using an HPNA or MOCA bridge / transceiver, other Ethernet-based hosts can also communicate through the same line, but with a good chance of degradation of the (voice, video) signal, again depending on application and traffic generated.

It'll stay with providers but I think it will disappear from the consumer market. Products like the Netgear MCAB1001 I bought and Actiontec adapters are all discontinued. I think they just lacked the sales, not enough people knew about them.

 

[imagoon]

i just mean the physical medium itself. i dont know if there is networking gear that uses coax cable (prob in industrial applications) but as to the physical limits of what coax can do vs cat6a or any twisted pair cable is no contest. coax carries a larger signal further due to its supreme interference tolerances.

at least that is was i was told in the courses ive gone through... the only reason we use UTP cables for networking is cost and its flexibility/size (because networking gear is many times portable or moved around)

i would imagine if they could make moca for cable systems that are not being used by anything else you would see 10Gb speeds without issue

CAT7 Class F and F.A are pretty close to "4 coax in a shielded sheath" offering 1.2ghz per pair. Granted RG6 is around 2ghz bandwidth for the same length, you have to remember that cat7 is a 4 pair cable offering 4.8ghz of total bandwidth.

MOCA takes the channelized approach due the way the cable systems work so it can't use all the bandwidth but doing a pure "mhz to mhz" the cat7 cable would beat RG-6.

 

[Modelworks]

Coax has plenty of bandwidth but the problem is MOCA doesn't make good use of what is available. MOCA frequencies were chosen so as best to not interfere with existing services which works good for a general approach but lacks the ability to make full use of the cable. What is needed is a system that can detect what frequencies are being used and then use all the remaining frequencies for data, the cost for that though is prohibitive so we have less than ideal speeds.

If I had no budget limit, fiber is what I would run in a home, it is future proof as nothing is likely to ever surpass the ability of fiber to carry data. There is a lot of work being done in fiber optics to lower the cost and make it so that consumers could even do self installs in the home without expensive equipment.

 

[Eug]

Note that MoCA is what is used here for whole home cable PVR boxes. And yeah, if your home is wired with 5-1000 MHz (or worse, 5-900 MHz) splitters, signal integrity may be a significant issue.

Plus if you already have cable service you should have a low pass filter on your line so that the MoCA signal doesn't bleed out into the neighbourhood. That could especially be a problem if you're in a apartment complex. In fact, when you get a whole home PVR set up here, you MUST get a tech truck roll to the house, so they can set the system up as appropriate (including the right splitters, etc.), and included in that setup are MoCA filters where needed.

P.S. Cable goes up to around 950 MHz. Or at least close to 900ish MHz around here.

 

[Ichinisan]

[Grammar_Nazi]

• "anyways"
• "higher then"
• "less then"
• "even more so then"
• "cheaper then"

[/Grammar_Nazi]

I'm still shaking.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I've been curious about MOCA since I heard our new cable boxes support it. I'd like to test and see if two cable boxes in different rooms can work as an ethernet bridge (connect one box to a router w/ DHCP and connect the other to an XBOX/PS3/media-streaming device).

I'll have to test it to find out if I'd need a MOCA adapter at all.

 

[gigahertz20]

[Grammar_Nazi]

• "anyways"
• "higher then"
• "less then"
• "even more so then"
• "cheaper then"

[/Grammar_Nazi]

I'm still shaking.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I've been curious about MOCA since I heard our new cable boxes support it. I'd like to test and see if two cable boxes in different rooms can work as an ethernet bridge (connect one box to a router w/ DHCP and connect the other to an XBOX/PS3/media-streaming device).

I'll have to test it to find out if I'd need a MOCA adapter at all.

English major? Haha, when I write reviews/forum posts I don't go for 100% grammar/spelling perfection. The only thing important to me is that people can understand what you're trying to say.

 

[drebo]

Anyway, thanks for the info. I've been curious about MOCA since I heard our new cable boxes support it. I'd like to test and see if two cable boxes in different rooms can work as an ethernet bridge (connect one box to a router w/ DHCP and connect the other to an XBOX/PS3/media-streaming device).

I'll have to test it to find out if I'd need a MOCA adapter at all.

Back when I had UVerse TV, the set-top boxes had built-in HPNA (a competing standard to MOCA) bridges. I was able to do just what you described without any requirement for additional equipment.

I'd bet your cable STBs do the same thing.

 

[Ichinisan]

Back when I had UVerse TV, the set-top boxes had built-in HPNA (a competing standard to MOCA) bridges. I was able to do just what you described without any requirement for additional equipment.

I'd bet your cable STBs do the same thing.

Yup. I knew about the U-Verse thing and I've heard statements from XBOX 360 owners that were amazed to find they could simply plug their XBOX 360 into the U-Verse converter box and go online.

I'm guessing it's not quite the same as the scenario I suggested.

With U-Verse, there is a device that acts as your home gateway. If I understand correctly, it connects to your home coax cable splitwork and the U-Verse set-top boxes get video over IP. Because the STB already uses an IP connection, it's trivial for engineers to add a functional ethernet jack.

With most cable converters, IP traffic would have to share the same cord with other types of transmissions (QAM cable). With U-Verse, it's all IP anyway. It would work even if you only had a single U-Verse set-top box.

If this works with the new cable boxes from Cisco/ScientificAtlanta, I'm sure it would require at least two converter boxes. One STB would connect to the XBOX 360 with a network cord, and one in another room would have a network cord going to the LAN port on a router or modem.

I don't know if I'll ever have a chance to test it. I don't use any converter at home. I just have an HDHomeRun Prime tuner (cableCARD) connected to my network and I use Windows Media Center.

 

[imagoon]

Yup. I knew about the U-Verse thing and I've heard statements from XBOX 360 owners that were amazed to find they could simply plug their XBOX 360 into the U-Verse converter box and go online.

I'm guessing it's not quite the same as the scenario I suggested.

With U-Verse, there is a device that acts as your home gateway. If I understand correctly, it connects to your home coax cable splitwork and the U-Verse set-top boxes get video over IP. Because the STB already uses an IP connection, it's trivial for engineers to add a functional ethernet jack.

With most cable converters, IP traffic would have to share the same cord with other types of transmissions (QAM cable). With U-Verse, it's all IP anyway. It would work even if you only had a single U-Verse set-top box.

If this works with the new cable boxes from Cisco/ScientificAtlanta, I'm sure it would require at least two converter boxes. One STB would connect to the XBOX 360 with a network cord, and one in another room would have a network cord going to the LAN port on a router or modem.

I don't know if I'll ever have a chance to test it. I don't use any converter at home. I just have an HDHomeRun Prime tuner (cableCARD) connected to my network and I use Windows Media Center.

MOCA Adapters are purely layer 1 / layer 2 devices. They "see each other" and build a bus network on the cable wire. Not unlike thinnet. There isn't any "testing" as long as they can connect to each other, they transfer data. So yes you get 1 and plug it in at your router, plug in others anywhere else on the network and you have functioning MOCA Ethernet to TP Ethernet.