vDSL is what changed to make the speeds higher, but although it got a little better, it seems like the distances are still pretty limited. I suspect that the DSLAMs have become smaller and cheaper, so that you can push those out of the central office and into smaller cabinets inside neighborhoods, which had the effect of making the distance problem appear to go away.

That still seems to leave truly rural areas out of luck, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDSL