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 content around the home seamlessly and without interruption can be extremely difficult and unsatisfactory.  Video in particular, a high bandwidth, low latency application, 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 need and requirement to fit all these applications and devices into a comprehensive network that is easy to use provide a satisfactory quality of experience is what MoCA calls the connected home narrative.

The connected home narrative is essentially that for seamless, uninterrupted delivery of content, a combination of wireless and wired technologies and mediums are required.  Wireless (WiFi) provides portability and a wire such as coax (MoCA) provides performance and reliability. You are not going to attach a wire to a portable device but you are not going to get HD content on a tablet consistently either. Nor will you consistently receive HD programming over a wireless connection when accessing an over the top (OTT) service such as Netflix.
But a WiFi and MoCA combo will provide all the portability, ubiquity, reliability and ease of use that the consumer desires.
Our position is that wireless and coax, which is already in your house and is built for video, go together like ham and eggs.

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.

MoCA works over coax. Coax is the best medium for high definition video as it was originally designed for video. It is also inherently shield from unwanted intrusions and offers very high performance. Coax is used by cable and satellite operators, and many telcos, worldwide.

Coaxial cabling is available in more than 90 percent of all U.S. households, and is abundant in Europe, Latin America and most of Asia.

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.

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.

There are three version of the specification in operation, MoCA 1.0, MoCA 1.1 and MoCA 2.0. The first two are in mass deployment and the MoCA 2.0 is ratified.

MoCA has also been approved by DLNA for inclusion in their Interoperability Guidelines as a layer 2 protocol. The technology is also part of the IEEE 1905 effort, which creates an abstraction layer for discovery, and identification of established transport protocols such as Wi–Fi®, Ethernet and HomePlug.

MoCA 1.1 offers 175 Mbps 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.  MoCA 1.1 operates in the 500 – 1500 MHz frequency range. 

Certified products with MoCA 1.1 are available now.

Some technical highlights include:

• Net throughput (MAC) rates of 400 Mbps (baseline mode) and 800 Mbps (enhanced mode) with turbo modes at each level.  PHY rates are 700 Mbps and 1.4 Gbps, respectively.

• The 400 Mbps baseline level is achieved through higher levels of modulation and expansion of the operating channel bandwidth to 100 MHz.  Enhanced mode performance of 800 Mbps is made possible through channel bonding.

• The packet error rate (PER) is one packet error in 100 million.  The PER mode is programmable on a per flow basis and can be assigned depending on the necessity of content. On time delivery is assured with an average latency of less than 3.5ms across all received packets and traffic profiles.

• The addition of sleep and stand-by modes helps manufacturers and operators comply with worldwide energy reduction initiatives.
  
• The operating frequency range of 500 MHz to 1650 MHz enables all types of pay-TV providers to provide advanced home entertainment networking simultaneously with devices and services already in use on the same coaxial cable.

• Full backward-interoperability with MoCA 1.1 protects investments in current equipment.  MoCA 1.1-based devices continue to operate at full speed even when MoCA 2.0-based devices are on the network.

MoCA has been approved by DLNA for inclusion in their Interoperability Guidelines as a layer 2 protocol. 

The technology is also part of the IEEE P1905.1 initiative which creates an abstraction layer for discovery and identification of established transport protocols such as WiFi, Ethernet and HomePlug.

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 benefit from MoCA technology including multi-room DVR, multi player gaming, OTT and video and photo transfer from PC to TV, and back again.  MoCA technology is well suited for any IPTV environment as it is essentially Ethernet over coax.

MoCA technology is also used for high-speed, Internet access and as an in-home backbone, extending wireless networks.  MoCA technology makes Wi-Fi better.

MoCA technology is the only home entertainment networking standard in use by all three pay TV segments—cable, satellite and telco/IPTV.

In the US, MoCA technology has been adopted by every major pay TV operator except one. All cable and satellite operators, and Verizon and other telcos, use MoCA technology in their network.

MoCA technology is also in various stages of deployment and trials among several pay TV operators in Europe and Latin America. Trials are also in place in South Africa and China.

Yes and in the US only for now. MoCA-based adapters and DVRs are available now in retail channels including BestBuy, Fry’s and Amazon to name a few. Look for products from branded CE vendors such as TiVo, Actiontec, D-Link and Netgear.  Please visit their respective web sites for more information.

Products integrating MoCA technology are also available for the custom installer community and MoCA is a member of CEDIA.  Adapters, DVRs and other devices are used in retrofit environments where the home owner is asking for a custom multiroom DVR set up and/or a wireless network extension.  MoCA technology is also suitable for commercial environments such as hospitality, healthcare and education.

Please visit the following web and social media sites for more information.
MoCA: www.mocalliance.org
Installers: www.moca4installers.com
Consumers: mocainyourhouse.com