Bob,
One note - that is sometime forgotten concerning 1000BASE-X While it does support fiber media (multimode & single-mode), the short-reach, 25-meter copper media jumper is actually a shielded (or "screened" as the Europeans say) -- which is not UTP Cat5.
The other advantage of copper based cables and jumpers is that their connectors usually require a smaller physical footprint -- which is important for high density blades or cards in network equipment. I find its usage predominantly in data centers with high concentrations (and short lengths) of servers and network gear.
The reason for my fiber bias is that it permits future bandwidth enhancements. Twisted copper cable is near maximum practical bandwidth usage - and coaxial copper is not far behind in capacity.
Now back to my wireless reading about Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access -- WiMAX (IEEE 802.16)
gb
gb