Netgear quietly introduced us to its MCAB1001 MoCA Coax-Ethernet adapter (among
other things) at CES this year, but the curiously useful device has just now set itself up for pre-ordering. Put simply, this is
the device to get for those who both loathe wireless (and all those inexplicable dropouts) and can't pony up the courage / fundage / willpower to wire their home with Ethernet. By enabling users to extend Ethernet signals over existing in-wall coax cabling, you can easily pass along web content, Blu-ray / DVD material or practically any other digital signal over the coax network that's (hopefully) already established within your domicile's walls. Yeah, $229.99
is a bit pricey, but go price out a house full of Ethernet and then reevaluate.
[Thanks, Matt]
posted Jan 29th 2009 8:53AM
sounds expensive because you need more than one box....One box for each of your computers in each room. PLus the original box that you would distribute the signal from.
You don't need 1 box per networked device..
While I do not know how the initial units are being packaged, you will need atleast 2 boxes, 1 at the head end (your gateway, router, switch etc etc), and 1 at the other end of where ever you want the wires to go.
All the box is doing is ethernet over coax, so plug in a cheap 4 port switch at the second location, and connect the head end device to a switch or router, and your fine.
It would have been nice to have these when I was wiring my house, as I have FIOS with S3 Tivos. So every drop in my house is a COAX and ethernet drop, which was a pain to wire. As someone previously pointed out, wiring an existing house can take a crapton of drywall patching and painting, so for the price of these units, its not unreasonable (unless of course you do the wiring yourself, then I dont thing the netgear units are worth it).
On the other hand, if all anyone needs is a moca bridge, check ebay for the Motorola NIM 100 (those were the original MoCA bridges verizon used with the straight up wireless router they supplied, before switching to the Actiontec Routers which include the MoCA bridge)
Take a look at the box contents in the device specs. It comes with two converters, if I were to get this, that is all I would need. I have a basement though, so running ethernet was easy :)
If you need atleast two of these units to perform the task its made to do. Why are they selling them as just one unit, and not a bundled price.
The kit includes a pair of adapters.
I don't understand... I thought we moved AWAY from coax networking... this is not new...
You mean the cost of a roll of cat5, a bag of plugs, a crimping tool, and a wire tester?
Even with a keg of beer for the friends that help out, I think wiring Cat5 will still be cheaper.
Does that include the cost of snaking it through your walls so your house doesn't look like some sort of rebel outpost in the Fallout universe?
Yes, but I do have to admit that houses (and walls) in the Netherlands tend to be
made of concrete and there are pipes everywhere for power, TV and telephony.
All it takes is to switch the regular phone outlet with dual RJ45 ports and you're set.
(some lube might be required to force the wire through the pipe)
From experience, installing wiring in American houses involves getting on the ceiling,
weighting your wire with some lead and gently lowering it down the inside of the (dry)wall.
There is usually some drilling involved in the 2x4 at the top of the (dry)wall.
(be sure not to let teh drill go too far through the beam, because it will
catch onto the insulation and get stuck in the beam)
On the upside, air ducts are very convenient conductors for network wire
(just be sure to use outdoor-rated wiring).
I already paid Moira for the House Theme, why not use it.....its not like I can sell back or anything
Having wired my house for ethernet (and done it all properly with Cat6, Leviton wiring cabinet, in-wall wiring, and proper wall plates with keystone jacks) it's still cheaper than this gizmo, and a lot more flexible. If you want wired ethernet in your house (for speed or security), just run it yourself - it's not hard, just takes a little time.
http://www.joshuaochs.com/Home/The_House/Pages/Home_Wiring.html
"(some lube might be required to force the wire through the pipe)"
Heh.
What if you don't own your house? It is really expensive though... You could always go to to ebay and buy a few Motorola NIM 100's or a couple of Actiontec MI424WR FIOS routers and stick them together. That's what I'm using.
I still don't get it?
+1. Dumb article. Most people already have Cat5 wiring ALL THROUGHOUT their house since low-voltage lines (your telephone lines for instance) are almost all done using cat5 now. They just use one of the twisted pairs. All you have to do is un-do the jack plate and re-crimp it to use an RJ45 instead of an RJ11 plug and VOILA, your house is wired for Ethernet. Total cost is like $30 for a punch-down tool, and like $1 for the connector. Wow, that was hard.
@ Joshua Ochs... unless you're doing POE, you probably paid entirely too much for cat6 since you're only using it to carry a digital signal. All low-voltage in homes in the last 10 years or so use Cat5, so it's pretty silly to pay extra to have it wired for "ethernet" since it basically already is (just need RJ45 connectors)
paul @ to say that most people already have cat5 is stupid. Most phone cable isnt even up to cat3 cable. its not twisted at all, just phone cable. I doubt it would support 1megbit.
Or, just buy some old 10-base2 stuff off ebay. Yuk.
Ethernet does not use RJ45 - it's an 8P8C connector. There are different registered jacks that DO use that 8P8C but RJ45 uses different pin connections.
That said, costwise it may be cheaper to wire your house with CAT5/5e but this gives you ease of use, and you can take it with you if you move, such as from apartment to apartment until getting your own house.
@paul: Oh, how I wish my house had Cat5 when I started. :)
No, my house was a 25 year old wiring disaster. True story: When I moved in I needed to add a second phone line. I went out and looked at the NID on the back of the house, and to my horror saw the phone line come out of the box, go *over the roof* (as in, bare wire sitting on the shingles - in Chicago winters no less), and punch into the second floor on the front of the house. It then daisy-chained everywhere else using some of the crappiest wire I've ever seen.
I fear my electrical wiring - who uses pink, green, and yellow (and green is hot, not ground!)?
Meanwhile, I ran Cat6 instead of Cat5 because I wanted full gigabit speeds - Cat5E will only get you up into the 400Mbps range IIRC. If I didn't want the speed, I would have just stuck with wireless.
yea..cat5e is about twice the cost of quad shield rg6...? is thought does this little jewel play nice with other services like digital cable
How is this any different than having multiple modems.
The signaling standard is different. If it's anything like HPNA, which does the same thing but over the phone lines, you actually can use it without the internet involved. If you wanted to simply run a stand alone network in your house using the coax you could do it with this stuff. Cable modems wouldn't allow that...
But the important differences to most peopleare probably that you only lease/pay for a single IP from your BB provider, an you don't rent this box from your BB provider (as many people rent their cable modems).
I wonder if this thing could be used to defeat HDCP. Hmmmm....
Uhh.. What?
Do you even know what it is this does?
Great device, although I just finished running CAT6 along an interior wall. My whole house is wired with coax - every single room. Sheesh, figures this came out 3 weeks after wiring from one end of the house to the other for Ethernet.
Isn't coax inferior as a signal carrier to Ethernet?
I'm guessing that this would work with the FiOS MoCA connection too?
It is certified to work with existing FIOS installations.
I'd rather have real Ethernet than wonder if this thing is working right.
Is that an onion hanging from your belt?
or just spend $120 and buy a linksys or netgear Powerline adapters and use ur existing wall sockets. Mileage may vary tho.
I just bought the Linksys power-line adapters and couldn't be happier.
Not only does it support up to 200mbps, is easier than a toaster to use (absolutely no software to install/configure) - it even has a 128-bit encryption mode if you're creating a virtual wired network alongside others. - I got it at Sam's Club with a 1-port unit (to bridge Ethernet to Powerline) and a 4-port 'remote' switch for ~$160.
I'm running business-grade (G.711) VoIP from a distant home-office over it and it couldn't be better.
Great device, although I just finished running CAT6 along an interior
wall. My whole house is wired with coax - every single room. Sheesh,
figures this came out 3 weeks after wiring from one end of the house
to the other for Ethernet.
Isn't coax inferior as a signal carrier to Ethernet?
cable internet is run over coax isint it? look at how fast that is and tell me if that answers your question
now we just need to wire our homes with fiber and enjoy quad hd resolution porn on our gigatron tv set :P
Cable internet comes to your house over coax, but you aren't getting 100Mbps (at least, not in America...). 10/100 ethernet supports up to 100Mbps speeds, so at least in terms of downloading from the internet, you won't get a speed boost.
@ hurricane - measure the transfer rate at the node. :)
Cable internet is run over cable. Generally you share a single 6MHz band (about 38.8Mbps) with other people in your neighbourhood. There are of course a LOT of 6MHz bands, one for each analog channel, and one for about each 10 digital SD channels or 2-3 HD channels. Also DOCSIS 3.0 allows the cable company to do channel bonding with multiple 6MHz bands to support speeds of > 38Mbps.
So anyway, yes cable has a lot of bandwidth. But of course you can't use any of that with this device, as it is running on the same cable as your cable TV/internet. So MoCA uses bandwidth ABOVE that, which I assume means its stuff above 1GHz. Not sure of the details though.
Given that this thing is so big, its too bad they didn't put more than one Ethernet port on the thing. I have lots of applications where there are two devices (Tivo, Sling or Tivo, DVD) in the same room that both need network access.
... Umm am I missing something... 270 Mbps and a 10/100 Mbps RJ45?
yes you are missing something. 270mbps is the max theoretical raw throughput for the device but AT BEST all you'll get in practice is approximately 90Mbps for your IP traffic but more likely 30-60Mbps
Fast Ethernet is bi-directional, so it supports real throughput up to 200Mbps. And, most users aren't going to get 270 Mbps (unless you're living in a vacuum). 150 Mbps real-world is more like it. So Fast Ethernet is fine.
10base 2 ?
Having run ethernet through a circa 1800's 3-level townhouse,I can tell you it is not a task for the timid. If this works as promised, it might be a good-enough alternative for the average user.
Go low-rent style. Exterior quality ethernet out the window and over the roof to the other side. Add switches/routers where needed.
Oh... multiple connections to the same network doh!
Is this ment to work with 50Ohm terminated wires like 10Base2 used to or is this ment to reuse an existing 75Ohm unterminated TV cable installation?
It uses your existing cable wires.
I'm happy with my pair of MI-424WRs MoCA routers I got from eBay for $70 personally. They are refurbs of the routers Verizon uses for FiOS (which I ironically learned about while the FiOS tech was installing my internet completely independent of what he was doing).
I think this is funny. I remember networks used to run over coax, but then that wasn't good enough so it was all changed to cat5 cable.
If this is meant for older homes that don't want to add new wire, wouldn't the existing coax cable already be being used for cable TV/stelite etc?? Just a thought.
Why not just get a wireless box and add wireless to each machine, I think it would be cheaper. Most ISP's will give you a wireless router when you order service.
That's exactly the point. You can use your existing coax to get a maximum through put of 175mbs. Moca allows the cable to be split, unlike Ethernet which requires a switch at splitting points. Wireless is not a solution for everyone... brick, concrete, plaster walls with metal lath will severely limit your connection quality. Moca (not at these prices) makes a lot of sense if you have a good coax installation.
MoCA performance > Wireless performance
MoCA throughput > Wireless throughput
MoCA latency < Wireless latency
MoCA packet loss < Wireless packet loss
If you are interested in this device, do an eBay search for Motorola Nim 100, and you will find a much cheaper alternative. Also it won't affect most people, but there is a maximum of 16 devices allowed on a Moca 1.1 network.
I have three NIM 100s in my home. They work great and are available much cheaper than this solution. There is no support for the NIM 100s, but otherwise there is no downside.
I tried Powerline (Netgear HDXB101) and it didn't work for me. I couldn't even get it at higher speeds than wireless G. Powerline is highly dependent on the wiring in your house. I bought Powerline on Amazon and returned it. If you decide to try Powerline definitely buy it with a good return policy. I have a new house, so I was very surprised that it didn't work.
If NetGear can sell this at a reasonable price point MOCA is a great solution. It is not Gig-E, but it is more than adequate to stream HD around the house.
@Zingerhill
The other problem with Powerline, which I looked into also, is that all of the connections need to be on the same circuit breaker. This was a huge deal breaker for me.
Motorola devices use 1.0, not 1.1 standard. Will work on other networks, but you may have some TV interference issues. These have been tested and certified for use on all major DSL and cable networks.
Its just a point to point connection over the coax. Specs don't say if you can use multiple pairs of the boxes or not. I still say Gigabit FTW!
http://www.netgear.com/Products/PowerlineNetworking/Coax/MCAB1001.aspx
You can have up to 16 moca devices on your network. Fios users already have a Moca router on their network, and all they have to do is add a device like this, or a Motorola Nim 100 as I mentioned earlier. I'm not saying Gigabit isn't better, but if you already have coax at every connection point you need, this is a cool solution for most people.
You can add additional nodes by purchasing additional adapters. Or, you can add these adapters to your existing FIOS installation.
If you have U-Verse then every set-top box you have does the same thing this unit does. If you use the coax connector on the back of the box and not the Ethernet port you can connect your PC directly to Ethernet port of the set-top box and viola! I have a switch connected to my set-top that connects to my PS3 and XBox360.
I wonder how this compares to powerline networking... I tried an Actiontec powerline adapter at home. It didn't work at all- apparently every wall-wart power adapter and compact fluorescent light bulb causes interference over the powerline, reducing the stability of the signal.
For those who keep asking, this is useful for those people who don't get a good wireless signal throughout their house, and only have one modem point.
Just mentioning coax and Ethernet is giving me a 10base2 flashback. T-junctions! Terminators! Co-workers kicking the coax underneath their desks! AAAAAAAAaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!
Let's see... weren't we doing coaxial cable Ethernet 18-20 yrs ago? Doesn't anyone remember how annoying that was? Bad connectors. Terminators. Expensive, crappy cable. Flaky network cards. People moving computers off the network w/o telling anyone & bringing down the entire network b/c there was no terminator placed on the empty connection. Spending hours looking for an unterminated connector b/c someone saw fit to move that terminator elsewhere.
I know this isn't the same thing, but what is so bad about cat5, 5e, 6 or 7 or even wireless. I just LOVE wireless. Oh, yeah, & I have pulled cabling thru 150 yr old buildings & I'd still prefer that over the old coax.
@ CyberRanger,
You read my mind. I was thinking "Welcome back to 1982!" The first network I worked on was a Datapoint Arcnet. What's next? Thin ethernet? Seems like a smartly designed coax to rj45 balun would be a more elegant alternative, although maybe not cheaper depending on how many are needed.
I wonder if this could be used to connect between houses. If you wanted a run of over 100 meters or whatever is the limit for cat5/6. I did run conduit in our new house here is a blog I have been writing about it: http://homeanddollars.blogspot.com/2008/10/this-is-example-of-low-voltage-conduit.html
I realized that I didn't put in the system diagram of the house that I had put together, so I will have to throw that up tonight.
I have to agree with the other posters. Wiring CAT5 isn't all that hard, or expensive. Yes, if you decide you want a jack in every room of the house, two in some, then it can be a big undertaking. But if you already know the 4 or 5 locations you need it, it's pretty easy, at least in a woodframe house. My biggest problem was finding a direct route from the basement to the attic. I ended up following the AC piping which runs perfectly vertical. I bought my cable and jacks from deepsurplus.com whom I highly recommend. Total I put in 5 jacks on 3 floors for about $100 bucks.
The web site for the Netgear MCAB1001 states under features:
Not compatible with satellite television installations (e.g., DIRECTV®, DISH Network)
Any idea what this statement means? If I connect the output of a DirecTV receiver to a video capture card in a PC, can I not stream the video to another computer over coax using the Netgear device?
This system works like DSL on UTP. The cable signal (voice) signal is running at one frequency on the coax while the data runs simultaneously at a higher frequency. Satellite service runs at a different frequency than cable and it also runs power on the line. Either of which may interfere with this products data stream.
I'm pretty sure they mean you can't use this on the coax that runs between the actual sat dish and the receiver. However some also do have some bipass pieces that work with secondary receivers in the home and run along the normal in home coax. So if you have just one receiver in your house your probably fine. Not sure if the Vip722 that pushes into the original coax for the second display causes a problem or not. I have two tv's running off the second display on my 722 without issue however I wouldn't try to install something like this on the line as well.
DirecTV from Satalite Dish to Reciever goes over Coax.
So, no, you could not go out of your computer through coax to a DirecTV Reciever to a DirecTV MultiSwtich to a DirecTV Reciever to a Netgear device.
I thought it was a picture of an AeroBed.
For that price, I would have liked a mode to run at higher speed over an unused cable. You should be able to push Gigabit speeds in-house. (Each analog cable channel is equivalent to around 10 digital streams at over 3Mbps. Granted, QAM equipment at the cable co is more sophisticated than this, but we're also not as concerned about boundaries between channels and even if you allocated space for forward error-correction, you should still have plenty of bandwidth.)
$229.99!? LOL!!! That price is f'n ridiculous!
2 Motorola NIM 100's (eBay) + 1 Actiontec MI424WR MoCA router (eBay or elsewhere) = less than $100 total.
For those who have FIOS, all you need are the NIM 100 adapters! I bought a 3-pack of NIM 100's on eBay for less than $100, and I added a $20 gigabit switch to each room -- done! :)
Screw Netgear.
Don't install this, it will mean its the year 1995.
Is there a way to use the regular copper phone lines (versus coax) in your house like this as an ethernet bridge?