For situations where network cables or WiFi are not sufficient or impossible, powerline is a possible solution. The electricity network of the house is used for this. If coaxial cables for television run from the meter cupboard to the room, they can also be converted into network cables with the Hirschmann Moka 16. Hirschmann promises a speed of up to 175 Mbit/s.
The Hirschmann Moka 16 allows you to use your coaxial cable as a network connection. Just like with powerline, you need a special adapter on each side for this. Up to sixteen adapters can be connected together. The adapters use the MoCA 1.1 standard (Multimedia over Coax Alliance). We tested a set of two Moka 16 adapters, where we hung one adapter in the meter cupboard and one adapter on the coax connection in the living room.
The adapters themselves are large boxes measuring 13 x 8 x 3 cm. The boxes have a coax input, coax output and a network connection. The two coax connections are designed as F connectors. Hirschman supplies a cable with an F connector on one end and a common IEC coax plug on the other, plus an adapter to convert the other F connector to an IEC coax connection.
According to the manual you connect the box in case of cable internet to the distributor between the distributor and the modem. However, the picture on the box shows a diagram where the box is connected to the coaxial connection for television signal on the distributor. We have done the latter because then the internet connection does not have to be broken, and this works fine. We don't read anything about security in the documentation and the two adapters make direct contact with each other after connecting. In practice, the Moka 16 consumes about 7 watts during activity, you need at least two, making this at least 14 watts.
With a size of 13 x 8 x 3, the cabinet is quite large.
Speed
Hirschman promises a speed of 175 Mbit/s. We measured 159 Mbit/s (19 MByte/s) in our speed test. It is nice that our Humax television receiver was not disturbed by the Moka 16. The signal strength and signal quality remained exactly the same. As a second test condition, we connected 10 meters of cheap coax cable in combination with an old splitter. The signal strength reported by the Humax receiver was considerably lower after this, but the speeds shown by the Hirschmann adapters remained at about 159 Mbit/s.
Conclusion
The speeds shown by Hirschmann's adapters are excellent, making this a good alternative to a network cable. Installation is simple and the adapters make contact themselves. The speed is better than what we have measured so far with powerline and also seems to be stable in lesser conditions. The big disadvantage is of course that you probably have far fewer coax connections in your house than sockets and that the solution is therefore less flexible.
The adapters are not cheap, the Moka 16 costs 80 euros and you need two. We regret that no encryption security key can be set. While the signals shouldn't be able to get past the subscriber transfer point, we'd like the idea if we could set this up.
Hirschmann Moka 16
Price € 79,95
Pros
Speed
Stable
Negatives
Security not adjustable
SCORE: 8/10
