Setting Up A MoCA 2.0 Ethernet-Over-Coax Network, Linux LAN Benchmarks

[NotMine999]

Michael, I have no idea why your powerline ethernet is so bad. I have an older home with tons of previously done "mr. diy wiring" and I don't get less than 40mbs with mine on the second floor on the outside of the house when I only pay for 50mbs internet. And thats over the wifi emitted from that said powerline device.

I love mine, was the best thing I ever bought for my home internet network.

I also agree with these Powerline line speeds. In my case the wiring is original to the house (1993) and the devices are Netgear Nano Powerline adapters.

I considered MoCA at one time, and DECA before that, but it meant rearranging the coax cabling within the house to achieve the connections that I wanted. That rearrangement effort made Powerline look like a decent short-term solution and "hardwire" the correct long-term solution since I would rather run Ethernet twisted pair cable compared to coax.

If you have the option to "hardwire", make the effort if you know how to do such work safely. If you have a multi-story house, then the "hardwire" effort may be immense or "darn near impossible"; your dwelling will be the deciding factor.

[starshipeleven]

Michael, I have no idea why your powerline ethernet is so bad. I have an older home with tons of previously done "mr. diy wiring" and I don't get less than 40mbs with mine on the second floor on the outside of the house when I only pay for 50mbs internet. And thats over the wifi emitted from that said powerline device.

I love mine, was the best thing I ever bought for my home internet network.

Powerlines are a crapshoot on average, as electrical wiring quality was not usually designed with data use in mind so you get %&£%" situations like my home where the only way to get two powerlines to see each other is to place them in SPECIFIC wall sockets in haphazard places.
Or total crap bandwith like in the benches here, likely because there are heavy interferences from something, and none thought about avoiding that because it's irrelevant for power cables anyway.

Coax cable setups were designed to carry data/signals, it's shielded and joints/endpoints/whatever have filters by default, as such any setup using them usually works far better for data transmission.

[starshipeleven]

unapproved post for dh04000 above

[nh2_]

Thanks a lot for testing these Michael. I've been looking for a Coax Ethernet converter for a long time, but hadn't bought one yet due to lack of benchmarks.

I love when articles like these save me time and protect me from buying something that doesn't work in the end, as well as the continuing Linux regression benchmarks and bisections, so you have a new Premium member.

[nh2_]

Thanks a lot for this article Michael, I've been looking into buying a Coax-Ethernet converter for a while now, but not done it yet due to lack of benchmarks.

It's great when Phoronix articles save me time or help me not having to risk buying something that might not work. I already appreciate the ongoing Linux performance/regression/bisection articles, but this one tipped me over to get Phoronix Premium. Keep up the good work!

[PBCrunch]

I use cast-off Deca adapters in our home network. We live in a tri-level, and it was simple enough to sneak Ethernet cables from the basement into the garage and from the garage into the two lower levels of our home. Getting cabling to the upper level with the bedroom would have been much trickier. We do not subscribe to cable. Each television in our home is connected to a compact PC thrown into HTPC duty for watching Youtube and Netflix.

Our ISP is the cable company, and the cable modem is plugged into the cable that comes into the house. The coax going to the rest of the house has been disconnected for use with Deca adapters. Pairs of Deca adapters sell on Amazon for just under $15. I use a pair for each "branch" in my home network. I don't need filters because the Deca adapters are not connected to any cables that leave the house.

One pair feeds an HTPC in our master bedroom. One pair serves an IP webcam we use in the nursery to keep an eye on our baby. The third pair goes to an HD HomeRun IP TV tuner box that sits quietly in the spare bedroom. The HDHR has to be upstairs in order to receive a couple of stations that broadcast from across the city.

Maximum throughput is limited to 100 Mbps, but the connection is as rock-solid as a real Ethernet connection. The price cannot be beat. The IP camera and the HDHR don't support gigabit speeds anyway. Even 4K Netflix wouldn't saturate the 100Mbps connection to the HTPC upstairs. Each pair has its own dedicated 100Mbps allowance, so the nodes never step on each other.

I would highly recommend Deca adapters for applications where compatibility with cable TV broadcasts are not a priority and cost is an issue.

[Ardje]

A big question is of course: how much energy do these products consume? I know my first cable modem was a big heat sink with somewhere inside it a cable modem. I also know that bad modems that get hot get bad caps really fast, which in turn induce noise.

[starshipeleven]

A big question is of course: how much energy do these products consume? I know my first cable modem was a big heat sink with somewhere inside it a cable modem. I also know that bad modems that get hot get bad caps really fast, which in turn induce noise.

power consumption does not automatically translate into temperature. Bad design will have heatspots that eventually kill the board/components even if it's not using abnormal power levels.

[DrYak]

I went in a completely different direction :
gigabit over plastic optical fiber.

The receiver/sender might still be a little bit expensive.
But they are fucking simple to install (you just cut the plastic fiber with the very sharp blade provided. No need to splice/solder micron-this glass fibers),
and even more braindead to connect (an incredibly simple push-connector like those found behind sound speakers. No need to perfectly align special connector like LC, etc.)
And modern plastic fibers are rated at least for 10GBits, which leaves a bit of headroom for future expansions.

[cwork]

I got a pair of the Actiontec ECB6200 (Bonded). I can push 940Mbps sustained from my Asus laptop (2nd floor) to my Linux server (basement) using the nuttcp client. I was using an Actiontec HPNA adapter before that maxed out at 120Mbps. Latency across the link increased from 1.7ms rtt to 4 ms.