G3100 & MOCA

Question

I currently have Fios gigabit setup with my ONT in the attic connected to the G3100 on the 2nd floor of the house via ethernet cable. My home is older and wifi doesn't really work well so I've always used moCA adapters to have internet in my basement and 1st floor. I know moCA doesn't provide gigabit speeds but the 150 Mbit/s is fine for what I need on those two floors. For the past year since the gigabit install everything worked fine with two moCA adapted connected, but as of today they both simultaneously lose the coax connection. After a reboot of the ONT, G3100, and both adapters everything works fine for a few hours and then the coax signal is lost again. I called Fios to troubleshoot and they told my setup is not possible, but a tech can come out and look at it. I have 2 of these moCA adapters https://www.actiontec.com/products/home-networking/wcb3000n/

I'd appreciate any advice as to why suddenly both moCA adapter go offline and what can be done?

Cang_Household · Accepted Answer

@mich_ull wrote: I called Fios to troubleshoot and they told my setup is not possible

Your setup is possible. I am sorry but the official Fios support are not trained for things beyond broadband and typical setups. We the CLs here can help you with MoCA.

@mich_ull wrote:I know moCA doesn't provide gigabit speeds but the 150 Mbit/s is fine for what I need on those two floors.

As of today, MoCA can provide multigigabit 2.5G speed. There are multigigabit MoCA adapters available on the market and you need an expensive multigig switch to take the full advantage of the throughput. For your purposes, 1000Mbps is likely enough and G3100 has MoCA 2.5 which supports 2500Mbps throughput.

WCB3000N is outdated and I recommend you to upgrade to either WCB6200Q (must be Actiontec branded with latest firmware), ECB5240M, or E3200.

The choice depends on your needs and they all support 1000Mbps+ throughput. If you need a counterpart of WCB3000N with wireless radios, WCB6200Q is preferred. Notice, WCB6200Q must be an Actiontec branded NCS version. The Verizon WCB6200Q's firmware has not upgraded to be compatible with G3100. This has to do with the chipset in G3100. WCB6200Q likely costs $50-140 depends on your vendor and used condition.

ECB5240M costs $55 from Verizon and only has 4 Ethernet ports without wireless.

E3200 costs $199 and is the most recent counterpart of WCB3000N. E3200 is recommended with G3100 for best performance.

Why MoCA adapters suddenly go down? This may has to do with the older WCB3000N or G3100's MoCA chipset failing. Do you have other MoCA devices, like STBs on your MoCA network?