The whole thing is layered into multiple levels (go check the OSI Model and its Layers on Wikipedia if you're willing to go down that specific information hole ;)) and the physical layer should mainly be handling packet loss on the connection between those adaptors, transparently to the higher layers that just see that as lower bandwidth than the spec for the adaptors (a spec which is really quite optimistic, IMHO).

Yeah, a cable with a metal sheaf wired to the GND level (i.e. Cat cable) is going to be way better at higher frequencies and at isolation from noise that two twisted copper wires were the network signal is shared with a different "signal" which whilst generally 50/60Hz (depending on country) can have spikes and noise at other frequencies, so it's never going to be the same.

However for example at home right now I can get a reliable 100 Mbit/s over a pair of those adaptors from my router to my PC and the speed limitation is actually (I believe) from my old router not supporting Gigabit Ethernet rather than from the adaptors which are supposed to handle up to 500 Mbit/sec.

That said and as somebody pointed out, it only works well if the plugs you're connecting are on the same electrical network, as transversing coils isn't exactly great for high frequency signals.

[–] ramjambamalam@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it only works well if the plugs you’re connecting are on the same electrical network, as transversing coils isn’t exactly great for high frequency signals.

What does "electrical network" mean? Panel? Circuit?

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If two plugs are connected to different circuit breakers, then they're in different "electrical networks" in this sense: basically for a signal to go from one such plug to the other one it has to transverse both circuit breakers and that means going through coils.

Coils are inductors, which are electrical elements which have have frequency dependent resistance (in simple terms), with the higher the frequency of a signal the more the resistance they offer to the passing of a signal, and the higher the bandwidth of your data connection the higher the frequency of the signal(s) necessary to transport that data.

[–] ramjambamalam@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So electrical network == circuit, got it.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I learned this stuff in a different language so don't really know the right terminology in English.

Also I'm from the Electronics side, so for me a "circuit" is something quite different ;)