Forgetting about cable or fiber for a moment, good old thin phone wire will enjoy having those 'knobs' tweaked. If signal processing techniques can improve DSL to unheard of capacity (according to reputable companies), imagine what advances in broadband tech will do for cable and fiber, which is in place right now, stuff which is less environmentally intrusive than slapping up an LMDS antenna every 2 miles:
VDSL2
The DSL family of technologies still dominates the fixed broadband world. To ensure that operators can continue to use their copper networks, network equipment vendors are adding some new technologies to VDSL2 to increase download speeds to several hundred megabits per second
To boost DSL to those kinds of speeds, the vendors are using a number of technologies. One way is to send traffic over several copper pairs at the same time, compared to traditional DSL, which only uses one copper pair. This method then uses a technology -- called DSL Phantom Mode by Alcatel-Lucent and Phantom DSL by Nokia Siemens -- that can create a third virtual copper pair that sends data over a combination of two physical pairs.
However, the use of these technologies also creates crosstalk, a form of noise that degrades signal quality and decreases bandwidth. To counteract that, vendors are using a noise-canceling technology called vectoring. It works the same way as noise-canceling headphones, continuously analyzing the noise conditions on the copper cables, and then creates a new signal to cancel it out, according to Alcatel-Lucent.
Designed to support the wide deployment of triple play services such as voice, video, data, high definition television (HDTV) and interactive gaming, VDSL2 enables operators and carriers to gradually, flexibly, and cost-efficiently upgrade existing xDSL infrastructure.
Just like 10G GPON, it is also being pitched as an alternative for mobile backhaul.
