General

MoCA 1.1 and In-Home Networking

October 23, 2007 : BY Motorola

moca_technology-logo.gifThe Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) has announced MoCA 1.1, an extension to the 1.0 home networking standard that increases net throughput from 100 Mbps to 175 Mbps. Perhaps even more importantly, the extension provides for management and prioritization of multiple HD TV streams to be networked around the home.

Since Verizon’s introduction of the Home Media DVR service (powered by Motorola), there is renewed interest in the cable industry in deploying multi-room, multimedia applications. However, cable operators will not deploy such a service if they are not confident that their video will be protected even as it moves from set-top to set-top. Particularly as everything shifts to high-definition, content owners and distributors are deeply concerned about keeping their video secure. The security-vs.-mobility debate isn’t going to die down any time soon, but at least in the short term, MoCA makes it possible for cable operators to offer video that is mobile throughout the home.

And MoCA is improving to meet what is surely going to be the next phase of multi-room DVR, multi-room DVR with HD.

Additional note: Om Malik points out that Spain-based chipmaker DS2 also recently announced a new technology for moving data over power lines in the home at rates of up to 400 Mbps.

  • Glenn

    I don’t understand why there is an issue with keeping the video secure. When the MPEG-2 transport stream comes in over the cable it can be scrambled. I assume all the premium channels like HBO, SHOW, MAX do such scrambling on all their channels. You then need a cablecard or the equivalent functionality, as well as key exchange protocols with the head end to descramble the content. I assume that if the transport stream is sent over MoCA or stored on a DVR’s hard drive or sent out over FireWire, it is that same scrambled version, and if you don’t have a way to descramble it, you’re out of luck. Is this not correct?

  • http://connectedhome2go.wordpress.com/ Mari Silbey

    Glenn- Legit concern or not, the cable operators are very sensitive to the possibility of having their content hijacked. But the point is that MoCA is something the operators *are* comfortable with, which is why it’s a preferred method for in-home networking among them.

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