I’m not a cable expert by any means and can’t answer all the questions, but I can tell you that the protocol used by cable is called DOSCIS. So it might guide you into some of those answers.
And the coax cable itself doesn’t go very far now because it’s connected to a fiber network somewhere in your neighbourhood.
I was using E16 years ago and liked it but eventually switched to Gnome (2, I think), after waiting for E17 for too long.
What made me quit was the wait. All the other DEs at the time were releasing new versions frequently but Enlightenment took forever.