Why Every Home Needs MoCA Filter

Cable and Internet providers around the world have been challenged by today’s technology demanding faster internet service and video streaming on their own time.

More cable providers are looking to MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) in their installations to help with this, but they may not realize they’re missing a key element – MoCA filters installed at every subscriber.

MoCA uses a household’s existing coax cable to transfer data quickly and efficiently throughout the home. A MoCA connection utilizes the unused frequency spectrum offered by coaxial service providers to extend the existing wireless connection to the entire home and cause less demand on the network.

Sounds great! So what’s the catch?

Stop Unwanted Signals with PoE Filters

A MoCA-enabled CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) sends beacon carriers throughout the home’s network looking for another CPE to establish a connection. Due to the high output power of these MoCA signals, they’re able to transmit data further than the network it's intended for. This means MoCA signals can escape from the intended subscriber and enter other homes nearby if there aren’t proper filters installed.

Imagine a mother is scrolling through her DVR to find a program for her young child, but instead finds a program not suited for children that wasn’t saved by anyone in her household. That program was transmitted from her neighbor’s network because one – or both – of their homes doesn’t have a PoE (Point of Entry) filter installed. This is a cable provider’s nightmare, and they’re seeing it more often.

The fix is simple. All homes should have a PoE filter installed no matter the kind of network setup. PoE filters are required for every MoCA subscriber to prevent cross-interference, but MoCA signals can still interfere if a neighbor does not also have a filter.

Without a MoCA filter, MoCA signals will bleed over to adjacent users and create interference, which is demonstrated in the example below. 

Best MoCA Filter for a Foolproof System

Some subscribers know cable providers have used filters on regular networks to filter out channels they don’t pay for. Technicians have likely come across a home where the subscriber removed the filter, believing it will give them more channels for free. What they’re actually doing is allowing unwanted signals in and out of their network.

To help avoid this situation, a ground block with an integrated MoCA filter is a smart decision. When the filter is attached to an electrical grounding system, the subscriber is less likely to remove it.

With more wireless devices being introduced to home networks around the world, consumers are finding their connections getting slower and less reliable, even when they are paying for faster Internet speeds. Integrating MoCA into the home network is a great way to improve signal strength when there are many wireless devices present. Cross-interference due to MoCA can be a concern to providers, but a properly-installed MoCA filter will help make all subscribers across the neighborhood happy.

This post was originally published on May 31, 2017, and updated on April 19, 2023.