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Use Coax Cable for Ethernet Connections

October 13, 2022

Using an Ethernet connection is much faster and more stable than jumping on your Wi-Fi network. As more and more people are working from home for some portion of their work week, it would be nice to connect using Ethernet. There aren’t many of us that have our houses wired with Ethernet cable. However, we do have electrical wiring in the walls and many coax cables left over from the cable TV days. Ethernet over powerline adapters like the TP-Link AV1000 have been around for some time. Plug an adapter into an electrical outlet and run Ethernet over your electrical wiring.

A recent option is to use MoCA adapters to run Ethernet over coax cable. How-To Geek has a great post that goes into detail with the how and why of using your coax for Ethernet. You can go through all the technical propeller head stuff or just jump to the recommendations at the end. Depending on the type of adapter used, it is possible to run Ethernet over coax that is actively being used for TV signals. However, more and more people are “cutting the cord” and utilizing streaming services. That means you have “dark” coax in the walls that could be used as a replacement for Ethernet cables, which is what I would recommend.

The MoCA adapters are a little more expensive than the Ethernet over powerline ones, but a great option for getting a fast, stable network connection.

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