Telecom equipment maker Ericsson says the unthinkable is now the possible: 500Mbps transmission speeds over ordinary copper wiring. Looking at the details, though, it’s not clear that the news will give Verizon (VZ) any reason to rethink its hugely expensive fiber-to-the-home strategy… or that such speeds will be coming to a DSL line near you anytime soon.

DSL, which relies on twisted-pair copper wiring in common usage around the world, suffers from a host of problems as distance increases between the home and the central office with the DSLAM. Crosstalk, the interference that one wire causes on the other wire, increases along with distance, for one thing. Using crosstalk cancellation technology and a short line length of 500m, Ericsson was able to see sustained data transfer rates of just over 0.5Gbps. It’s the latest telecom maker to report the potential for huge speed increases on copper wiring.

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Four years ago, Verizon Communications embarked on an ambitious and expensive plan to run fiber optic cables, which can deliver ultra-fast Internet service and dozens of high-definition video channels along with old-fashioned telephone service, past 19 million homes, roughly half its territory. When it was announced, Verizon’s $23 billion planned investment in the service, called FiOS, was met by a chorus of skeptics, both on Wall Street and among rivals.

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Unless you’re using Enron math, BT’s new plan to connect 10 million homes–roughly 40 percent of the United Kingdom–with fiber networks at a cost of £1.5 billion doesn’t quite add up. At today’s conversion rate, that’s about $3 billion–or $300 to wire up each of these proposed 10 million homes.

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