You don’t have to use Ethernet or use Powerline; the cable you need is already in the wall

A room with weak Wi-Fi will usually get you one of two offers. The first is Ethernet, which means running the cable behind the drywall and patching the holes you cut. Or buy a power line kit and accept whatever speed your wiring decides to hand you that day. There is a third option that most people pass by.

My builder laid coaxial cable next to every Ethernet jack on my first floor, and I never connected anything to it. This coax cable was sitting idle because I ran Cat6 through the basement myself and plugged it into every important room. However, most people have never wired their own home, and the TV’s coaxial cable is the closest thing to a short circuit they have. MoCA is what turns this connector into a true wired connection, and a set of MoCA hardware is less expensive than repairing a single wall.

What exactly is MoCA?

Wired network from an old cable socket

MoCA is short for Multimedia over Coax Alliance, the industry group behind the specification. This technology carries the Ethernet signal over the same coaxial cable that is used to send the signal to your cable box. Contents: two boxes. One adapter is located next to the router and is connected to the nearest coaxial jack using a short patch cable. The other goes where you actually need the connection, powering your TV, console, or desktop computer through the Ethernet port.

The MoCA 2.5 kit offers a maximum speed of around 2.5 Gbps and supports latency of around 3 milliseconds, which is good enough for 4K and competitive online gaming. One coaxial network can contain up to 16 of these, so a set of two cables is just a starting point. Nothing requires you to log in or set up the app. You connect the adapters and the coaxial cable does the rest.

Why coaxial cable is better than the two options people are gravitating towards

More reliable than a power line and requires less effort than rewiring.

Powerline kits connect to the existing electrical wiring in your home, which works fine until the microwave turns on or the signal crosses two circuits and the speed drops. It also operates in half-duplex mode, which means it can’t transmit and retrieve data at the same time, and what you get varies greatly from home to home. This wiring was never intended to carry a pure data signal. There was coaxial.

It is shielded, by its design it processes high-frequency signals and is already installed in those rooms where people place televisions. Fresh Ethernet still outperforms both options, and I will always argue that a wired connection is worth it. The problem is the catch. Ethernet means opening up walls, and most people aren’t going to do that because of one stubborn dead spot. Coax skips the demolition and will get you there most of the way.

What you need to set up

Two adapters, a MoCA compatible splitter, and an input filter.

Photo: Alekskich / Shutterstock

The adapters are sold in pairs because you need one on each end, and the starter kit costs somewhere in the $60-$100 range depending on the brand. Before you buy, check two things about your coaxial cable. Any splitter in the signal path must operate in the MoCA frequency band, approximately 1125-1675 MHz, so the old TV splitter may have to be replaced with a MoCA-rated splitter. You also want to install an input filter where the coaxial cable enters your home.

This filter keeps your network signal inside your walls rather than leaking into the public line, protecting both your speed and your privacy. Since coaxial cable runs to where TVs live, and usually where the console or streaming box ends up, the cable is usually already there. Once everything is connected, most kits connect with the press of a button, just like WPS connects a gadget to Wi-Fi.

When MoCA is the Wrong Choice

Satellite homes, fiber-only buildings, and open walls

ethereal

MoCA works on cable and most fiber coax, but won’t work on satellite TV because services like DirecTV use coax differently. New construction is another gap. Many builders are now ditching coax entirely and using Ethernet or nothing, so the connectors just aren’t there. And if you’re in the middle of a renovation and the walls are already exposed, put aside the coaxial cable idea and plug in Ethernet instead.

Cable running into a wall will outlive every other part of your network, and you won’t get a better chance of running it than when the drywall is disconnected. However, for a finished home that you don’t want to break into, coax remains a practical middle ground between a cheap Wi-Fi extender and a complete rewiring.

What’s included

2 network adapters

Manufacturer

Screen beam

Jack you ignored

The coaxial outlet you stopped thinking about when you cut the cord is still connected to almost every room in the house. It hasn’t gone anywhere. For the dead spot that Wi-Fi can’t reach and that you don’t want to open up walls to fix, it’s a wired connection with minimal effort available to you.

I used Ethernet because I was in construction and I could get away with it. Most people are inheriting a home rather than installing one, and there’s a good chance that the faster, more stable connection they’ve been missing is already sitting behind the TV.