From ArsTechnica:

Users will be able to connect Thunderbolt-equipped peripherals to remote hosts using optical cabling in 2012, Intel told IDG News Service on Monday. The company reaffirmed its commitment to get optical cabling on the market this year, which will allow much longer cable runs beyond the current three meter limit. This, in turn, will allow the technology to achieve higher transmission speeds in the future.

Thunderbolt originally began life as an optical cable interconnect dubbed "LightPeak." By the time it reached the market in early 2011, however, optical cabling was abandoned for standard copper. Copper cabling offered the advantage of lower cost as well as the ability to send as much as 10W of power to peripherals, while still matching the originally planned 10Gbps bidirectional data rate. Still, copper cabling can only reach approximately six meters theoretical maximum, and won't be able to scale much beyond 10Gbps.

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