What is the fastest achievable actual throughput to and from the internet?

[#1]

Got (at least  ::)) a few months before FTTC becomes available where I am, so in the meantime I'm pondering whether it would be a worthwhile investment for me.
I 'get' the fact that large bandwidth is very useful when there are multiple users, and/or you watch streaming TV and so on, but that doesn't apply to me, so it's more about how much better the experience of using the internet could become with the extra speed.
The key question is therefore as per thread title - can the internet as a whole keep up with line speeds up to around 75Mbps, and if I were lucky enough to achieve that figure would surfing and downloading actually take place around 8 times faster than with my current  ~9Mbps ADSL2+ connection?

[#2]

As a fairly recent convert to FTTC, I can say that the general browsing experience is largely the same, however streaming video is much smoother in HD, and downloading and uploading are vastly superior. Files which would take hours to download sometimes now take a few minutes, but unless you are looking at web sites with lots of graphics / flash etc. then if you're happy with what you have it certainly won't get worse with fibre.

[#3]

Yes. The absolute minimum link a server has these days is 100Mbps up/down. Most have at least 1Gbps up/down.
You can usually utilise your full 75Mb/s should you wish.
As you say though, the big advantage to these kinds of speeds is the multi tasking ability.

[#4]

Unless you download or stream then i would just stick with 9mb tbh, 9mb is plenty enough for streaming for one person. If your just a browser or the occasional gamer then FTTC is not needed.

[#5]

Thanks for the replies - it's about what I expected (a variation on 'if it ain't broke don't fix it.'  ;))
I daresay it will be sooner than we think that ADSL becomes a historical artefact, and maybe not that much further in the future that fixed telephone and broadband lines of any description do too. 

[#6]

To answer one component of the OP opening post,  you may be interested in this 'News' from BT / Alcatel last January.  A little way off general distribution yet but it shows where we can get to.
http://www.zdnet.com/alcatel-lucent-bt-test-1-4tbs-fiber-speeds-7000025382/
NOTE:  There are a few more technical papers available (or there were?)
M

[#7]

There is one other activity in which FTTC scores massively over ADSL and that is using a cloud backup which without the upstream speed of the former is not a feasible proposition.

[#8]

I also found that the stability increased massively from ADSL to FTTC.