The MoCA Alliance has announced that it will be shortly bringing a new version of its coaxial networking technology to the market, capable of providing 2.5Gbps bandwidth. Ideally suited for the emerging 4K and UHD video content, the technological improvement looks like a significant challenge to its powerline communication (PLC) rivals – HomePlug and G.hn.
Home networking that uses MoCA (Multimedia over Coax) over the home’s coax network has become – and remains – the number one choice for pay TV services to deliver flicker-free HD videos (and 4K in the case of DirecTV). As the companies that jointly develop the MoCA technology keep raising the technology’s capabilities, they make it harder for makers of powerline network technology and of other coax technology (specifically G.hn) to compete.
MoCA 2.5 is an extension of MoCA 2.0, but is a verion which bonds five separate channels together to reach 2.5 Gpbs. Today MoCA 2.0’s minimum MAC rate is 400 Mbps but it can reach 500 Mbps for each 100 MHz wide channel it uses. By bonding 5 channels, MoCA 2.5 can get to 2.5 Gbps. MoCA 2.5 supports the bonding of either 3, 4 or 5 channel which means it can perform at 1.5 Gbps, 2.0 Gbps or 2.5 Gbps respectively.
The all-pervasive WiFi, which has made some inroads into MoCA’s domain, doesn’t have the capability to rival the sheer throughput of the new MoCA, but remains a lot more convenient to use with mobile devices – which account for an increasing amount of the total amount of video watched.
The newest version, MoCA 2.5, is capable of speeds up to 2.5 Gbps at actual data rates. The new features address network management and security as required by service providers worldwide. The specification is backwards compatible with MoCA 2.0 and MoCA 1.1.
Charles Cerino, president of MoCA, said, “MoCA has once again raised the performance bar for home networking with an increase in throughput that is more than two and half times MoCA 2.0 with additional capabilities operators need and end users want. In addition, the technology was delivered in one year, from start to finish, further indicating that the Alliance can quickly respond to the market demands of operators. In MoCA 2.5, service providers have another comprehensive standard from MoCA for building their networks.”
MoCA spokesman Rob Gelphman said the announcement of MoCA 2.5 is not as much to upgrade over the prior version but to show that current and prospective MoCA customers can be reassured that there is a roadmap for continued improvements in MoCA to handle increasing bandwidth that current and future applications need. He said, “If you commit to MoCA, now you know there will be these faster speed grades.” A MoCA customer may not need MoCA 2.5 now, he said, but there is a migration path for when the need arises.
More important now than the increased speeds, we think, are the features that have been added for a pay TV service to more easily install and better manage MoCA networks. Those alone will encourage many pay TV services to begin installing MoCA 2.5 devices when they come to market rather than continuing to install only 2.0 devices.
The specs for MoCA 2.5 are available to members now, and the usual chipmakers should be well underway in developing 2.5 silicon, with some unnamed equipment manufacturers working to get products out the door by year-end. Sales reps will be touting the headline speeds and improved feature set to potential customers looking at kitting out their homes.
The MoCA Alliance has grown to more than 50 members, and has certified more than 200 products.
But where are the retail products? Cerino’s statement is clearly aimed at service providers and current MoCA developers, but the group is continuing to overlook the retail market at a time that consumers are becoming aware that their WiFi network is woefully inadequate for a home full of mobile devices.
The latest thing in home WiFi is the use of mesh technology to increase the coverage and speed of WiFi. Mesh technology allows multiple WiFi routers, placed strategically in the home, to communicate with each other. Eero is already shipping its mesh WiFi routers and Luma, which just got an investment from Amazon, expects to start shipping its mesh routers in June. It seems certain that Amazon will put some marketing muscle behind Luma on its dominant online marketplace.
Either Eero or Luma could embed MoCA in their mesh routers, which would provide users with the sturdiness and consistency of a wired backhaul network. Actiontec has already started down the MoCA-to-WiFi extender route, currently providing a MoCA 2.0 version using what many consider the best available WiFi chips – Quantenna’s 4×4 MIMO 802.11ac chips.
However, it does not appear that MoCA members are focused on the retail market – after all they have done extremely well selling to service providers. And the as yet unpenetrated Asian market, especially China, could be as big of a home network market as North America and Europe combined. That oversight leaves the retail market to WiFi, supplemented by powerline adapters that use HomePlug or G.hn chips in homes where WiFi range is limited.
The headline features of MoCA 2.5 are:
Easier setup and addition of new nodes with password sharing via pushbutton (similar to WiFi WPS).
Management of nodes that don’t have upper layer management support by supporting management queries from one node on behalf of other nodes.
Secure data communications with additional longer password and using different keys between MoCA 2.5 nodes compared to what MoCA 1.1/MoCA 2.0 nodes use along with the ability to control data forwarding of legacy nodes to and from MoCA 2.5 nodes.
Provides better control of peak signal power on the coax by configuring the beacon power of nodes to an absolute number (within tolerance of the hardware) and advertise that absolute number to other nodes so that the same value is used after handoff.
Bridge detection: Ability to distinguish between nodes belonging to different networks and pass proprietary information between nodes before admission, as well as pass that same information to upper layers to prevent neighbors from forming a common network.
MoCA 2.5 offers additional performance profiles which enables MoCA 2.0 devices to be upgraded and take advantage of the features described above:
Profile B: 400 Mbps net data rate up to 16 nodes, and 500 Mbps in turbo mode (two nodes only).
Profile C: 800 Mbps net data rate with channel bonding up to 16 nodes, and 1 Gbps in turbo mode (two nodes only).
Profile D: 1.5 Gbps, 2 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps net data rates up to 16 nodes.
This first ran in Rider Research’s Online Reporter.