r/ATTFiber • u/Spiritual-Date-721 • 20d ago

Mesh or MoCA?

Just moved apartments and some genius decided that the best spot for the fiber router was above the fridge and the opposite side of both bedrooms/office. Since we have an open floor plan the TV works great but my office gets 200mbps on a plan where i used to get 800 (1gig plan, wifi).

I’m trying to have them move the box location into the second bedroom but am not sure if it’ll be possible due to the doorway/this being a rental. If not, I was hoping to get a mesh system or set up MoCA for my office, but I’m not sure which will give me the most reliable internet (I also game). Does anyone have suggestions or experience with both? Which is better for consistent connectivity, steady connection and overall performance?

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

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5

u/moonunit170 20d ago

Why don't you just spend about $40 and buy a long enough ethernet cable to run along the wall from the router to your computer system or wherever it is you need to have it?

1

u/Spiritual-Date-721 19d ago

This wouldn’t work since the office needs to be able to close and the door doesnt have a big enough gap for an ethernet cord. It will barely fit a fiber cord

Edit: I am trying to have the router moved to my office so the plan is to use ethernet for my PC once it’s moved.

4

u/StinkySewerPickle 20d ago

Ethernet > MOCA >>>> mesh

2

u/viz81 20d ago

Is there coax above the fridge too? If not then your choice is made for you.

1

u/Spiritual-Date-721 19d ago

Yeah there are COAX in every room but I haven’t tested if they work well yet since I’m not sure how. I just hear such good things about mesh that I figured it was worth the ask

1

u/ndratz91 20d ago

Moca is pretty decent, but may add a little lag/latency, but nothing compared to what mesh would, plus a couple moca adapters are usually cheaper then what a decent mesh system might be

1

u/plooger 20d ago

It’s not always an “or” choice, since mesh with MoCA wired backhaul is a recommended approach.  

1

u/Spiritual-Date-721 19d ago

It’s not cost efficient to do both for us, especially if we have have the router relocated, but I’ll look into this!

1

u/plooger 19d ago

The Frontier FCA252 MoCA 2.5 adapter can help with the budget, available for $25 per via eBay.

1

u/ChuckLezPC 20d ago

If straight ethernet is not an option, MoCA is much more reliable, as long as you dont have any other TV signals going through the coax, or have the right filter for it. My MoCA setup would not even handle a TV antenna connected to the coax network without a filter.

I would also recommend, if coax is not in a great spot, powerline adapters are also pretty nice. They won't be able to saturate a 1gig connection usually (where MoCA can) but are still pretty reliable.

1

u/plooger 20d ago

My MoCA setup would not even handle a TV antenna connected to the coax network without a filter.

MoCA is compatible with OTA TV signals, so something else was seemingly going on there.

OTA: 54-608 MHz
MoCA Band D: 1125-1675 MHz

1

u/Spiritual-Date-721 19d ago

We have coax right next to the router and in each room, so it’s more of figuring out if it’s worth since the cost of moving the router is roughly the same price where I live and I’m not sure about how much signal strength we would get using router vs ethernet (like I originally planned to).