Informative article by Ars Technica on next generation academic networks like GÉANT2 in Europe and Internet2 in the USA. Don’t expect connections such as these to appear on your doorstep any time soon.
For starters, none of the academic network providers are using anything other than off-the-shelf hardware. In addition, the actual physical connections between the hardware are little more than excess capacity. Any Internet provider could provide similar connections if it made economic sense for them to do so. Right now, it doesn’t.
FWIW, my home connection was hooked up to GÉANT2 via SURFnet when I was at University.