# Which 3rd party MOCA bridge to use with Bolt?



## CaptainTiVO (Nov 3, 2001)

I have a Bolt with and Ethernet connection that I use in the "adapter" mode with two Tivo Minis connected to coax in other rooms. I would like to get a MOCA bridge to attach to the coax next to the minis to supply Ethernet to a FireTv box. I know Tivo sells a "Tivo Bridge" but can I use a 3rd party brand of MOCA bridge? If so, does anyone have a recommendation? 

Thanks.


----------



## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

Yes. In fact, the Tivo Bridge is just a re-branded Actiontec ECB6000.

The Motorola MM1000 is more powerful and less expensive.


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

CaptainTiVO said:


> I have a Bolt with and Ethernet connection that I use in the "adapter" mode with two Tivo Minis connected to coax in other rooms.


I'm assuming you meant "bridge" mode above; that is, with the BOLT connected via Ethernet and configured as a MoCA bridge.



CaptainTiVO said:


> I would like to get a MOCA bridge to attach to the coax next to the minis to supply Ethernet to a FireTv box. I know Tivo sells a "Tivo Bridge" but can I use a 3rd party brand of MOCA bridge? If so, does anyone have a recommendation?


Yes, you can use any number of different MoCA devices to make the connection; a range of options are listed in >this post<.

Which to choose largely depends on how much you want to spend, what other MoCA devices the new adapter will need to communicate with, and how much speed you're looking for, now and in the future. The MoCA 1.1 WCB3000N (170 Mbps) can be had for $10 currently, and the bonded/extended MoCA 2.0 MM1000 for $60, $20 less than the standard MoCA 2.0 TiVo Bridge.

Just remember that MoCA is peer-to-peer and the connection/communication between any two nodes will occur at the highest spec'd rate supported by BOTH nodes, and possibly limited by their respective Ethernet connections (see here). So, even a bonded/extended MoCA 2.0 MoCA adapter will be limited to standard MoCA 2.0 when communicating through your main MoCA bridge (the standard MoCA 2.0 TiVo BOLT), and the WCB3000N would be self-limited to the MoCA 1.1 170 Mbps rate. An MM1000 purchase would certainly be preferable if you want to max the current connection speed, and to potentially double the rate, down the road, by adding another MM1000 to replace the BOLT as your main MoCA bridge.


----------



## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

@krkaufman Thanks a million for the tip on the WCB3000N. I just picked up one for $9 out the door. It replaced an old Moca adapter and wireless repeater. This is a thousand times better than those two devices and was a breeze to set up. All I had to do was plug it in then press the WPS on it and on my main router. It then cloned all the wifi settings from my router automatically (ssids, password, etc). So now I can roam anywhere in the house and my devices will auto switch to the strongest ssid. 170Mbps is plenty for me since that's the speed of my internet service anyway. I highly recommend this to anyone who doesn't have to be on the bleeding edge.


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

@BigJimOutlaw gets the credit for posting the price drop. Glad it's working for you.

I picked one up for myself, if only for testing, but haven't yet gotten around to taking it out of the box.


----------



## JWadle (May 2, 2015)

Actiontec ECB6200 supports Bonded MoCA 2.0 (1Gbps). There is also a newer adapter, ECB6250, which supports MoCA 2.5 (2.5 Gbps), but right now it's only available through cable service providers like Verizon.


----------



## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

JWadle said:


> There is also a newer adapter, ECB6250, which supports MoCA 2.5 (2.5 Gbps), but right now it's only available through cable service providers *like Verizon.*


Is Verizon actually distributing these? Has anyone seen reports of other providers deploying them?


----------



## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

I finally got around to hooking up my WCB3000N. While the top speeds aren’t better than the wireless bridge I was using, I’m sure it’ll be more consistent. I would often get MRV disconnections.

For $10, I should probably buy another just to have.


----------

