According to Penn State engineers, transmission rates of 100 gigabits per second are possible today over copper. But only on distances of less than 100 meters. And only with high-end Category 7 copper cables. These Ethernet cables are made up of four pairs of twisted wires shielded to reduce crosstalk. The Penn State technology could provide an alternative to glass fiber optics cables in computer datacenters where distances between systems are not too big. In other words, it would be possible to interconnect servers inside a building at speeds similar to the ones provided by more expensive fiber optic cabling.
Colin Bennett on 02 Mar 09"Thanks to the low cost and the broad deployment of copper cabling in the datacenter, we believe 10GBASE-T will help accelerate the adoption of 10GbE. 10GBASE-T is available today in adapters and will certainly migrate to be the standard connection on the motherboard."