D-Link finally ships the DXN-221 Coax Ethernet adapter
By Nilay Patel 
posted Apr 20th 2009 8:17PM
posted Apr 20th 2009 8:17PM
[Via HotHardware]
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I haven't seen COAX in years... Ah... man, those sweet days your computer actually had a terminator... :)
Are you serious or just stupid? Your talking about BNC. Either that or you don't have cable tv in your house. This is to use existing COAX (cable lines) to create a network instead of running cat5/6 cabling. Makes better sense as well.
Don't you mean "Are you joking or are you stupid?".... because if he was serious he would, by default, be stupid.
Well, I don't have a TV, so... yeah, I'm being serious. I haven't seen COAX in years. :)
Actually BNC is the connector type, and it is connected to coaxial cable, just as CAT6 is the cable type for ethernet - you don't call ethernet RJ45 do you?
Wow..
So, yeah - Ethernet does have a 10Mbit COAX option. It's was pretty useful back before switches, since you didn't need to buy a hub. It did have BNC connectors/T-adapters/Terminators, which meant if someone unplugged something the whole network went down. However, I believe the cable was 50-ohms, versus common home cable coax which is 75-ohms.
I remember trying to explain to someone why his COAX network was down when the terminator on the end had been removed. After going through the technical reasons, and getting a blank stares, I simply stated, "Your packets were leaking out all over the floor". It got the message across..
Damn, and i bought a dlink rooter yesterday to boost up my wireless signal. This would have been cool for under a 100cad? Imo.
Well, if it was a "rooter" you bought, then you'll be fine... ;)
anyone notice that the guy above me (locas) has been trying to troll all evening?
Just the fact you said "rooter" and that you're Canadian made my day.
If your rooter is from the 'roto' line, then you can re-purpose it.
Hmmm I like the idea for us folks that dont have the luxury of a cat5/6 wired house. I wonder what the max throughput is.
The D-Link site says it has a 10/100 RJ-45 port. Too bad, I was hoping for gigabit.
@AKAeric
Gigabit over coax. That right there is funny!
well the article was miss leading in that it says cat6 so based off that you could make the assumption that it'd handle gigabit
I'm sure there are a few applications where this would be useful, but I can't help but thinking the majority of people would be better served getting wireless N.
In theory the max bandwidth is something around 270Mbps, but I think the practical throughput of a 1.0 MoCA modem is around 100Mbps, and supposedly 175Mbps for MoCA 1.1. The only benchmark tests I could find for other MoCA to Ethernet bridges is close, around 90Mbps. So I don't think the 10/100 interface is a big problem really.
I have the new Netgear MoCA 1.1 model, I'm pulling full 100 mbps. It's almost indistinguishable from straight ethernet except 2-3 ms more latency.
I wonder could this replace my Verizon FIOS router???
If you have FIOS Tv - no. It needs the router to do some of the guide and on demand stuff. If you don't have FIOS Tv, then you MIGHT be able to forgo it. Doubt it though.
ok, I have the full package, TV, phone, Internet, but what does the verizon router do with the guide?
Same thing I was wondering. I freaking hate that Actiontec, and have a nice DGL-4100 lying about.
You most certainly DO NOT need the FIOS router for FIOS TV. Been using a Motorola NIM-100 moca device with my DIR-655 router for about 2.5 years now. Go to DSLREPORTS.com and read up there about how to either go the NIM route or actually use your actiontec router as a bridge.
@Maeztro - interesting... I'm going to read up. I have the crappy ass Westell 9100EM. Seemed like a pretty good router, runs some flavor of linux, but for SOME REASON, it will completely crash every time I connect to it over WiFi with my Windows Mobile phone. Like totally crash, can't even hit the admin page from any machine, have to reboot the router.
Actually, any router can use one of these boxes to interface with fios TV. You'll have to run an ethernet cable to the box on the outside of your house, called the ONT, and then call fios and ask them to "Reprovision your ONT for Ethernet". Make sure you release the IP from the actiontec or telus or whatever router they give you first. Plug the new router into the ethernet cable you ran, and if it get's an IP, you're good. Plug one of these D-Link dingus's into the router, hook up the coax, and you're baking brownies.
@johnny:
I'm a bit confused, I thought this goes into my coax from the ONT, then my replacement router goes into this thing. Am i doing it wrong?
Has anyone checked the specs? It can push upwards of 225Mbps, but connects to your network via 10/100 ethernet!
http://d-link.com/products/resource.asp?pid=668&rid=2817&sec=0
Can't they put a GIG-E port on this thing? Apple did something similar with their Airport "Extreme" (v1).
seriously, why talk about CAT6 when CAT3 will suffice.
I just pulled some CAT6 at one of our campuses because there was co-ax inplace at 10mbit and we needed 100mbit, but gigabit was preferable and at 50/router affordable too. But I guess this is more about inplace cable wiring and less about previous co-ax network installs.
p.s. 200 is 100 up and 100 down in case you're using a switch and not a hub.
That comment makes my head hurt just trying to decipher it.
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I'm not even going to comment on the run on sentences. Oh, wait, I just did...
Coax has a maximum throughput of 100.00 Mbps last I knew so technically yes like someone said before cat6 analogy is out of the question, although its backwards compatible to 100.00 mbps.
had a pair since friday running tests. things work very well in my 30 year old condo. getting really close to 100mbps. i was able to pull 2 40 gb bluray streams from an intel ss4200 with just a single drive.
Is this sorta like DOCSIS for your home? It is interesting to note that most modern cable splitters (circa when I rewired my house 5 years ago) only go up to 1 GHz, so I would only see traffic in the 800 Mhz - 1Ghz bands. Unless I misundertand how this works, I presume that the additional 500 MHz of bandwidth on my glorious coax would be dark... unless I wired the two devices together directly! :(
MAn thats too nice.....
What happens if you put one of these devices in one house and another in another house....would they be able to communicate with each other still?
if they're in range then i don't see a problem
Holy ****, is that entire post just one sentence?
no gigabit, no thank you.
My questions would be:
How easy is it to use, and what advantage does this have over the powerline to ethernet adapters already on the market?
It looks more expensive and doesn't offer a speed improvement over 200mbps Powerline adapters. It also wouldn't be any more convenient, there are alot more power sockets than vacant Coax ports.
I used to scoff at using such solutions in place of wi-fi, but I recently purchased a Belkin AV Powerline adapter for my parents home, which has dead spots and intermittent connections even with a long range router.
The Belkin Powerline Ethernet bridges are THE easiest networking solution I have ever used. No running cables, no network keys, no setup of any kind. Once you have one linked to your router it is literally plug and play for each additional socket. Need a ethernet port in your office? Plug in an adapter, connect your computer and your done.
No matter how you try to justify it, if you only need a hardline connection between two computers a powerline connector is always going to be easier and 99% of the time less expensive, than running an ethernet line.
I'm using Powerline AV between my computer room and another room in my house quite successfully, but when I tried it in a couple of other rooms it didn't work. Apparently it can't bridge across circuits or something. Which wouldn't be a problem for a MoCA network.
I just plugged in and went. it just worked. no config besides plugging in the cables and power.
I've had no luck with powerline in my house at all. seems to be wonky at best for me. panel issues or something. i never saw near the advertised speed. usually 60-80. not terrible. as I said connection would not work in all areas in my house...i tried every outlet with 1 other location.
I also have wireless issues. I'm genrally not a fan of home grade wireless devices. I use then because I'm cheap and I pay for it in the end. I would never put my main pc on a wireless connection. would you? ok for internet and email. when it comes to work stuff i want it wired. too much interference overall....too many homes around me use it. useless to push large video streams around for me on a consistent basis.
wired is better...always. running a cat 5/6 cable would be sucky. these adapters took 15 min.....maybe 15.
its kind of correct use of commas. A full stop wouldn't of gone astray in some parts
A lot of you are missing some key points regarding the MoCA standard, or at least their claims.
http://www.mocalliance.org/en/aboutus/faq.asp
The big deals are 1) >100 Mbps throughput at long distances through multiple splitters and 2) quality of service. Powerline has major problems when passing through the circuit breaker (i.e., not on the same circuit). It'll work, but not all that reliably and with significant throughput losses. It is also extremely susceptible to interference from high-draw appliances such as microwaves and the like. Wireless-N is good, but again highly susceptible to interference and, at least for me, quite erratic with regard to throughput. I also need to be very close (
I think I'm happy with the two MI424WR's (The routers Verizon uses) I bought on eBay for $60 to use coax in my home network.
d link products are soooooo ugly. they look cheap as fuck too.
Yeah but they're much more reliable than say....netgear. I must have gone through 3 or 4 access point before getting a DIR 655. That thing is solid as a rock.
Each ANALOG channel on your cable (channel 2 say) uses 6MHz of frequency spectrum. Using QAM 256 encoding you can get about 38Mbps in that amount of spectrum.
Cable plants are being deployed that operate at up to 1GHz today, though most use something less than that.
MoCA operates above 1GHz so it won't interfere with anything on your cable plant.
as crazy as this may sound....every complete thought is properly ended and restarted (it is possible to make one sentence run that long properly)
kudos....i guess...
and yes a period would have been nice, hell even some semi-colons but i can't knock the grammar, except the misspelled words
From the review at:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30797/52/
it appears this model does NOT include a passthru for the coax, unlike the Netgear and Motorola models, so you'll need to use a splitter with these units if you need the coax connected to a TV/STB as well.
the pass thru on this model works just fine btw..........might want to look at a picture.
I ran my own CAT-5 and I wish these would've been around so I wouldn't have had to fish cables through the attic and walls for 4 weekends in summer. For $75 a room that's a deal.
The return of 10-base 2!!!
I wonder how many of the people on here read that and had to go Google it.
Old Techies FTW!
Still cheaper to buy 2 motorola nim100 or used fios actiontec routers on ebay. Both can be found for under $50 each. nim100s are starting to dry upr though.
I think ATT U-Verse uses MoCA already in home.
The Gateway device has 4 Ethernet outputs but also has a Coax Output.
The STBs and DVR all have both Ethernet and Coax as well.
My installer chose to go CAT5/6 as I requested it, but he said you could use Coax as well.
Based on all that, I wonder if you hooked up only 1 of these DLink MoCA devices to the same Coax that your Gateway is also connected to, if you could connect to other devices in your home on the CAT5/6 side of the house. Basically use the Gateway as a bridge.
If so, a 2 pack from DLink would mean 2 computers could get on the net rather than acting as a bridge.
ATT UVerse uses HPNA which doesn't communicate with Moca but might coexist in the same network. Verizon uses Moca so you should be able to add a Dlink bridge to the existing network and have everything talk to each other, including the gateway. See
http://mocablog.net/faq/
That way you can use both Dlink adapters to connect PCs and use the gateway as the Moca router.
Are you kidding? Broadband coax has truckloads of throughput. Far more than twisted pair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem
If you had a wire with 1GHz bandwidth and about 40dB signal to noise, it'd have a possible bit rate of almost 6 gigabits.