Google searches have only yielded 5th grade level examples (“the modem talks between your ISP and your home network!”) or articles I would need a degree to understand. Can anyone provide an explanation that’s somewhere in between the two? I understand the fundamentals of how the Internet works, and how LAN works regarding a router and individual devices, but I’m curious to know more about the link between those.
How deep are you willing to go.
I’m a computer engineer, I design and develop embedded systems like modems, TCU, ECU and many others.
If you want to understand how a modem works, truly understand everything. You need to first understand some basic physics primarily electromagnetism and the property of waves.
From there you can jump to a higher abstracted level such as amplitude modulation, frequency modulation and phase modulation. From this you can try to read up on Quadrature amplitude modulation.
You can also use this to understand demodulation.
Then jump back to the lower level and study up signal theory and how these things work.
Honestly the level of information to fully understand how a device like a modem is huge.
If you love this stuff and you’re still young I would encourage you to become a computer engineer with a focus in asic. It’s not easy but the stuff you work on is rewarding.