Running Internet with Coaxial Splits

Question

I’ve tried doing my own research online but haven’t been able to find anything that matches my situation.

I currently rent one side of a two-family apartment. The cable for our units runs from the street onto a demarc on the neighbors side of the house, and then from that two coaxial runs exit. One goes into my neighbors basement (for their cable service) and the other runs to my side of the house. Before it enters my house, there is a coaxial splitter. One end of the split goes through my siding into my living room (this is the coaxial we use to power our modem/router in the house), the other end goes up to my second floor and goes through the siding into my bedroom (I’m assuming this was for TV service in the past, I don’t have it hooked up).

Since it is an apartment I don’t want to get into running wires through walls, so is there any way to get wired Internet into my bedroom upstairs so I can hardwire my computer/TV. Currently the WiFi is just okay, as it has to connect to the router a floor below.

I have read up on Powerline adapters but I’m worried about the signal with this being a two family with a mess of wiring done (Old single unit split into two). We have had issues with our neighbors electrical panel and ours in the past.

I have also ready about MoCA devices but it seems like you need to have existing coaxial wiring in the house for this to work. I don’t have any coaxial wiring in my house, just the two wires that terminate in my living room/bedroom from outside.

What are my options to get wired internet upstairs? It’s my understanding I can’t connect a second modem/router combo as I would need a second internet plan. The modem/router needs to stay downstairs as that is where our living room TV and other primary devices are.

Below is a rough sketch from paint, sorry if it is unclear.

Answer 1

If you are looking to utilize the existing coaxial wire running into the bedroom upstairs, some ISP's offer a modem/router rental that comes with an "extender".

The extender they offer is essentially just a second router that has ethernet ports/wifi, but what makes it different from consumer routers is that communicates with the modem through coaxial cable instead of an ethernet cable. If you rent the modem and extender from your ISP they could install the extender in the bedroom upstairs so that you can have a wired connection for your devices in that room. It will require a MoCA filter on the in leg of the splitter, which is installed by the technician that is sent out to install the extender.

It is also possible that there are other MoCA network solutions other than the one that you have to rent/obtain from your ISP, but make sure that the modem is supported on your ISP's network.

Answer 2

Understanding the difficulty of creating/adding new wiring, I think you may be left with few alternatives to a wireless or powerline adapter type of connection. You could use MoCA if you had the ability to go from the router to adapter one, then coax out of the first floor to join the coax there up to your level. That would require a second coax already in place, which you've not mentioned. Some demarks will have multiple coax terminations, one for each room.

Allowing that you cannot make coax from floor one to floor two, powerline adapters are not usually a problem in multi-family buildings. The devices are paired. You'd get one adapter plugged into power on floor one and connect to the router. Plug adapter into power upstairs and the ethernet cable to the device(s) of your choosing.

If the upstairs coax moves freely through the hole AND you can push/pull a Cat5 cable along the existing coax downstairs, Ramhound's suggestion is going to be the best option. Buy un-terminated cable, a crimping tool and connectors and you won't have to worry about holes being too small.

To answer the question in your comment, will this work:

The answer is no. You'd be dual-purposing the coax and there's no indication that MoCA works in such a manner. The system appears only to permit communication via an end-to-end piece of coax which means you lose any other communications over the same coaxial cable.