MoCA Releases Version 2.1

MoCA is offering firmware feature upgrades on top of MoCA 2.0 home networking technology. MoCA 2.1 is designed to provide 500 Mbps throughput, and MoCA 2.1 Bonded is designed to provide 1 Gbps throughput. MoCA 2.1 and MoCA 2.1 Bonded provide five additional features intended to ease migration to MoCA 2.5.

MoCA 2.1 Features include:

• MoCA protected setup (MPS): Setup of new nodes with password sharing via push-button (similar to WiFi WPS).
• Management proxy: Management of nodes that don't have upper layer management support by supporting management queries from one node on behalf of other nodes.
• Privacy: Secure data communications with a longer password using different keys between MoCA 2.1 nodes compared to MoCA 1.1/MoCA 2.0 nodes, along with the ability to control data forwarding of legacy nodes to and from MoCA 2.1 nodes.
• Network-wide beacon power management: Provides better control of peak signal power on the coax by configuring the beacon power of nodes to an absolute level (within tolerance of the hardware) and advertise that level to other nodes so that the same value is used after any handoff.
• Bridge detection: Ability to distinguish between nodes belonging to different networks and pass operator specified information between nodes before admission, as well as pass that same information to upper layers to prevent neighbors from forming a common network.

"We now offer a broad suite of specifications inclusive of various performance modes and features providing the versatility to support and complement IOT," said Charles Cerino, MoCA president.