Coax wiring. MoCA between neighbors.

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1

Hi All,
I'm trying to find out how coax cables are wired in a residential area to each house. I found out that "drop amp" amplifies the signal just out side the building, and a few neighbors share the drop amp (basically a powered splitter). What other devices are there?
I'm also trying to find out whether my neighbors would be able to overhear the MoCA signal from my apartment. Anyone knows the answer?

For example, my apartment building has a cabinet that concentrates all coax cables from all units, and the 2~4 coax cables are attached to a device in the cabinet. I'm assuming it is a drop amp and I think MoCa signals can travel across the drop amp. Is my guess correct?

Any comments on coax cable wiring between houses or apartments and MoCA technology would be very useful.

Thank you,
Dongsu

2

I can't speak to what they are *supposed* to do, but my experience is that things can be overheard. Last summer I discovered that my Comcast cable had two premium digital channels I hadn't ordered. One was showing soft porn, and while I was sitting there pondering this, it began to fast forward. Not surprisingly, it was fast forwarding over the boring parts and then watching the naughty bits at normal speed. I can only assume that one of the neighboring houses has video-on-demand.

3

I recall an Article that talked about this and found it quickly...

http://www.slate.com/id/2167389

has some links and info you might find useful

~J

4

Thank you. Very interesting story and useful info.
I'm also curious about the signal generated from customers from MoCA (multimedia over coax) devices. How many neighbors would be sharing the same coax medium?
  Does anybody have a guess? I'm guessing neighbors that are connected by the same drop amp would essentially be on the same wire. I would really appreciate any info.

Thank you.
-Dongsu

Justin Horstman wrote:

5

AFAIR, you can configure the MoCA adapters to a certain unique ID, not
unlike garage door openers. In single-home settings there's usually enough
cable loss that sharing is not a problem, but in an apartment complex, you
may want to consider making sure there is a return trap on your cable so
that only a select range of frequencies (the ones that your STB and cable
modem use) can pass thru, and the higher range the MoCA uses does not.

Frank