PETER DYKES MOCA
MoCA RAMPS UP IN-BUILDING COAX DEVELOPMENT AN ALTERNATIVE OR A COMPLEMENT TO FTTH?
The challenge of moving ever-increasing amounts of data to and from datacentres is a major preoccupation of the industry at present, but what about getting it to the end user? Peter Dykes spoke with Rob Gelphman, VP of Marketing and Member Relations at the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), and Zong Laing Wu, CTO, Luster LightTech Group, an Alliance member, about the latest developments using in-building coax to deliver high-speed access to the customer premises.
W hen it comes to delivering ultra- approach, however that is not necessarily true for all premises. Multiple Dwelling Units (MDU’s) such as apartment blocks, offices and hospitals are already wired with coaxial cables, as are many premises that have had cable TV for a number of years. One of the advantages of the MoCA technology, according to the Alliance, is the potential cost savings when bringing fibre, or indeed DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification), to MDU’s. MoCA has developed a hardware interface which enables interconnection between fibre and coax with the capability to offer 2.5G at present over coax, but higher speeds are planned. Rob Gelphman says, “You can use MoCA to replace fibre, but that’s not really the position. If you’re going to an MDU (Multi Dwelling Unit), you would go to the basement, and then you would terminate the fibre and use the coax for each part. 2.5Gbps will be fine for the next couple of years, but you’re always planning for the next generation network, and so we have a roadmap to 10Gbps. A lot of people also think we’re an automatic replacement for our competitor DOCSIS, but that’s not necessarily true, because MoCA could also be an extension of DOCSIS. So, say you went to an MDU and you had DOCSIS, you could have DOCSIS in the basement and MoCA up through high-speed data to the premises, FTTH is considered by far the most efficacious
Rob Gelphman, VP of Marketing and Member Relations, MoCA
the building. They don’t interfere with one another and you can maintain the speeds.” Zong Laing Wu added, “In some environments MoCA is complimentary to DOCSIS and sometimes it is a competitor because MoCA 2.5 can do better and DOCSIS 3.1. DOCSIS 3.1 is more expensive than MoCA . Also, DOCSIS upstream is very limited and every new
generation just increases the speed downstream. This is a limitation, because a couple of years ago, most applications were about downloading content from the internet, but now the situation is reversed and many applications are about uploading content. In China, for example, everyone wants to be famous and is broadcasting all the time, a trend which is increasing all the time. But
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| ISSUE 18 | Q3 2019
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