Perineum: There is a difference between FTTN or FTTH.
When most company's talk about a their fiber network they are talking about "using fiber in the network" and not actually to the premise. This would be true to literally almost every communication company, broadcast company, cable company as back haul is typical fiber been that way for a while.
FTTN/FTTC/Hybrid network's use fiber to connect equipment located outside of the office generally at some mid point between the office and the customers location. Using of outside equipment drastically increases your speed and reliability however you are still using the same underlying equipment and technologies.
This conversion and management phase adds latency because of the underlying issues of this technology.
For example:
Shaws/Rogers (cable/docis[1/2/3]) network would have there main fiber lines convert it to an RF signal. Which will have problems with splitters, or barrels, connectors, amps, etc.
Telus/Bell (dsl/adsl/vdsl/bonded vdsl) network would have there main fiber lines convert to adsl/Vdsl/bonded vdsl. Which will have problems with bridgetaps, metallic noise, bad splices, shorts/grounds/leakage, etc.
When using a FTTH system the fiber link may run thought different equipment but you are still staying fiber the entire route (until terminating customer equipment) this means there is no latency added with the exception of a router here and there.
That means a 5mbps connection on FTTH will operate faster then a 5mbps connection of FTTN.
Why would we run shielded cat5 what would it connect to?
gig-e over any twister pair has such a short haul it would cost 10s of thousands just to do a single block and we would need to take up so much space for switches, and batteries and PDU. And then to upgrade we would have to then change all the cable and equipment... With fiber when the time comes we just upgrade the equipment just drop new equipment in its place and plug the fiber in, no hassel.
As for maxing out a gbit router, after quickly looking shaw only offers 100mbps plans, so of course you wouldn't max your router? I'm confused.
If what your saying something like, "because its fiber i should get 1gbit connection" or something like "well google" ... just stop.
Look up the specs on the equipment. It can likely do everything you "want" your fiber to do...but then realize that most company's run on a 25-50mbps connection. Just two or three customers having gbit connections could take down most small hosting company's by mistake. (assuming interconnects didn't throttle and bottle neck which would likely happen first).
The REAL fiber networks are being rolled out, but this is not an over night thing. Its going to be a lot of work before we forget about datacaps and buffering.
zoob; if it makes you feel better the dryloop fee should be going towards paying for the physical line, I think someone was quoted as saying a typical install costs $2,000 per subscriber tho I don't know what your ISP's Official stance is as most formally don't charge for the physical install (Disregarding the typical 75-200$ "connection" fee which just pays for the office work and techs).
