A bit late but still interesting enough to repost here: Scienists found a way to squeeze more bits onto the copper that it is as fast as fiber. See Copper wire as fast as fiber?

The group hopes that the answer will be found in the use of Dynamic Spectrum Management (DSM) to boost DSL speeds. “The main obstacle for the advancement of DSL technology is the interference (“crosstalk”) generated from different DSL lines that share the same telephone cable binder,” said Professor John Cioffi, Professor of Engineering at Stanford University, a pioneer of DSM research. “DSM is a promising technology for the future evolution of broadband access networks using existing copper infrastructure.”

“Boss,” you begin, “about that $18 billion we just spent? Well, turns out it wasn’t strictly necessary…” – hehe :-)