MoCa vs Powerline?

[drewg]

We're getting ready to relocate across the country to the Bay Area. We'll be leaving behind a house that I own & where I had Cat5 pulled to every room. We'll be moving into a rental house for a while, until we get our bearings in the area. I'll need a reliable way to get ethernet from my server to my HD300. Since its a rental, I can't pull cat5 (or at least I don't want to go through the effort for a year at most).

As far as I can tell, the wireless spectrum in the new area is very crowded (houses right up close to each other, plus a city-wide wifi network), and I tend to have bad wireless karma anyway, so I'm going to rule that out. That leaves MoCa and powerline. The house is fairly new (a 65 year old house that underwent a total gutting & rebuild 5 years ago), so my understanding is that the wiring is in good shape. We don't use satellite.

I've read some reviews of both, and from what I can tell, some people claim that the powerline adapters cut out randomly. Others claim the Moca adapters interfere with their "internet signal" (gotta love Amazon reviews). Anybody here have any opinions on which is better, and what hardware I should use? I was thinking about starting with this: http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Ethe...actiontec+moca


Thanks for any pointers,

Drew

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by drewg

We're getting ready to relocate across the country to the Bay Area. We'll be leaving behind a house that I own & where I had Cat5 pulled to every room. We'll be moving into a rental house for a while, until we get our bearings in the area. I'll need a reliable way to get ethernet from my server to my HD300. Since its a rental, I can't pull cat5 (or at least I don't want to go through the effort for a year at most).

As far as I can tell, the wireless spectrum in the new area is very crowded (houses right up close to each other, plus a city-wide wifi network), and I tend to have bad wireless karma anyway, so I'm going to rule that out. That leaves MoCa and powerline. The house is fairly new (a 65 year old house that underwent a total gutting & rebuild 5 years ago), so my understanding is that the wiring is in good shape. We don't use satellite.

I've read some reviews of both, and from what I can tell, some people claim that the powerline adapters cut out randomly. Others claim the Moca adapters interfere with their "internet signal" (gotta love Amazon reviews). Anybody here have any opinions on which is better, and what hardware I should use? I was thinking about starting with this: http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Ethe...actiontec+moca


Thanks for any pointers,

Drew

+1 for powerline, I've used in the past and they were really good. I had the Devolo AV200, but now you can have better for much less.

Cannot comment on MoCa, sorry...

Eddy

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by drewg

We're getting ready to relocate across the country to the Bay Area. We'll be leaving behind a house that I own & where I had Cat5 pulled to every room. We'll be moving into a rental house for a while, until we get our bearings in the area. I'll need a reliable way to get ethernet from my server to my HD300. Since its a rental, I can't pull cat5 (or at least I don't want to go through the effort for a year at most).

As far as I can tell, the wireless spectrum in the new area is very crowded (houses right up close to each other, plus a city-wide wifi network), and I tend to have bad wireless karma anyway, so I'm going to rule that out. That leaves MoCa and powerline. The house is fairly new (a 65 year old house that underwent a total gutting & rebuild 5 years ago), so my understanding is that the wiring is in good shape. We don't use satellite.

I've read some reviews of both, and from what I can tell, some people claim that the powerline adapters cut out randomly. Others claim the Moca adapters interfere with their "internet signal" (gotta love Amazon reviews). Anybody here have any opinions on which is better, and what hardware I should use? I was thinking about starting with this: http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Ethe...actiontec+moca


Thanks for any pointers,

Drew

Been using MoCa bridges from Netgear for a few years now. Zero problems, worked perfectly and have not had to touch them since the day I set them up. They are hard to find now. Many of the companies that got into it for selling to the average user don't seem to be carrying them anymore - Netgear included.

[TechBill]

I been using powerline for a couple of years now. I got like 4 of them hooked up and one is being used by HD300 with zero issue. There lags in the menu but I don't know if it causes by the powerline adapter or my network setting. But playback works smoothly thou.

My home was built in the late 40's I think .. it got both old and new electrical wiring mixed and one of those screwed in fuse panels.


Bill

[soulprops77]

I've never really had great luck with powerline adapters. They work, but in my experience they weren't much faster than a good wireless connection.

I now have MoCa adapters set up throughout my house and they are rock solid.

I know the expense is roughly double, but in my opinion you can't go wrong over coax.

You might try buying both and returning whichever you decide not to use. . .

[bcjenkins]

I haven't used power line in a while. MoCa to me seems like it would be less prone to disruption from fluctuating frequencies.

If it were me, I would go MoCa before PowerLine. Congrats on your new gig.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by soulprops77

I know the expense is roughly double, but in my opinion you can't go wrong over coax.

I think that overall coax could be the better choice because even if the existing cables can be potentially very old they are shielded compared with the power cables that aren't, on the other hand the coax limits your location choice to existing TV points.

[drewg]

Thanks guys. After reading a bit more about the powerline stuff & getting scared by the prohibition on UPS / Surge Suppressors, I think I'm going to go with MoCa.

Thanks again!

Drew

[MattHelm]

The network "experts" recommend the following order:
Cat5-6
MoCa
Powerline
Wireless

I think the only real issue with MoCa is 100Mbs max. I use GB anywhere I can.

The last two are very hit and miss. Powerline sometimes works great, sometimes is worthless. Just depends on the wiring/devices/etc.

WiFi is about the same. It was never made to handle unbuffered streams. (Read somewhere, WiFi in a good setting drops/resends about 10% of all packets) Where I live, WiFi is about worthless, as there are too many people in too small a space. I once had about 30 reported networks on my phone, which has a so so receiver!!!


BTW, if you may only keep the home 1 year, you might just buy some 100' ethernet cables, and run them on the floor.

[SWKerr]

I have Cat-5 running all around the house but there are a few rooms where is is not practical\easy to run cable. I also have various tablets, laptops and phones that require wireless regardless.

My Son has a Gaming PC in his room now and I tried a power line adapter in there and they were slow... It was fine for Internet but not as fast as the wireless connection and surprisingly less reliable. From what I have read it really just depend on how your house is wired.

Also: Until recently I had never been able to get a router to cover the whole house so I ended up using a second router as an access point at the other end of the house. (I have tired 5 different routers in the last few years)

While researching a project on how to extend WiFi out to the club pool a few hunderd yard from the clubhouse I ran across a few articles that made me want to try improving my home WiFi as well.
I decided to get a new router (ASUS RT-AC66U)
CNet ranked it as one of the the best. (http://reviews.cnet.com/best-wireless-routers/)
And... I also bought a Asus 3 in 1 Access Point/Repeater/Gigabit Ethernet Adapter.

The result is a new setup that now covers the whole house. I am using the Asus wireless adapter on my son's gaming PC but it could easily be plugged into a extender without issue. The throughput on his PC is now 2-3x better than the old wirless-n card.

For reference: Using "LAN speed test"
New router with wired Network to the SageTV server:
800Mbps writing and 500Mbps reading

New router with Wirless-N card (ASUS PCE-N53)
65Mbps writing and 60Mbps reading

New Router with ASUS EA-N66
120Mbps writing and 195Mbps reading

I can tell you that in my son's room now I can no longer tell a difference using Sage with the new setup as compared to the clients with a wired connection. Before you could watch TV fine but the skip would drag a bit and some things were just slow.

It is not cheap but I would give this setup a try:
Router: $190 (Saw it refurbished for $90 the other day)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320115

Wireless Adapter: $93 (Refurbished $70)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320112

[TallMomof2]

I've been running MoCa on the old adaptors that Verizon used and have zero problems. Some of my adaptors are pushing 6 years. IIRC, I had one power supply die on me.

[AtariJeff]

I am in the middle of finalizing my OTA setup which involves a tower beside my detached garage and 2 HDHR's networked into the house. My 1st thought was to go MoCa because I already have RG-6 running into the house from a previous satellite dish install. My concern was that MoCa network speed is relatively low and the market for the adapters seemed to be shrinking quickly. Instead I opted for the DLink 500Mbs Powerline setup which has gigabit ports. Initially I was getting around 96Mbs. I have since added an outlet in the garage that feeds in before the breakers in the garage panel and my speed jumped to 180Mbs. My next move is to put an outlet by my main panel after the breaker that feeds power out to the garage. This will place the adapters on the same continuous run of wire. My goal is to push about 380Mbs because that's what you get if you plug 2 adapters into the same outlet.