Yes, data moves more quickly through fiber cables than through copper ones.
Yes, data moves more quickly through fiber cables than through copper ones.
Well my latency dropped about 6ms going from FTTC to FTTP and my line wasn't interleaved. Everything just works better, presumably as there is less equipment in the chain from home to ISP. Exactly, so in practice fibre ends up faster and more reliable. My FTTP GPON ONT/ONU has a MAX power rating of 2.4W and that's a technology that's supposed to go up to 16KM passively. Gigabit ethernet can use half a watt over only 100M. You also have to consider that for potentially hundreds of customers you need only ONE transmitter at the other end vs DSL where you have one for every single customer. There's an article about real-world power consumption comparisons of broadband networks, as an example. So there's much more to this than simply speed or latency.
Agreed that fiber isn't always superior for most situations. It serves as a final leg of connectivity. For very long distances, most travel will rely on fiber, and the last stretch becomes less critical unless traffic is heavy. While fiber generally wins, other variables mean it's not the only deciding factor.
The final stretch delivers significant power savings with one transmitter instead of many, reduces crosstalk, and lowers maintenance costs for aging cables—some made of aluminum. It’s no longer the last-mile in many areas because the central hub can be up to 16 kilometers away, safely cooled and backed by generators. In the UK, most telcos are shifting to fiber, even replacing cable with COAX outside homes. Others use ONTs/ONUs inside properties. Fiber networks are far cheaper to maintain and allow much higher speeds more easily.
I think I read somewhere they can do up to 16 customers on a single Fiber. It could be more now. Which is a hell of a lot better than most Coax providers. On coax a node can have hundreds of people on it. If you are luck to live in an area where Comcast did Node + 0 you could have as little as 20 customers on a node, but those upgrades have been stopped due to "Costs".
GPON supports speeds of up to 128 Mbps downstream and 1.2 Gbps upstream, while XG-PON offers up to 256 Mbps downstream with symmetrical 9.95 Gbps links. Both utilize the same fiber infrastructure by employing distinct light frequencies, boosting capacity further—though ports must differ at each end.