MoCa over long distance. Extenders? Repeaters?

CaptainEven

Honorable
Jul 20, 2015
10
0
10,510
Can someone recommend a reliable MoCa adapter? As well what are the requirements/limitations for coax cable length? Would I be able to add a MoCa adaptor from the switch (attached to the cable modem) and then get a 1000ft long coax cable to a MoCa adapter on the other end where I would plug in a UniFi AP? Would I need a MoCa adapter every 300ft or so? What is the benefit of MoCa over ethernet with a switch every 300 ft?
 
Solution
If you want to run cable, I would really consider using a single pair of adapters like THIS type. I've used them over 1000ft. and got near 100Mbps with no equipment other than the adapter at each end of the run and it only requires a single pair, although I usually use outdoor CAT5e as it is much tougher in the elements. Since you were looking at MOCA you were not needing gigabit anyway.

However, if you have direct line of sight and can mount a pair of outdoor APs, they are slightly cheaper like a pair of THESE. I've used them over a mile and a half with great results.

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
The recommended limit for MOCA is 300 feet.

Over that distance your signal loss becomes too high, as it varies directly with the distance of the coaxial cable. To cover 1000 feet you need either fiber, amplified twisted pair devices, or a pair of directional APs (like Ubiquiti AirMax).

What type of environment, building to building?
 
Both moca and Ethernet have a max distance of around 300ft, I would advise repeating at 250ft.

MoCa is good when there is coax cable already in place, and you don't have the means to run new Ethernet cabling.
Since your infrastructure is not in place then there is no benefit to using MoCa as it increases cost every step of the way and has less bandwidth.

What I would advise is run cat6 cable, with a gigabit switch every 250ft (a standard gigabit switch will rebroadcast the signal so that is your "repeater"). The switches will need AC power of course.
In your case the marginal cost more of cat6 over cat5e will help with the distance/outdoor environment, you will either need to burry the cable or use conduit. Outdoor grade (burial) Ethernet will survive on a pole for a few years (few more years if you do not have harsh cold or dessert sun) but eventually it will break.

If you have a switch hop that you can not provide AC power to, there is an option.
On the hop before the one you don't have power to, use a gigabit POE injector: http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Gigabit-Ethernet-Injector-TPE-113GI/dp/B007Q87KP2/ref=pd_sim_147_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=067XN6FAEXQA1YHHGQ7J
Then on the next hop use this splitter, you will then need to buy or make a barrel plug to barrel plug adapter to go from splitter to power input jack of the switch: http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Gigabit-PoE-Splitter-TPE-104GS/dp/B00MOIDXZ0/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1437408900&sr=1-6&keywords=gigabit+poe+injector+splitter
You can use this method to overcome not having AC at a hop but you cant do this for 2+ hops in a row, every other hop has to have power.

The other option is a fiber-optic run for the full 1000ft but that will still cost more then everything you need to do the cat6 plus all of the other cable.


As an extra note, I would advise using the linked injector/splitter and not getting a cheaper one. In order to run gigabit (1000mbps) AND poe you have to put a "ghost" frequency of power onto the 8 wires. Most of the cheaper adapters will just downgrade the speed to 100mbps and have the data on 4 wires and power on the other 4 wires.
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
If you want to run cable, I would really consider using a single pair of adapters like THIS type. I've used them over 1000ft. and got near 100Mbps with no equipment other than the adapter at each end of the run and it only requires a single pair, although I usually use outdoor CAT5e as it is much tougher in the elements. Since you were looking at MOCA you were not needing gigabit anyway.

However, if you have direct line of sight and can mount a pair of outdoor APs, they are slightly cheaper like a pair of THESE. I've used them over a mile and a half with great results.
 
Solution