How does my cable internet connection connect to the ISP?

Question

Say I have comcast internet. I connect a modem to a coaxial wire that is connected to the wall. where does it go after that? does my coaxial cable combine with other users' coaxial before heading to a comcast central office? are there huge conduits for these wires running all over the city? is it underground or on telephone polls or both? does my bandwidth effect my neighbors bandwidth? what's the top speed that this coaxial cable can support? where is it heading, like I have a 50Mbps connection, will this become 2Gbps one day or will the medium of the wire need to be changed before that's possible?

Answer 1

Most cable internet connections have shared lines for either streets or larger areas. It's cheaper for the ISP, but you don't get guaranteed speed, since you're sharing the bandwidth of the line to the nearest service station with a bunch of other houses. You can pay for guaranteed speed, but it's much more expensive and probably only a good idea for enterprises.

I believe the coaxial cable from your house runs out to the street where it enters a converter on the poll (this converter is probably also shared), where the signal is converted to run through fiber to the station. Whether above ground or underground should depend on your area: rural vs. (sub)urban, and whether or not it has underground wiring for other things.

I'm not sure of the speed provided by coaxial, but I know fiber can be very fast, so if your speed becomes 2Gb/s some day, it'll probably be fiber. I doubt coax can support 2GB/s anyway. Even if it does, if you're paying for 2Gb/s internet, you can probably afford a straight fiber connection.