Your TV Cable Is a 2.5 Gbps Network: How MoCA Saved My Three-Floor Home

Give a MoCA to your home and turn your TV installation into a LAN!

In this article, I will share my personal experience of getting in touch with and implementing MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance), including why, how, which choices I made, and which mistakes to avoid. I hope that it can help anybody interested in starting on this path.

1. The Problem i.e. the Opportunity

In 2024, I moved to an independent house built on three floors... plenty of room available and just an FTTC internet connection capped at more or less 70 Mbps. I did not have many exigencies in terms of devices and interconnectivity—just a couple of NAS units, a printer, a smart TV (at that time plugged directly into the router), some domestic appliances like smart bulbs, a pet feeder, and some video surveillance cameras. All these latter leaned on the 2.4 GHz SSID of my router. The most critical point was regarding my NAS units, which I decided to place on the upper floor along with the printer, and the best solution I found was just to set up a Wi-Fi mesh using an AP (TP-Link RE450). The Wi-Fi router was instead placed on the ground floor, thus the speed and the signal were quite poor, but with a slow FTTC, you almost don't notice it.

Finally, after a couple of years, FTTH was delivered to my city and I quickly decided to upgrade my slow internet connection; I was lucky anyway since a 2.5 Gbps line was available, to which I switched immediately.

And then... the situation became quite different. How can I take full advantage of this bandwidth and make it available in all my home? I suddenly discovered that at several points (especially on the upper floor) walls were obstructing the Wi-Fi signal so that I could not fully benefit from my router, which in turn is also capable of providing a Wi-Fi 7 signal; my internet provider released to my contract a ZTE ZXHN H6745 router which also features one 2.5 Gbps port and two Gbps ports, thus there is the room and the capability to distribute the signal in other ways than Wi-Fi.

After a quick check, I discovered that the Wi-Fi signal on the upper floor and in one bedroom located on an intermediate floor was decreased by 50% up to 85%, jumping from up to 1 Gbps in Wi-Fi 7 close to the router to 400-500 Mbps on the upper floor, while in the room with the NAS units I could just get barely 100-150 Mbps and even less in the aforementioned bedroom. This could be acceptable for many applications, but not, for example, when backing up my laptop or moving large files to/from the NAS units, and moreover, who knows about any future usages?

So, the first answer to this requirement must be obvious: set up a small LAN pulling cables up to your router, add Ethernet wall jacks whenever necessary, and a switch patched to your router which has, luckily, a port with proper speed. This was the first step and my first attempt.

2. Explore a hidden infrastructure

First, I need to say that my home has several rooms, each of them equipped with phone and TV wall jacks. I counted in total 8 TV coax plugs (all working) and 7 RJ11 phone plugs (never tested and used, anyway they are there...) thus the first and less impactful option was to assess this spare infrastructure to enrich it with Cat.6 cables that could provide all the necessary speed and bandwidth. Fish-taping several times from all the wall jacks, I discovered that most of the plugs are connected to a daisy chain (see Picture 1), and this, of course, does not make things easier.

I could not locate the ending point for all the plugs since, in 3 cases, the electrician used the same conduits for the AC cables and the phone, and I preferred not to touch them. Given that, I could assess that probably (but for sure not easily) I could turn into Ethernet 4 out of 7 phone plugs using "normal" Cat 6 cables, thus not specific CEI-UNEL 36762 C-4 according to Italian regulations. Anyway, to make a cable arrive at the router, I had to pull it through three different plugs and this, although possible, is not a guarantee of success, not being an expert in this stuff.

3. Is MoCA the right solution ?

Googling and posing questions to ChatGPT, I found out that even in cases in which standard cabling cannot be put in place, there are options that could work provided that other kinds of connectivity are available. In detail, there are MoCA and G.hn, which also use other media to make the Ethernet signal travel. Here below I'm reporting a synthetic prospect of the different solutions that can be chosen:

Technology	Best Use Case	Pros	Cons
MoCA (over Coax)	Homes with existing TV outlets.	Extremely stable; high throughput (around 2.5 Gbps); low latency.	Requires MoCA-compatible splitters; adapters can be pricey.
G.hn over Coax	Alternatives to MoCA in specific regions.	High speeds; often easier to find in some markets.	Not compatible with MoCA; interference issues if TV signals are present
G.hn over Phone	Homes with unused RJ11/SIP jacks.	Reuses old telephone wiring; avoids drilling.	Very sensitive to wire quality/age; lower speeds than coax.
G.hn over Fiber (POF)	New builds or renovations.	Immune to electrical interference; "future-proof."	Requires pulling new plastic optical fiber through conduits.
G.hn over Powerline	Last resort (no coax/phone).	Uses any wall outlet; very easy setup.	Performance drops with distance and "noisy" appliances (fridges, chargers).

Table 1 -- Ethernet alternatives comparison (table contents generated by AI)

According to this table and taking into account a given limitation of G.hn (all adapters currently have just Gigabit ports, while MoCA 2.5 has 2.5 Gb ports... why choose G.hn?) I went to MoCA and I decided to implement the necessary adjustments to my TV network to ensure MoCA compatibility and max speed.

4. Building up a new expertise

First of all, an assessment was necessary to point out the interventions to be done. The "AS WAS" situation is depicted in Picture 2:

The assessment brought me the following points:

1. Replace the central tap: the Helman 15624 (see Picture 3) is an old component not certified for MoCA frequencies (i.e., MoCA band is from 1125 MHz up to 1625 MHz), thus it would choke my signal. For the replacement, I chose a Fracarro DE4-12 certified from 5 MHz up to 2400 MHz
2. Same for the splitter on the upper floor (see Picture 4). In this case, I chose a Fracarro PA4
3. Replace the "taped mess" (see Picture 5) that I found in the TV wall jack close to the router. That for sure will destroy the MoCA signal, which is very sensitive to differences in impedance (must be the classic 75 Ohm).
4. Replace all the wall jacks since the old and quite common ones in Italy, BTicino Magic 5512, cut higher frequencies too. I replaced them with excellent Fracarro SFP00

Among these, some recommendations must be pointed out which I learned directly on my skin:

• • Choose the right (MoCA 2.5) adapters. After some evaluation, I purchased goCoax MA2500D. You need at least 2 of them, one connected to the router (2.5 Gbps port) and the other one connected to the wall jack where you need the signal. I devoted one adapter to my NAS units and 1 for my laptop, thus I purchased 3 in total.

• Always use F-type connectors and be very careful when screwing them onto the coaxial cables, especially avoiding gaps between the dielectric and the connector, and using the appropriate size of the connectors. I was forced in some cases to use 5 mm connectors instead of 7 mm, since not all the cables in the conduits have the same section, unfortunately.

• All the spare ports in the tap and splitters must be correctly terminated (I used Fracarro CA75F components) to avoid impedance mismatch and then diffraction of the MoCA signal.

• Adding the POE filter between the antenna and the Fracarro DE4-12 also improved my signal, although not strictly necessary, having a dedicated and private TV aerial. The model I bought is quite common in the US and took a long time to be delivered: PPC 2520A GLP-1G70CWWS, which should cut the MoCA signal off by 70 dB, quite good for this. For this component, if you have (like myself) a power supply injecting DC voltage to the amplifier in the aerial, the position of this filter is quite important since its internal components do not allow DC voltage to pass. I have placed it cascaded to the OUT of the power supply.

• TV signal first... I have three TVs in my home and they must keep working regardless of all the changes.

• Last but not least: if you want to reach the max speed, everything should be compliant with that speed. For this reason, I had to replace the GE switch serving the NAS with a pretty good BrosTrend 2.5 Gbps switch with 8 ports. This seems obvious, but sometimes it could be a pitfall.

You can see the AS WAS and the AS IS situations in the TV infrastructure in the above Pictures 3, 4, and 5 for the AS WAS and below, Pictures 6, 7, and 8 for the AS IS. Picture 9 is the AS IS schema of the current situation, whilst Pictures 10, 11, and 12 are showing the current iperf3 speed tests to one of my NAS units (equipped with 2.5 Gbps NICs) with my laptop connected to the NAS switch (Picture 10), connected via MoCA to the TV wall jacks in a bedroom (Picture 11), and the lowest speed in Picture 12.

Differences in speed between Pictures 11 and 12 are negligible and I got the same values for 5 TV plugs out of 7, thus I am pretty satisfied with this... The lowest value in the kitchen is due mostly to attenuation and partially to an IEC plug that I did not replace with Fracarro.

5. Conclusions

I got excellent performance from MoCA, improving the situation especially where the Wi-Fi signal is poor. In Picture 13 you can find also the comparison of Internet Speed Tests between MoCA and Wi-Fi in the intermediate bedroom, which has the poorest Wi-Fi signal in my home. The laptop is equipped with a Wi-Fi 6 NIC.

Some considerations about this project which gave me the possibility to increase my knowledge about RF signals and satisfied my curiosity about a technology that in Italy is almost ignored although widespread in other countries like US:

• MoCA often requires some work, probably much less than pulling cables but you can see from all the things I did that, generally speaking, it's not "plug & play" stuff if you want to exploit it at most and get the best of it
• MoCA is not cheap: in Table 2 I listed all the costs related to MoCA just for components and devices compared to the Ethernet estimated costs
• After all, I consider MoCA better than cabling in order to save time and efforts, especially in the case (like myself) in which you have already a good infrastructure for TV and you can leverage it and you do not master pulling Ethernet cables.

Moca	Cost	Ethernet (estimated)	Cost
MoCA Adapters (2)	155.90 €	Digitus Cat 6 Cable UTP LSZH (200 MTs)	160.00 €
Cat 6 Patches	13 €	Tools	30.00 €
American electric plug adapters	7.20 €	Fish-eye tape	30.00 €
Some electric stuff	5.00 €	Gel product	20.00 €
WavLink 2.5 NIC adapter for Laptop	27.90 €	Wall Jack Keystones (7, Cat 6) for Bticino Magic	60.00 €
POE filter	21.91 €	WavLink 2.5 NIC adapter for Laptop	27.90 €
Components 1st Order	49.48 €	Router switch 2.5 Gbps (Brostrend 2.5 Gbps 5 ports)	50.00 €
Components 2nd Order	32.33 €	NAS Switch 2.5 Gbps (BrosTrend 2.5Gbps Ethernet Switch 8 Ports )	60.00 €
TV stuff 1st Order	12.90 €
TV stuff 2nd Order	7.90 €
Wall jacks (6, F type, Fracarro)	46.00 €
MoCA Adapter (1) + coax cable (2 MTs)	90.89 €
NAS Switch 2.5 Gbps (BrosTrend 2.5Gbps Ethernet Switch 8 Ports )	60.00 €
Grand Total	530.41 €	Grand Total	437.90 €

Table 2 Comparison between MoCA actual costs and estimated Ethernet cabling

That’s all…if you have questions, considerations or advice for improvement, feel free to contact me and I will be more than glad to answer.