ONT, MoCa, and Personal Router Question

[inphinus]

Hello Everyone,

I have an odd problem that maybe someone has an answer to. I recently had FIOS set up at my new place. The ONT is in the garage and there is a coax cable that connects to the living room, which is where I want to set up my router.

So I thought this would work just fine - ONT (ethernet) > MoCa (MAE340) > Coax > MoCa(MAE340)> Personal Router (XR1000)

However with this setup my router is disconnecting from the WAN and not providing internet after 10-30minutes. I cannot renew my DHCP lease, rebooting doesn't work each time. I am now stuck with the router directly connected to the ONT in the garage.

I have a CR1000A provided by verizon but I don't want to use it. Prior to attaching my personal router I did release the DHCP lease on the FIOS router and unplug it promptly.

Do I need to add the CR1000A in like a bridge mode between the ONT and MOCA? Seems silly and adds more clutter.

Thanks in advance!

[Capricorn1 · Accepted solution]

First, I'm assuming you are an Internet-only user, and the only connection to the CR1000B (as Verizon installed it) is the Ethernet cable. (If you also have Fios TV service, both Ethernet and coax cables will be in use. That would require a different approach if you want to use your own router.)

How confident are you in the coax cables in your new place? Is the cable in decent shape and with as few splitters and other runs as possible? Are the splitters, if any, MoCA compatible? That is, do they pass the MoCA frequencies? They probably are, or your initial cable run to where you want the router inside your house is a single leg without any splitters involved.  

I am assuming there are status lights on the MEA340. What do they look like when the disconnection occurs? Take a look at the product page for the goCoax adapters. I recommend watching the videos from Lon.TV on that page. He has lots of good info there (and saved me a bunch of time writing here. 🙂 ). Also, look through the Related Discussions links to the right of your post like this one. 

You might try to put your XR1000 router out in the garage connected by Ethernet to the ONT. Then, use the MEA340s by connecting one to the LAN side of the router. Then, use the MEA340's coax connection to the other MEA340 in the room you would like the router to ultimately be in. In that room, connect the Ethernet side of the MEA340 to a switch for testing. See if devices plugged into that switch have the same disconnection issues. Try connecting devices directly to the router out in the garage and see if there are issues there. 

If you have issues with inconsistent connectivity at the switch, but not at the router, either you have a wiring issue with the coax, or those coax adapters are .. less than ideal. Removing as many splitters as you can might help or replacing them with MoCA-compatible ones might help. Or other MoCA adapters might help.

There is a manual for the MEA340 at manualslib.com. It indicates that there is a web interface built into the MEA340, so you might be able to use that and see what the connection looks like from both sides of the coax. 

[inphinus]

Thank you for the information, especially for the MAE340 manual. Yes, internet only and the coax run is only 1 direct run from the garage to the living room, no splitters and the home is a new build so the coax cable should be up to date to modern standards.

When the WAN disconnect occurs all lights remain white/blinking on the MoCa adapters, and my router LED indicates connection, however when I check the WAN connection status in the router admin page it is "Disconnected" from the WAN, despite having an assigned IP and I have no access to the Internet until I renew my DHCP lease.

When the router was connected directly to the ONT there were no issues which leads me to believe there is an issue occurring with the WAN link between the ONT and router - whats between those? - the MoCa adapters. I even changed my routers private DHCP address range to eliminate the possibility of an IP conflict between the MoCa adapters and the router.

There is very little information on using the MAE340's to create a WAN bridge, and I assume they are capable of this since they are Verizon products and the installer Technician had no objections to this setup.

I will investigate further by connecting to the  Admin interface of the MoCa adapters and perhaps I will find the correct solution creating a stable MoCa WAN bridge.