Bell labs just announced that they have achieved 10Gbps over POTS lines for 30M.
Bell Labs, which is owned by Alcatel-Lucent, hit a speed of 10Gbps inside its own laboratory using two pairs of 30m long standard telephone cables to set the mark. “It will enable operators to provide internet connection speeds that are indistinguishable from fibre-to-the-home services, a major business benefit in locations where it is not physically, economically or aesthetically viable to lay new fibre cables all the way into residences," said Alcatel-Lucent, according to the BBC. "Instead, fibre can be brought to the curbside, wall or basement of a building and the existing copper network used for the final few metres."
Fast but short. True, but they also demonstrated a bidirectional 1Gbps for 70M also. What's the big deal, you say, I have gigabit myself?
This is big news because being able to use existing POTS without new provisioning greatly accelerates deployment of higher capacity broadband, since most of the expense lies in the so called 'last mile' to the customer premises. Though 70M does not a mile make, it doesn't require them to run fiber to every private dwelling.