Question New FIOS install Moca 2.0 vs Asus AX Mesh

[Insomniator]

Jist had fios gig installed in a new townhouse we are renting. Unfortunately the tech said the router had to stay in the basement near the ONT rather than in my office (2 floors up). He mentioned the phone lines were split somewhere and routing a wire in the walls would be difficult (esp since I'd have to get permission from landlord) So as expected my wifi is very weak on the third floor.

I just picked up an asus ax pci network adapter and ax6100 two pack ax router. Havent tried yet, but I expect it to help with wifi throughout the house.

Just read about moca 2.0 however, my office does have a coax jack. Could I simply use that for my office and get near gig wired speed? Or attach a wireless AP to the moca and provide better wifi on the whole floor?

 

[SamirD]

Moca rocks. You'll get full gigabit speeds. And as long as there aren't issues with splitters and whatnot, installation is literally plug and play in 5 minutes like powerline. And moca is also multipoint if you have the right splitters so you can add another ap on the 2nd floor too if you have a coax jack there.

 

[Insomniator]

Moca rocks. You'll get full gigabit speeds. And as long as there aren't issues with splitters and whatnot, installation is literally plug and play in 5 minutes like powerline. And moca is also multipoint if you have the right splitters so you can add another ap on the 2nd floor too if you have a coax jack there.

So it really plugs into any available coax and turns it into ethernet? Are most coax ports connected in a house (this house did have FIOS before, just not gig)?

What do you mean the right splitters? Could i use an AP with ethernet ports (any router with AP mode for example) to provide a wired connection and wireless range in my office?

I'm a little skeptical of all of this because the verizon tech didnt suggest any of this -- he told me to get an orbi/mesh. MOCA sounds way easier though.

 

[SamirD]

Yep, sounds like magic, doesn't it? It's actually quite sophisticated how it does it, but the ones I have literally plugged in and worked just like my powerline adapters. And I used iperf to test the bandwidth and it was a solid gigabit no differently than an ethernet cable. I was a believer at that point.

So usually coax is a star distribution system where a single coax comes into a house and then enters a splitter where it then goes to each coax outlet in the rooms. (This is how cable used to be distributed so it uses the same wiring essentially.)

The two problem you run into with this, one minor, one more major is the quality of wire, which if too old will degrade the speeds, and the splitters which if not designed to pass moca signals will stop them. There's not much of a fix for the wiring, but you can definitely get more than 100Mbps ethernet even over older wire, and the splitter problem is an easy fix too if you have access to the splitter. This may be the only issue I could think of in your situation, but since it is a townhouse it should be fairly accessible wherever the cable wire comes to the house.

So once you have the right coax splitter, you can literally put a moca adapter at your coax outlet in the basement and then any other place in the house that has a coax outlet and you'll have full gigabit there (in ideal circumstances, but usually it's a full gig). Then you can use it just like regular ethernet since you are basically connecting to your normal lan. So the tl;dr answer to your question about the AP is yes, lol.

Techs know their job, but their job isn't IT--that's why those of us that have had to try to put ethernet in various odd places know of all these different tricks. There's actually 4 different ways that I've used to get ethernet everywhere--moca, powerline, vdsl extender (works over phone lines), and wireless. Each has its pros and cons, but moca has the least in terms of performance impact and ease of installation.

 

[Insomniator]

Yep, sounds like magic, doesn't it? It's actually quite sophisticated how it does it, but the ones I have literally plugged in and worked just like my powerline adapters. And I used iperf to test the bandwidth and it was a solid gigabit no differently than an ethernet cable. I was a believer at that point.

So usually coax is a star distribution system where a single coax comes into a house and then enters a splitter where it then goes to each coax outlet in the rooms. (This is how cable used to be distributed so it uses the same wiring essentially.)

The two problem you run into with this, one minor, one more major is the quality of wire, which if too old will degrade the speeds, and the splitters which if not designed to pass moca signals will stop them. There's not much of a fix for the wiring, but you can definitely get more than 100Mbps ethernet even over older wire, and the splitter problem is an easy fix too if you have access to the splitter. This may be the only issue I could think of in your situation, but since it is a townhouse it should be fairly accessible wherever the cable wire comes to the house.

So once you have the right coax splitter, you can literally put a moca adapter at your coax outlet in the basement and then any other place in the house that has a coax outlet and you'll have full gigabit there (in ideal circumstances, but usually it's a full gig). Then you can use it just like regular ethernet since you are basically connecting to your normal lan. So the tl;dr answer to your question about the AP is yes, lol.

Techs know their job, but their job isn't IT--that's why those of us that have had to try to put ethernet in various odd places know of all these different tricks. There's actually 4 different ways that I've used to get ethernet everywhere--moca, powerline, vdsl extender (works over phone lines), and wireless. Each has its pros and cons, but moca has the least in terms of performance impact and ease of installation.

Good stuff! So just the new AX router and AX adapter card got my office desktop up to 300/300. Pretty good results wifi-wise - I think a single router would cover my whole house for wifi. The Verizon g1100 was getting 15/15, no joke.

I think I can just use moca for my office and a single new router for wifi everywhere else. Considering returning the AX6100 2 pack ($370) and buying a single pack ($230).

Oddly, or maybe not, the FIOS tv guide and on demand still work -- i guess because my fios router is still plugged into the coax. I just unplugged the ethernet from it and connected it to the Asus router. The common instructions for using your own router with FIOS assume its connected via just Ethernet, or just coax but not both.

 

[Insomniator]

Scratch that, on demand does not work and the verizon router went red. So I'll probably get a moca 2 pack, plug it into the ethernet coming out of the ONT, connect the router and completely ditch the G1100.

Overall an interesting experience!

 

[SamirD]

Nice results over wifi for sure!

You know I completely forgot about the fact that the verizon boxes already have moca built-in. And you can just pick up a second g1100 (verizon or frontier branded) and get 600Mbps moca between it and your existing one. With a g1100 in the office acting as just a moca endpoint with an ap and switch, I think you might be able to get enough signal for wifi as well.

You won't be able to ditch the g1100 or you will lose your on demend. But that does open up some possibilities for easy ethernet over moca if the on demand boxes are connected via coax--are they?

 

[VirtualLarry]

The "New Verizon FIOS Home Router" (G3100) has "Moca 2.5", which claims, I believe, to support 2.5Gb MOCA connections. I ordered one, and have yet to hook it up. I have no need for MOCA (I don't think). At least, not until I hook up my VZ STB for TV, which has been waiting patiently for months for me to pick up another TV for the bedroom. (Last one finally died after a number of years.)

IOW, don't get a G1100, get a G3100.

FiOS Home Router (G3100) & Home Wi-Fi Extender (E3200) - Verizon FiOS | DSLReports Forums

Forum discussion: The next gen of FiOS Routers/Extenders are coming soon. Completely new design & features. Support for WiFi 6 and MoCA 2.5. Admin UI is redesigned as well. Rather than me posting all the details, feel free to read about them here: https://fccid.io/RA

www.dslreports.com

 

[Insomniator]

The "New Verizon FIOS Home Router" (G3100) has "Moca 2.5", which claims, I believe, to support 2.5Gb MOCA connections. I ordered one, and have yet to hook it up. I have no need for MOCA (I don't think). At least, not until I hook up my VZ STB for TV, which has been waiting patiently for months for me to pick up another TV for the bedroom. (Last one finally died after a number of years.)

IOW, don't get a G1100, get a G3100.

FiOS Home Router (G3100) & Home Wi-Fi Extender (E3200) - Verizon FiOS | DSLReports Forums

Forum discussion: The next gen of FiOS Routers/Extenders are coming soon. Completely new design & features. Support for WiFi 6 and MoCA 2.5. Admin UI is redesigned as well. Rather than me posting all the details, feel free to read about them here: https://fccid.io/RA

www.dslreports.com

Wow, looks like a lot of options. Had no idea verizon already has an AX router, and $300 isn't too bad compared to the competition assuming its any good. Have a lot of things to test out!

Nice results over wifi for sure!

You know I completely forgot about the fact that the verizon boxes already have moca built-in. And you can just pick up a second g1100 (verizon or frontier branded) and get 600Mbps moca between it and your existing one. With a g1100 in the office acting as just a moca endpoint with an ap and switch, I think you might be able to get enough signal for wifi as well.

You won't be able to ditch the g1100 or you will lose your on demend. But that does open up some possibilities for easy ethernet over moca if the on demand boxes are connected via coax--are they?

If I used a moca adapter at both ends I could get rid of the G1100 right and still have on demand right? Its just the moca capability that provides those features? Need the bonded 2.0 to get gig speed.

 

[mnewsham]

Its just the moca capability that provides those features? Need the bonded 2.0 to get gig speed.

I believe it uses some management protocol to properly open up the proper ports on the router for on-demand and other set-top box internet functions. The G1100 or G3100 should do this automatically.

And yes, you need bonded MoCA 2.0 or MoCA 2.5 adapters for gigabit speeds. Though MoCA 2.5 adapters aren't the easiest thing in the world to find. https://www.hdtvsupply.com/actiontec-ecb6250.html

 

[Insomniator]

So I got the adapters and they work in every single jack in the house except for my office and room next to it. I'm assuming there must be an old or bad splitter for just these two rooms, which is totally ****ing me right now. Even the master bedroom also on the top floor works.

Have tried messing with the main splitter in the basement but no luck. TV doesn't play when i switch a STB to these either, so I guess I could try and see if Verizon will send a tech out here. I don't know how he'd find/figure out the bad splitter without ripping into walls though, defeating the whole purpose.

 

[Nasdamus]

Give this link a read. It talks about using the adapters to setup a moca wan as well keeping your stbs in use

Bonded MoCA 2.0 with Gigabit plan and STBs

I recently switched to a 100/100 FIOS plan to Gigabit. While the ONT is in my garage, all of my coax and Ethernet connections are home-run to the basement. Under the 100/100 plan, the WAN connection to the ONT was delivered over my home-run coax line from the garage to the basement. A Verizon...

forums.verizon.com

 

[Insomniator]

Give this link a read. It talks about using the adapters to setup a moca wan as well keeping your stbs in use

Bonded MoCA 2.0 with Gigabit plan and STBs

I recently switched to a 100/100 FIOS plan to Gigabit. While the ONT is in my garage, all of my coax and Ethernet connections are home-run to the basement. Under the 100/100 plan, the WAN connection to the ONT was delivered over my home-run coax line from the garage to the basement. A Verizon...

forums.verizon.com

Thanks, I will definitely put that to use when ready. Unfortunately right now the only two rooms I could use this in are dark as far as coax goes. Both the adapters alone and the STB's alone do not get a signal. These rooms are split off somewhere... hopefully somewhere accessbily for a a verizon tech to figure out.

 

[Insomniator]

Happy ending! Second Verizon tech came out and figured out how to get a live cosx line to my office. He was curious about the adapters and wanted to see them work so with both active I'm hitting 700/700. Just the single with the g1100 was 450, essentially maxed.

So off to return the asus equipment, but I gotta say despite some bad reviews for wifi 6 and AI mesh, thay essentially totally got me 300/300 wirelessly with a full signal and barely any setup time.

My end result will be a new verizon G3100 (thx larry) for gig moca and strong wifi + a single adapter in my office.

 

[Dug]

Happy ending! Second Verizon tech came out and figured out how to get a live cosx line to my office. He was curious about the adapters and wanted to see them work so with both active I'm hitting 700/700. Just the single with the g1100 was 450, essentially maxed.

So off to return the asus equipment, but I gotta say despite some bad reviews for wifi 6 and AI mesh, thay essentially totally got me 300/300 wirelessly with a full signal and barely any setup time.

My end result will be a new verizon G3100 (thx larry) for gig moca and strong wifi + a single adapter in my office.

You are lucky you got a tech that knew what was needed. As much as SamirD thinks it's so simple, it's not. Especially when you add in cable modem, cable STB, On demand, and dvr to other stb's, all on coax. Not to mention that most people need an stb, router, and modem from one coax outlet. The problem is splitting and where to do it and on which device, and which one will filter what you need. You may have cable from outlet to modem, then out from modem to stb, stb may have coax out but can't route frequency for MoCA networking.

The other problem I don't think SamirD knows about is the frequency needed between different vendors. With some you have to configure your MoCA network for PC's to be completely different from the MoCA network used by stb, dvr, etc., or you will get no signal. Glad it's working for you though.

And last, because MoCA acts like a hub and not a switch your data can go right back out your house. If you don't have a filter at entry point, then you are causing issues for other people.

You also should terminate any coax ports on any splitter not in use.

 

[VirtualLarry]

And last, because MoCA acts like a hub and not a switch your data can go right back out your house. If you don't have a filter at entry point, then you are causing issues for other people.

I think that this is OFTEN overlooked. Look for "whole house MOCA filter", I think it's called. At least, there should be one at the egress/ingress point.

 

[Insomniator]

From what I'm reading online the MOCA signal does not get back out past the Verizon ONT?

 

[VirtualLarry]

From what I'm reading online the MOCA signal does not get back out past the Verizon ONT?

But if the MOCA signal, is coupled onto the home's COAX "lan", then it could leak out over the cable connection, if any, to neighboring houses.

 

[Insomniator]

So the adapter I bought did come with a filter, where would I place that? I dont have access to the cable coming from outside into the Verizon ONT, so it would have to go between the ONT and the splitter that goes throughout the house.

Though, everything i'm reading including the instructions with the adapter says this isn't required at all for Verizon.

 

[mnewsham]

I don't see how it would matter with FiOS, the connection off-property is fiber, the ONT converts the fiber to ethernet WAN and coax for TV. Introducing a MoCA LAN connection shouldn't have ANY ability to go beyond your own house.

 

[VirtualLarry]

No, if you also had cable service, you would put the MOCA filter between the cable companies' ingress COAX and your COAX "lan".