If you think Google Fiber is fast, wait until you get a load of what Verizon is working on. The broadband and telecommunications company recently completed testing of a new technology that could provide businesses and consumers with Internet speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second - 10 times as fast as Google's existing offering.

The new technology, known in the industry as a next-generation passive optical network, was extensively tested in Verizon's labs in Waltham, Massachusetts. Outside of the lab, the company conducted field testing from Verizon's central office in Framingham, Massachusetts, to a FiOS customer's home roughly three miles away.

In addition to sheer speed, the technology is also quite reliable. Verizon said it simulated a fault in the central office equipment to test reliability. The customer's ONT autonomously tuned to another wavelength, effectively restoring the 10Gbps connection within seconds.

The technology has the potential to push speeds up to 80Gbps, says Lee Hicks, vice president of network technology at Verizon. Scaling up to meet demand is a simple matter of adding new colors of light onto the existing fiber with each new color tacking on an additional 10Gbps of bandwidth, he added.

Verizon said it initially expects to attract business customers although that'll change over time as the adoption of 4K streaming video picks up. The Internet of Things will also drive the need for higher-speed connections as more than 25 billion Internet-connected devices are expected in the wild by 2020.