In essence, the answer is that broadband is better than it used to be, because of Moore's law - smaller transistors, more powerful computers.
Today, a smartphone has more power than the computers that landed Apollo on the moon. In fact, a smartphone has more power than the entirety of NASA's computing power in 1969, never mind just one lunar lander.
https://www.zmescience.com/research/technology/smart...
For your phone line, the same kind of increase in computing power goes inside your modem to make broadband speed faster.
Now the copper wire is the limitation, so the modem at BT's end needs to be placed in street cabinets instead. It's a good job it's smaller too...
An alternative approach to explaining things...
Remember dial-up modems?
ADSL broadband essentially combines 256 dial-up modems in parallel on the same phone line. All packed into one more powerful modem box (OTT techy explanation: each of the 256 tones is roughly equivalent to a 56k modem).
ADSL2+ took that to 512 dial-up modems.
In 2009, the first version of FTTC broadband used modems that were equivalent to running 1,700 dial-up modems.
Our current version of FTTC broadband now combines around 4,000 dial-up modems onto your phone line.
Next year (or 2019), Germany will start using hardware equivalent to 8,000 dial-up modems.
In this country, G.Fast is the next step. However, it will be the first DSL that loses this direct comparison being made with those old-hat 56k modems.
All made possible because chipset designers just keep creating more powerful stuff.
Edited by deleted (Sun 26-Nov-17 02:16:04)
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