At one time, it was believed that achieving Gigabit speeds with Ethernet required fiber optic or other special cables. However, Gigabit Ethernet can be implemented on ordinary twisted pair copper cable (specifically, the CAT5e and CAT6 cabling standards).
Migration of existing computer networks from 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet is happening slowly. Much legacy Ethernet technology exists (in both 10 and 100 Mbps varieties), and these older technologies offers sufficient performance in many cases.
Today, Gigabit Ethernet can only be found mainly in research institutions. A decrease in cost, increase in demand, and improvements in other aspects of LAN technology will be required before Gigabit Ethernet surpasses other forms of wired networking in terms of adoption.
