Multimedia over Coax Alliance

The Multimedia over Coax Alliance develops specifications for home networking over in-home coaxial cable, which is commonly used for antenna connections to TVs and radios, and cable TV.

The goal of the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA for short), is to facilitate home networking on existing coaxial cable in the 1 GHz microwave band using OFDM modulation. This cable can be used for data connections to televisions, set top boxes, and other entertainment devices without the need for new connections. The technology underlying MoCA provides the elements necessary to use this cable to distribute high-quality multimedia content and high-speed data with throughput exceeding 100 Mbit/s.

MoCA is a non-profit mutual benefit corporation to develop and promote specifications for the transport of digital entertainment and information content over coaxial cable. MoCA members have agreed as part of membership to license under reasonable and non discriminatory (RAND) terms any intellectual property required for member companies to implement the MoCA Specification.

Although MoCA is an open standard, at the time of this writing there is only one supplier of MoCA chipsets.

History

MoCA was established in 2004 by its founding members.

The MoCA MAC/PHY v1.0 Specification was approved in February 2006. MoCA also completed its first certification wave in February 2006 ensuring interoperability between devices.

Within the MoCA alliance members there are 10 promoters, 7 contributors and 98 associate members

Notable members are; Actiontec, Alcatel-Lucent, Arris, AT&T, Broadcom, Broadlight, Cisco, Comcast, Conexant, Cox Communications, DirectTV, Echostar, Entropic, Freescale, Infineon, Intel, LG, Linksys, Motorola, Netgear, Pace, Panasonic, Pulse Engineering, Samsung, STMicro, Tellabs, Texas instruments, TimeWarnerCable, Westell, Verizon and 2Wire.

MoCA 1.1

On October 23, 2007, Entropic Communications announced the first availability of a MoCA 1.1 enabled chipset, scheduled for release November 2007. Features of the new standard include net data throughput of up to 175 Mbit/s and support for up to 16 devices, two advancements that are important "to accommodate an increasing number of MoCA devices in the home entertainment network of the future."

See also

• DOCSIS
• HomePNA
• Power line communication, HomePlug Powerline Alliance
• VDSL, VDSL2
• Wireless LAN, IEEE 802.11

External links

• Multimedia over Coax Alliance
• Entropic Communications
• Coaxsys TVnet
• Multilet
• Pulse~Link