This paper provides a fair comparison between direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems for broadband downstream power-line communications (PLCs). The considered schemes seem particularly suitable for high bit rate broadcast flexible communications on low voltage grid in order to guarantee local access. The performance of the considered systems is expressed in terms of bit error rate (BER), derived by simulations under the assumptions of frequency-selective multipath fading channel and additive colored Gaussian noise according to the in-building networks model, under the same overall working conditions of bandwidth occupation, transmitted power, and global data rate.