Former and current cable TV users only question

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Former and current cable TV users only question - MoCA adapter query

lchiu7

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#319691 22-May-2025 16:25

Just wondering for any current or former cable TV users who still have existing coax in the house, have you considered reusing the coax for house ethernet cabling using adapters like this

https://www.amazon.com/goCoax-Adapter-Ethernet-Bandwidth-existing/dp/B09RB1QYR9?th=1

I stopped using cable TV and cable Internet a while ago but I still have the coax in the wall with an outlet next to my ONT and one behind my HiFi cabinet where I have my Google Chromecast and Kodi client, both connected using Powerline. That's okay but it does struggle when i try to stream 4K content from my Plex server with Dolby TrueHD and Atmos.

I don't want to run Cat 6 cables and if this works, it would solve the speed problem.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

wellygary

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#3375697 22-May-2025 16:30

How much speed do you need?

You can do 10Mbs over coax for pretty much not much cost with 10Base2, (its stone age tech)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE2

But seriously, see if you can use it as a draw cable for some Cat6, or just go Mesh??

antoniosk

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#3375770 22-May-2025 18:23

Interested in your results !

If you're not using the coax network anymore you should disconnect from the street and then just use as local trunking.

Ideally it would be one clean run end to end with no splitters or joins anywhere in the link (like mine). I don't use coax but I do have available if a need ever comes up

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Antoniosk

lchiu7

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#3375893 23-May-2025 09:41

wellygary:

How much speed do you need?

You can do 10Mbs over coax for pretty much not much cost with 10Base2, (its stone age tech)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE2

But seriously, see if you can use it as a draw cable for some Cat6, or just go Mesh??

Probably 50-100 so I can stream 4K content with full lossless audio.

Can't do Cat 6 as it's upstairs to downstairs and I would not be allowed to run cables :-(

But if it works over the coax, for US$100 that's a good deal. And it would be cheaper than running mesh as I don't need to upgrade my WiFi

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

michaelmurfy

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#3375895 23-May-2025 09:58

I've got family in Canada using MoCA to run an access point and it worked very well - they were getting their 500Mbit internet speeds over it (that's as far as I tested). I think it is similar to powerline tech.

One thing you'll need to do is disconnect the external cable leading into the house. I don't see any problems using it here but just like anything you're taking a punt on how well it may work for your usecase.

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richms

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#3375903 23-May-2025 10:57

It works very well, but do not try to share the coax with an antenna feed if you are still into legacy linear broadcasting.

If you can make it a single run by bypassing splitters etc that is the best case, as what moca does is just use high powers to brute force the signal thru splitters going the wrong way to overcome port isolation so if you can get a direct run they will run better.

Friend bought some back from the states to try out and they worked very very well. Had 2.5G ports, but he only has 1 gig gear and it easily achieves that and there isn't any noticeable latency or giant spikes in it like with powerline. probably a 30m run in total with part of it between buildings of stuff that was put in to send the UHF output of a sky box to a sleepout back in the day, and the only other cable under the driveway was a 2 pair phone cable and the power. Powerline was totally useless for that but the moca came thru perfectly.

Richard rich.ms

lchiu7

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#3376061 23-May-2025 15:36

richms:

It works very well, but do not try to share the coax with an antenna feed if you are still into legacy linear broadcasting.

If you can make it a single run by bypassing splitters etc that is the best case, as what moca does is just use high powers to brute force the signal thru splitters going the wrong way to overcome port isolation so if you can get a direct run they will run better.

Friend bought some back from the states to try out and they worked very very well. Had 2.5G ports, but he only has 1 gig gear and it easily achieves that and there isn't any noticeable latency or giant spikes in it like with powerline. probably a 30m run in total with part of it between buildings of stuff that was put in to send the UHF output of a sky box to a sleepout back in the day, and the only other cable under the driveway was a 2 pair phone cable and the power. Powerline was totally useless for that but the moca came thru perfectly.

From distant memory when I first odered cable TV TelstraClear (?) ran the coas down my driveway and then into my living room where I had the cable box. When I moved to cable Internet, I ddin't want my cable modem in the living room so they must have taken a tap off the cable where it comes into the house, upstairs to my office.

So there is connection from my office, where my servers are, and the living room where the entertainment system is. It seems I might have to go into the demarc box and disconnect the cable going up the street to stop sending signals back into the network. I should ask ONZ to do that.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.