In one of Verizon's commercials, it is stated that "FiOS isn't shared between 100s of homes, unlike cable", which is a pile of stuff. All internet mediums are "shared" at some point, there is no reasonable way to get rid of this model unless you introduce the idea of wireless internet access or "personal cables" to other parts of the internet. Yes, fiber optics are faster. The only problem is that they could give you whatever amount of bandwidth that they want you to have, or whatever meets their capacity. If 1 type of the average fiber optic cable running out of a house with FiOS were laid all across Verizon's backbone, the maximum possible speed spread out across all customers would be the max speed of that cable type ("weakest link model"). A standard coaxial cable running to the first node to the ISP (beyond here you need better cabling as you're routing hundreds of customers, which the good ISPs have already) would be sufficient for the 3 lowest FiOS tiers that I see here, and already by the third one we've hit $150 per month. The limit is somewhere between this highest tier that I see and a higher tier that I can't find a price for. They are fooling people this way by thinking that light-powered means faster despite the construction they chose for their backbone. (By comparison, I can get that $150 plan from my ISP for a scaled cost of around $50-$70)
Here is a fundamental flaw which easily demonstrates the problem: at the moment, and 99% of home networks in the US do not constitute anything higher, I have an ethernet cable rated at 100mbps. Since Verizon has installed fiber cable to my home, it must mean that the limits of my ethernet cable will get in the way (coaxials run out of homes, they are rated by speed higher than ethernet cables anyway). This is incorrect. I could still use my weaker-than-coaxial ethernet cables and never bump into congestion because of my wire's lower rating.
Yes, you can sometimes see some good packages (they are much higher priced than what I have, Optimum) but in monopoly areas like the OP is in Verizon just doesn't meet the status quo (not many internet providers in the US do either).
