The present disclosure includes systems and techniques relating to power line communications (PLC) systems and apparatus. In some implementations, a method includes determining information regarding a potential data rate to be used with a powerline communications (PLC) channel, reducing a bias current or voltage of an analog front end of a PLC transceiver based on the determined information to reduce power consumption of the analog front end of the PLC transceiver, and transmitting or receiving data over the PLC channel with the reduced bias current or voltage of the analog front end of the PLC transceiver.