Extending WiFi range through MoCA adapters using AirPort Extremes - does it work?

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Level 1

9 points

Extending WiFi range through MoCA adapters using AirPort Extremes - does it work?

In my old house, I had one AirPort Extreme (plugged into my cable modem) serving DHCP to 2 other AirPort base stations (one 2013 Time Capsule (tower), a 2010 Time capsule (pizza box), and an Express. These were all wired into the 'mothership' Extreme via Ethernet. It worked great.

Moved into a new house, can't run Ethernet where it needs to go, but do have ubiquitous coaxial jacks.

I bought 3 Motorola MM1100 MoCA adapters and two splitters.

What's MoCA? It's a networking protocol that lets you use your existing coaxial wiring as Ethernet.

After some trial and error, I have the splitters properly arranged: cable modem gets good signal, MoCA adapters show good links to each other. Schematic of my setup. (edit: updated the schematic with better naming)

Setup Process:

Plugged the cable modem's Ethernet cable into the WAN port of the 'mothership' Extreme.
Plugged the MoCA adapter's Ethernet cable into a LAN port of the mothership Extreme.
Powered them on in succession. All systems go.
Plugged the attic MoCA adapter's Ethernet cable into the WAN port of the pizza box Extreme
Performed a reset on the pizza box Extreme (paperclip, 15 seconds till rapid yellow flashing)
In AirPort Utility, clicked "Other WiFi Devices" and let the software its thing
Got the success message that the pizza box is extending the network via the wired connection (solid line between the two device icons)

All seems good, right?

Here's where it got stuck:

Open a laptop in the living room (ground floor). It connects right away to the wifi as designed. 👍
Go to a website. It loads. 👍
Walk upstairs into the attic domain of the MoCA-extended pizza box.
Load another web page. "You are not connected to the Internet." 👎
Open AirPort Utility: I'm connected to the right network, and shows the pizza box as my access point.
Restart the cable modem and both AirPorts sequentially.
Restart the Mac for good measure.
Repeat step 4. 👎
Repeat step 5. 👎

Thoughts:

do I have my Ethernet set up properly? Specifically:
- On the mothership, I'm sure the cable modem should be connected to the WAN port, but I'm not sure if I should connect a LAN port to the MoCA adapter
- On the pizza box, I'm pretty sure I should connect MoCA <=>WAN port. ...?
Maybe my signal strength is too weak? At the modem, the dBmV is around -3.4 for the first 6 channels, then bounces between -3.8 and -5.0 for the other 18 channels. The other MoCA adapters are on the other side of one more 4 port splitter. (does that mean -7db? If so, that puts strength at the ends around -11db to -15db. Some friends in /r/homenetworking have told me -10db is the bottom edge of acceptable.

My next step is to plug my Mac directly into each MoCA adapter via Ethernet and see if I get to the Internet. If yes, then I'll assign blame to the AirPorts. If no, then more evidence that I have a signal strength issue.

My other next step could be to switch out the 4-port splitter for a 2-port splitter and see if things improve. That would give more evidence to the signal strength idea.

Thank you for thinking this through with me.

While I'm waiting for any insights you all might have, I'll be researching coax amplifiers.

Tom

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 29, 2020 12:16 PM

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Answer 1

thomas178 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 29, 2020 7:40 PM in response to Bob Timmons

Shoot. My first reply didn't post.

I'll sum up:

Thank you
I'm not super-keen on a non-CAT6 solution either, except quarantine
I will try to speedtest.net from each MoCA box and post results, comparing with the straight-to-modem mothership
RE: "I would not expect speeds to be greater than 100 Mbps or so over the co-ax" -- hahahahaha! I have comcast. I'm lucky to get over 2 Mbps when downloading (via iStatMenus)

Results!

(2017 15" MBP. WiFi turned off. Ethernet out of MoCA, into MBP via a Belkin Ethernet to USB-C adapter)

mothership: 204.77 down, 5.96 up.

attic pizza box: 195.93 down, 5.91 up.

living room extreme: 200.77 down, 5.91 up

Need to process this data. Not sure what to make of it.

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Answer 2

May 30, 2020 5:43 AM in response to thomas178

Do you think maybe there's something in the setup I missed?

Plugged the cable modem's Ethernet cable into the WAN port of the 'mothership' Extreme.

Correct

Plugged the MoCA adapter's Ethernet cable into a LAN port of the mothership Extreme.

Correct

Powered them on in succession. All systems go.

Correct

Plugged the attic MoCA adapter's Ethernet cable into the WAN port of the pizza box Extreme

Correct

Performed a reset on the pizza box Extreme (paperclip, 15 seconds till rapid yellow flashing)

Correct

In AirPort Utility, clicked "Other WiFi Devices" and let the software its thing

Correct

Got the success message that the pizza box is extending the network via the wired connection (solid line between the two device icons)

Correct if you are referring to the setup "wizard". It would have indicated that the pizza box was being configured to "extend (the Extreme) using Ethernet". However if you check the current settings on the pizza box for Wireless, you will see that it was really configured to "create a wireless network" that uses the same wireless network name, same security setting and same password as the AirPort Extreme. In other words, there is no "extend using Ethernet" setting in the regular AirPort Utility application.

Here's where it got stuck:

Open a laptop in the living room (ground floor). It connects right away to the wifi as designed. 👍
Go to a website. It loads. 👍
Walk upstairs into the attic domain of the MoCA-extended pizza box.
Load another web page. "You are not connected to the Internet." 👎
Open AirPort Utility: I'm connected to the right network, and shows the pizza box as my access point.
Restart the cable modem and both AirPorts sequentially.
Restart the Mac for good measure.
Repeat step 4. 👎
Repeat step 5. 👎

You are not stuck if you are receiving the speed check numbers that you indicate.

However, the AirPort Extreme has only 100 Mbps Ethernet ports, so while you might see close to 200 Mbps when your Mac is connected to the adapter, if you connect the adapter to the WAN port on the Express and measure the speed at the LAN port, you are likely going to see something in the range of 70-80 Mbps.

Looks like MoCA has improved

You got better peformance than I expected and better performance than my neighbor got when he tried this. Might be a different brand, not sure. We don't hear much about this type of adapter these days.

Do you think maybe there's something in the setup I missed?

If you used the setup "wizard", things should be correct. If you want to manually check using AirPort Utility, check the settings for the Wireless and the Network for the Time Capsule and AirPort Express. The Wireless setting should be "create a wireless network" and the Network setting should be "Off (Bridge Mode)".

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Answer 3

thomas178 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 30, 2020 11:45 AM in response to Bob Timmons

I'm learning a lot of nuance here, thank you.

I just reset the pizza box again and ran the AirPort Utility setup wizard to make sure it said what I thought it said.

Spoiler alert: after doing the same thing I did yesterday, now I'm able to get to the Internet from pizza box-land.

("sub" is currently set to wirelessly extend - my attention here is on "attic")

This is exactly the process I followed above, with one key difference.

Now when I walk upstairs into the domain of the MoCA-extended pizza box, AirPort Utility now shows

...and more importantly, when I try to get to the web, I can!

And as you predicted, when I go to look at the pizza box settings, it's set to create a wireless network rather than extend.

Off to go repeat this inexplicable win with the other Extreme. Fingers crossed.

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Answer 4

May 29, 2020 12:51 PM in response to thomas178

It appears that you have the network set up correctly, but there are a few quick checks that you can perform to make sure that correct settings were applied to the "remote" AirPorts if you want.

My next step is to plug my Mac directly into each MoCA adapter via Ethernet and see if I get to the Internet

Not only do you want to see if you can get an Internet connection, you also want to measure the speed of the Internet connection. It should be the same speed that you get when you connect your Mac directly to one of the LAN <-->ports on the "main' AirPort router......IF.....the MOCA adapters are working correctly.

That being said, based on experience working with a neighbor's set up using the same kind of adapters a few years ago, I would not expect speeds to be greater than 100 Mbps or so over the co-ax Ethernet connections.

My neighbor ultimately gave up on trying to use the existing co-ax wiring in his home and went ahead and made the investment to have some CAT 6 Ethernet cabling installed in his home. His words......"There was a world of difference between trying to use co-ax and co-ax adapters compared to using Ethernet cabling.

I don't know if amplifying the co-ax signal will help, but do know that the amplifiers will amplify any noise that might be present over the co-ax cabling.

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Answer 5

May 29, 2020 8:08 PM in response to thomas178

Appears that you have a 200 Mbps Internet plan with Comcast. Upload speeds are usually about 10-20% of download speeds for most ISPs. Don' know about Comcast though.

I'm confused though, since you would not have been able to record these speeds unless you were connected to the Internet, and your original post mentioned that you lost the Internet connection when you went upstairs.

So far, it looks like the adapters are working well, better than expected.

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Answer 6

thomas178 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 30, 2020 12:54 AM in response to Bob Timmons

My plan with Comcast is for "up to 175 Mbps." This test was done Friday night at 7:30pm on a very nice evening. I think I had extra-favorable conditions in that my neighbors were all outside rather than online.

The problem I stated above, and for which I was testing today, was that I couldn't get to the Internet when I was connected to my WiFi network, and AirPort Utility showed the upstairs AirPort Extreme as the access point.

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Answer 7

thomas178 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 30, 2020 1:31 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Speedtest.net often shows 150-200 Mbps download speeds. Real world, daily experience is what I was joking about with my 2 Mbps iStat Menus reference.

Looks like MoCA has improved since the days of yore when formed the "MoCA < 100 Mbps" opinion.

I'll try again with the Apple base stations later this morning. Do you think maybe there's something in the setup I missed?

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Answer 8

May 30, 2020 11:56 AM in response to thomas178

If the "other" Extreme is named "sub", and will connect using the adapters and Ethernet, then you will use the same setup as before with "attic". As it stands now, "sub" is connecting using WiFi to "mothership".

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