how do network cables transmit data from thousands of people without interference? Like a phone cable for 5 houses not mixing up calls?
In: Technology
Phone wires are dedicated between each house. The copper wires in my phone line do not touch the copper wires of any of my neighbours. That might not have been true ~100 years ago but it is true today.
Now, electrical interference is a thing, and in some cases bad wiring has in fact caused people to be able to hear calls from other people’s houses on their own phone lines. Tell the phone company and they will take it very seriously and get it fixed at no cost to you. However since internet over phone lines (mainly DSL) would never work properly or would run very slowly if there were interference it’s a rare thing these days…. Well, DSL and even land lines are unpopular today so many not as clear cut.
In terms of regular networking, data is in tiny packets – typically 1500 bytes of main data, more for the addressing – that includes information about who the data belongs to. In situations where the wire/cable is shared (eg: cable modems, some forms of fibre) your modem is programmed to ignore data not intended for them by the addressing information. Otherwise the wires are dedicated to you and the internet provider will only send data to you where the address indicates it’s yours.
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