  The employment of power lines for communications (PLC) has been theorized
almost a century ago; although the physical medium is not meant for data
transmission, recent technical developments pushed the capacity boundary much
higher than expected, allowing to consider PLC for new applications as the one
considered in this contribution, i.e., as a solution for small cell
back/front-hauling. In principle, back-hauling for cellular networks via PLC is
very attractive given how pervasive the power line infrastructure is. Telecom
operators are looking for solutions that can handle the traffic increase which
is doublying every year. This calls for improvements of both cellular systems
and front-hauling technologies that have to bridge the radio network with the
core network. Small cells are currently advocated as the solution to spatially
fragment the network and offer high capacity in densely populated areas; this
is also due to the availability of spectrum at high frequency (mmWave links)
which inherently offers large bandwidth but forces the cells to become smaller
due to the short distance coverage. Therefore, it appears that mobile operators
may eventually have to deploy an order of magnitude more (small) cells compared
to existing networks having macro cells. This translates in a high density
cellular network that poses more challenges for the back-haul.
