Established in January 2004, MoCA is an open, industry consortium. MoCA technology is the worldwide standard for home entertainment networking. It is the only such standard in use by all three pay TV segments—cable, satellite and IPTV.

A home entertainment network is defined as multiple streams of standard and high definition content distributed anywhere, anytime throughout the home.

Content sharing examples include multi-room DVR, over the top, (OTT), IPTV, movies, music, photos and gaming that can be viewed in other rooms.

Distributing high definition content around the home seamlessly and without interruption has been extremely difficult and unsatisfactory. Video is a high bandwidth, low latency application that requires both high performance and high reliability. MoCA technology provides the highest level of reliability, validated by field tests, and uninterrupted delivery of multiple streams of high definition video and programming around the home, connecting for instance, TVs, game consolers, Blu-Ray players and PC to TV content sharing.

The Alliance is led by a board of directors (Promoters) representing some of the most-respected names in global broadband entertainment including Broadcom, Cisco, Cox Communications, Comcast, EchoStar, Entropic Communications, Motorola, Panasonic, Trident Microsystems and Verizon.

There are approximately 55 members representing the digital entertainment distribution value chain, from service providers to OEMs to chip vendors to retail.

Coax is the best medium for high definition video as it was originally designed for video and it is understood as a source of programming by operators and subscribers. Coaxial cabling is available in more than 90 percent of all U.S. and is abundant in Europe, South America and most of Asia.

There are three membership levels, Promoter, Contributor and Associate.

Promoters are members of the board of directors. This level is available by invitation only. A Promoter member must first have been a Contributor member in good standing for one year. Promoter members meet formally once a month and are responsible for steering the overall direction of the alliance.

Contributor level members can participate in the development of the specification, can participate and have voting rights within all work groups.

Associate level members have access to the specification for product development purposes, and can participate in the Marketing Work Group only.

A complete list of members and membership application forms can be found at: http://www.mocalliance.org/aboutus/ourmembers.php
Membership is open, active and ongoing.

The MoCA 1.0 offers greater than 100 Mpbs MAC rates and 270 Mbps PHY rate. Products with MoCA 1.0 embedded are available from several companies and include set top boxes, routers and gateways, bridges and ONTs.

The operating frequency is 850-1500, well above the ranges employed by other CE devices and services. This is another benefit of the technology, as it does not interfere with other devices and services already in use.

MoCA 1.1 is an extension to MoCA 1.0 and offers 175 Mpbs MAC rates (PHY rate remains the same), parameterized quality of service (PQoS) for provisioning and bandwidth management of real time data requests for video applications, and 16 node network extension.
Certified products with MoCA 1.1 are also available in quantity.

An annex to the MoCA 1.1 specification extends the operating frequency to 500 to 1500 MHz, from the current 850 – 1500 MHz range. This is of particular value to the satellite operators who tend to operate their services in the mid-frequency range.

The MoCA 2.0 specification is available to all members and provides the following:

• Two performance modes, Basic and Enhanced, with 400 Mbps and 800 Mpbs, MAC or actual throughput rates, respectively;
• PHY rates for each mode are 700 Mbps and 1.4 Gbps, respectively;
• Energy savings with two new low power modes, sleep and standby;
• Expanded operating frequency from 500 – 1650 MHz;
• Improved reliability with one packet error in 100 million packets, and a lower latency of 3.5ms;
• Backward interoperability with 1.0 and 1.1 devices. MoCA 2.0 will recognize 1.0/1.1 devices on the network, and vica versa, without any impairment or degradation to performance.

Yes. The simple rule is that if you can receive a TV signal from the outlet, it can support MoCA technology.

In 2005, the Alliance conducted field tests in 250 homes around the U.S and in all types of coax environments. With no remediation, MoCA technology obtained better than 110 Mbps net throughput in 97 percent of all outlets. With minor filter remediation, this performance level was validated in 100 percent of all outlets with no degradation of signal.
The results of the field tests are available on the public portion of the MoCA web site. MoCA is the only home networking alliance to publish their field tests.

No. The MoCA standard works with any network access technology including fibre, DOCSIS, IPTV and any other means used to provide programming to the home.

Certification for MoCA 1.0 and 1.1 is available now and ongoing.
Products are subjected to a battery of tests to ensure compliance with the spec and interoperability with other certified products from other members.

The Alliance works with an independent testing facility called, Technical Systems Inc., NTS, (NASDAQ: NTSC), in El Segundo, California, www.ntscorp.com. NTS is the exclusive lab for certification of MoCA members' products.

Certification generally takes two weeks. Upon completion and passage of certification, members can display the MoCA Certified logo on their products, showcase and demonstrate their products at Alliance sponsored tradeshows and events, and on the MoCA website.
Detailed information regarding certification procedures and cost is available to MoCA members only.

There are numerous applications that revolve around moving content around the home including multi-room DVR, multi player gaming, OTT (over the top) and video and photo transfer from PC to TV, and back again. MoCA technology is also used for high speed Internet access and as an in home backbone.

MoCA technology is used by all three pay TV operator segments—cable, satellite and IPTV and is resident in eight of the top 10 pay service providers in the US.

MoCA technology is in full deployment through Verizon's FiOS program, DIRECTV and Cox Communications. Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, BrightHouse Networks, Sunflower, Charter, RCN and many other pay TV operators.

Yes.

North and South America:
Canadian cable MSOs Rogers Cable, Shaw, Videotron and Cogeco are in various stages trials
There is also considerable interest from operators in Mexico and Brazil as well.

Europe:
The conventional wisdom in Europe was that there was not enough coax per household to support a business case for MoCA technology. In an effort to dispel that myth, the Alliance conducted a survey of four countries in Europe—UK, France, The Netherlands and Poland—and found more than two outlets per home in 50 percent of those surveyed. We have since found out that these numbers may actually be too low, and many operators in Europe are convinced that there is enough coax to economically justify the use of the MoCA standard in their network.
Details of the study are available to members only. A news release announcing results can be found on the MoCA web site.

While multiroom DVR is still early as an application in Europe, the technology is being used as an in- home networking backbone due to its high performance and reliability.
The technology is in use by UPC in their Horizon Project and is in various stages of trials by cable and telco operators in Europe as well.

Asia:
MoCA has a liaison agreement in place with Korean Cable Labs (KLABs) and expects to see the technology used in South Korea in the near future.

While it is still early in terms of market and consumer recognition of home entertainment networking, MoCA technology is in trials with pay TV operators in this region.

Wireless-based networking offers portability and powerline-based networking offers ubiquity. But when it comes to HD video and programming reliability is king, and the MoCA standard is the king of reliability.

MoCA technology is targeted for high bandwidth, low latency applications such as HD video. Other technology standards are more than adequate for voice and data applications. The MoCA consortium fully acknowledges the value of Wi-Fi Alliance and HomePlug Power Alliance, for instance, and expects all three, including the MoCA standard, to exist in the blended home.

The MoCA standard is also finding value as an in home backbone extending the reach of Wi-Fi. MoCA technology makes Wi-Fi better.

The MoCA standard is essentially IP over coax and is relevant in any IPTV environment.

Products (Ethernet to TV adapters) are available now through retail channels from Actiontec, D-Link, ChannelMaster and Netgear. Please visit their respective web sites for more information.

The Alliance is also working with the custom installer community and is finding great interest in retrofit environments. In addition, MoCA is a member of CEDIA.