Eight leading consumer-electronics companies, cable and satellite providers, technology providers and retailers have formed the Multimedia Over Coax Alliance (MoCA), they announced Monday.
The alliance’s eight founders are Cisco Systems Inc., Comcast Corp., EchoStar Communications Corp., Entropic Communications Inc., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Panasonic), Motorola Inc., RadioShack Corp. and Toshiba Corp.
MoCA’s goal is to enable consumer entertainment devices -- such as TVs, digital set-top boxes, digital-video recorders , DVDs, digital VCRs, CD/MP3 players and PCs -- to seamlessly interconnect throughout the home using its existing coaxial cabling.
The alliance wants to develop specifications and certify products that will tap into the vast amounts of unused bandwidth available on in-home coax without the need for new connections, wiring, point of entry devices or truck rolls.
The first MoCA-enabled products are expected to be released within the next year.
"MoCA will specify a multimedia technology allowing customers choice of where to receive their high-quality content, and it will give service providers greater reach in the home, more efficient installations and increased value of their offerings," said Mark Francisco of Comcast’s new-media-development unit.
"MoCA enables people to distribute high-bandwidth video and audio at their convenience, over the coax wiring already in their home," EchoStar senior vice president of engineering and manufacturing Dave Kummer said. "MoCA devices will provide for secure distribution and let our Dish Network customers take advantage of the digital revolution and home networking."
