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Speaking of coax -- does anyone know if there's a way to hang multiple wireless access points off of coax run through the home, or would one have to get multipl

Speaking of coax -- does anyone know if there's a way to hang multiple wireless access points off of coax run through the home, or would one have to get multiple modems to make this work? I've run into a couple of housing situations for myself and family where wifi does not covers the whole household well (combo of wall composition and local interference). In these conditions repeaters sometimes don't help as much as you'd like. But in every one of these conditions, there's been coax already run through the walls to support TV-cable hookups in different rooms... so if there's a way to hang other wireless access points off it, the problem could be pretty handily solved at least the 100MB/S order without having to run new CAT. (Some of these places also have phone/CAT3 but I'd guess that's not 100MB/S even if I could get equipment that'd run ethernet over it, and I know there's also networking over household powerlines but would also guess that's 100MB/S across different household circuits in the house which usually coincide with WiFi coverage obstacles)

cibyr 4y ago
Sounds like you're looking for some MoCA (https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-solution-for-coax-lovers/ https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-s...) WiFi access points (or just plug some MoCA Ethernet bridges into regular WiFi APs).
- wwweston 4y ago
  Thanks for introducing me to MoCA! Gigabit magnitude networking over coax that can coexist with DOCSIS sounds exactly like what I'm looking for.
zrobotics 4y ago
Honestly, the mesh wifi solutions are pretty decent; I've never had luck with the repeaters at all even without interference. MoCA can work, my last experience with it was 5 years ago but I found the connection to be flaky and unreliable. I actually had slightly better luck with powerline ethernet, but that was still flaky and both systems required fiddling with the hardware at least once a month. I have the previous gen Eero (with 2x ethernet jacks per station) and have had excellent luck, my desktop is connected to the farthest station from the modem and I have little trouble saturating my crappy residential cable connection. My only main gripe is the hardware is only configurable via phone app and I assume Amazon is spying on me. However, in 3 years I have only had to mess with the system once after one of the stations didn't rejoin automatically after a power loss. Plus, it provides absolutely fantastic coverage to a oddly shaped property that is very long and narrow with a metal sided garage workshop on the end. But the limited options available are seriously annoying, you can basically only set dns and basic filtering/port forwarding.
vel0city 4y ago
If you don't need the coax anymore, you really might just think about using the coax runs to pull some CAT6 through the walls. Same goes with the telephone wiring.
- wwweston 4y ago
  That's a good thought, and I guess I could even use it as pull for both replacement coax and CAT6, while I'm at it. But probably beyond what the owner would like me doing in rental situations, and maybe more work than I'd like in the remaining ones if I can even start to approach gigabit order-of-magnitude over coax alone.

cibyr 4y ago

Sounds like you're looking for some MoCA (https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-solution-for-coax-lovers/ https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-s...) WiFi access points (or just plug some MoCA Ethernet bridges into regular WiFi APs).

wwweston 4y ago
Thanks for introducing me to MoCA! Gigabit magnitude networking over coax that can coexist with DOCSIS sounds exactly like what I'm looking for.

zrobotics 4y ago

Honestly, the mesh wifi solutions are pretty decent; I've never had luck with the repeaters at all even without interference. MoCA can work, my last experience with it was 5 years ago but I found the connection to be flaky and unreliable. I actually had slightly better luck with powerline ethernet, but that was still flaky and both systems required fiddling with the hardware at least once a month. I have the previous gen Eero (with 2x ethernet jacks per station) and have had excellent luck, my desktop is connected to the farthest station from the modem and I have little trouble saturating my crappy residential cable connection. My only main gripe is the hardware is only configurable via phone app and I assume Amazon is spying on me. However, in 3 years I have only had to mess with the system once after one of the stations didn't rejoin automatically after a power loss. Plus, it provides absolutely fantastic coverage to a oddly shaped property that is very long and narrow with a metal sided garage workshop on the end. But the limited options available are seriously annoying, you can basically only set dns and basic filtering/port forwarding.

vel0city 4y ago

If you don't need the coax anymore, you really might just think about using the coax runs to pull some CAT6 through the walls. Same goes with the telephone wiring.

wwweston 4y ago
That's a good thought, and I guess I could even use it as pull for both replacement coax and CAT6, while I'm at it. But probably beyond what the owner would like me doing in rental situations, and maybe more work than I'd like in the remaining ones if I can even start to approach gigabit order-of-magnitude over coax alone.