The International Telecom Union has put their final stamp of approval on the "G Fast" standard, which may usher the delivery of 1 Gbps speeds over older copper networks. Like many similar fiber to the node (FTTN) efforts before it, G Fast is heavily distance constrained. An ITU announcement declares the standard "combines the best aspects of fibre and DSL" -- assuming you're within 400 meters of a distribution point. In short most users won't have the loop lengths to ever see anything close to 1 Gbps from this product, but like similar FTTN implementations it's cheaper than running fiber all the way to the home.