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Can broadband over powerline carry 2 signals over the same power line ? If so how does it decode them and know which data stream its looking for. Eg. with a cat6 network each device has its own cable running back to the network switch, but with a powerline network it seems the data will all be running over the same line ?
The reason i ask is because we are currently looking at installing a Sky Q (Sky is the UK satellite television provider, and the Q range is their latest product line up that allows set top boxes in rooms that do not have a coaxial ports) they do this by distributing the AV data over the homes powerlines, i would guess in a similar way to an HDbaseT AV matrix would distribute HMDI video and audio over Cat6. Sky Q seems to run exclusively over the powerline, with no option for running it through a cat5e / cat6 or wifi network.
It sure can have multiple signals - you think they are offering it only to a single customer in the country? It is standard multiplexing, probably (hopefully) encrypted. – Aganju – 2016-08-02T11:42:44.710
WiFi does it, too. :D Here’s the relevant entry point on Wikipedia: Channel access method. Of special interest are TDMA and FDMA.
– Daniel B – 2016-08-02T12:58:55.960Actually, despite the comment in the question, Ethernet also uses multiplexing. The one cable from the switch/hub to each station is just an artifact of how people build simple Ethernets. – MAP – 2016-08-03T05:50:55.837