Coax cable causes confusion

Tommy23 · 19 Jan 2021 at 20:50

This is hard to explain as I’m a layman in an IT world... but here goes.

I have a coax cable running between a garden out-house and main house. It’s currently not terminated either end. I want to run internet from main house to garden house 30m away using this cable.

but, how can I get signal from the Vodafone router in main house, (LAN Ethernet/outputs) into the BNC coax?

and once that’s achieved I have a similar problem at other end, but in reverse. How can I get internet from coax into my access point (Ethernet/rj45 type hole)

any suggestions much appreciated! I’ve seen little adapters online for a couple of quid - would these help?

thanks guys.

Zefan · 19 Jan 2021 at 21:29

I understand that you believe you want to do this, but you really don't. Running another cable or using a wireless link has got to be less hassle than the absolute faff of running ethernet over coax like it's 1990.

I highly suspect the converters you're seeing are actually for running analogue signals (such as those in old cctv systems), over twisted pair, not for the opposite.

PiKe · 19 Jan 2021 at 21:33

Lol BNC.

Use it to pull a new cat5 cable through, pretty much all its good for.

Jez · 19 Jan 2021 at 22:01

Erm guys, these do exist and are very common indeed. They are very popular for retrofitting buildings wired in coax for analogue cctv to facilitate new IP cameras.

Depending on budget some even run at 1gbps....

PiKe · 19 Jan 2021 at 22:06

Pulling a new cable will cost way less than converters.

Tommy23 · 19 Jan 2021 at 22:06

FFS. So now I really have to ask: why for the love of God did someone instal a coax cable? This was only 4 years ago. Is there any conceivable reason? Its even been buried under the lawn.

Can I physically achieve a functioning internet using this cable?

PiKe · 19 Jan 2021 at 22:07

Tommy23 said:
FFS. So now I really have to ask: why for the love of God did someone instal a coax cable? This was only 4 years ago. Is there any conceivable reason? Its even been buried under the lawn.

Can I physically achieve a functioning internet using this cable?

For CCTV.

Jez · 19 Jan 2021 at 22:08

PiKe said:
Pulling a new cable will cost way less than converters.

Doubt it if it’s buried under his lawn!

Cheap 100mbps items are about £30 on Amazon, although I do agree perhaps best to just use a wireless connection at that point.

Terminal_Boy · 19 Jan 2021 at 22:10

PiKe said:
Lol BNC.

Use it to pull a new cat5 cable through, pretty much all its good for.

Can’t argue with that. Sending digital signals with high clock rates over 30 metres of coax was a PITA back in the day when there wasn’t an alternative. Thank goodness for routers and Cat5e!

Jez · 19 Jan 2021 at 22:10

Tommy23 said:
Can I physically achieve a functioning internet using this cable?

yes...search Amazon or anywhere else for “ip extender coax” and you’ll see loads of options.

It is totally the wrong cable though, these are designed to make use of old coax cable buried into buildings where retrofit would be a lot of trouble really.

Zefan · 19 Jan 2021 at 22:48

Jez said:
Erm guys, these do exist and are very common indeed. They are very popular for retrofitting buildings wired in coax for analogue cctv to facilitate new IP cameras.

Depending on budget some even run at 1gbps....

I understand the history of coax with thin/thicknet, but doing it today is just asking for trouble if you can avoid it. I'm sure the "1gbps" will infact be significantly less, not least due to the fact that it'll be half duplex

I suppose it's no worse than powerlines in that case, but it just seems like a terrible thing to invest in IMO if it can be avoided for less money.

Caged · 19 Jan 2021 at 23:52

There is conversion hardware designed for hotels that would have had TV distribution installed but no data, and will do full duplex without any issues, but they are expensive. The US has the MoCA standard which is fairly common as each house will be wired for cable TV, but you'd have to import them.

Zefan · 20 Jan 2021 at 00:01

Caged said:
and will do full duplex without any issues

I'd like to know how this works.

I'm assuming some sort of conversion to two or more frequencies, splitting the tx and rx?

Caged · 20 Jan 2021 at 00:37

There's a couple of standards

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.hn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Alliance

I guess those are both TDMA and each endpoint acts as a node in the network rather than being a point-to-point link. Veracity do kits designed for CCTV which don't disclose which (if any) standard they use, and are 100Mbps full duplex as well as PoE.

Sparx · 20 Jan 2021 at 08:37

You need a MOCA adapter both ends, to convert the coax to ethernet. They aren't cheap though... If you could I'd lay Cat6 where possible?

Something like this (2x) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154180495727 (I've not used this particular model, but it's similar to what I've used as explained below)

I helped my bro in law do similar in a new build earlier last year. We got 2 MOCA adapters (v2.1 with 2.5Gb duplex) to convert the Virgin coax ports in the house, from the living room (VM entry point) to his man cave (2nd bedroom). He has BT Ultrafast 1Gb and it hit the full speeds no problem. My first choice was to run Cat6 but he refused to drill holes in his new house, so I had to find a way and suggested this after some research lol.

However the connection was a bit flaky and dropped a few times a day, but I think that's down to some janky couplers used on the entry point to loop to his VM port in bedroom. It needs re-doing properly and I think it'd be fine then. But I was very surprised they actually worked and hit the full 1Gb on the 2.5Gb models he used, as I'd never adventured into Ethernet over Coax before.