It's never been stated what country the thread originator is in (and he's not entered his location), so presumably there may well be differences between countries.
In the UK (as far as I know, I'm not an electrician) there are two options for earth.
1) The older way (and probably still the best?), you provide your own earth connection with an earth spike in the ground, regulations require the wire to the spike to be a certain minimum thickness, and the spike has to comply as well.
2) The electricity company provide you a PME earth, I've no idea what that actually is, but assume it's using the neutal wire in some way?.
Also, as far as I'm aware, the neutral connection is grounded at the substation, which is why you can get a shock off just the live wire.
Usually, and depending on load, you can measure a few volts different between neutral and earth - due to the drop across the neutral wire from the substation.