I need to catch up on my quantum physics, every time I read that someone pulled off quantum teleportation I'm disappointed when I read the line "here we realize quantum teleportation between two remote atomic-ensemble quantum memory nodes, each composed of 100 million rubidium atoms and connected by a 150-meter optical fiber" taken from the source article. http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.2892

I know there's a difference between what they did and regular fiber optics. It just doesn't seem to be quite the same. Can it be done without the interconnecting material? If not it's really useless. When I picture practical uses of quantum teleportation I picture things like rovers instantly sending data and receiving instructions.