Verizon already has 100Gbps (gigabit-per-second) connections over its optical core networks across continents. Now the carrier is bringing that speed to its metro networks, which enterprises tap into for high-speed data connections. The metro networks so far have been limited to 10Gbps or 40Gbps, so that's all enterprises have been able to buy, according to Glenn Wellbrock, Verizon's director of Optical Transport Network Architecture and Design.

Though the carrier doesn't expect many customers to start ordering 100Gbps connections soon, it is preparing for the future, Wellbrock said. For example, many large organizations are looking for 10-gigabit links, and where Verizon has 100-Gigabit capability, it can quickly divide those fat pipes into narrower connections, he said.

Verizon's 100-gigabit U.S. backbone technology forms the basis of a for financial trades that was inaugurated between Chicago and New York last month. It can complete a stock trade in as little as 14.5 milliseconds, according to the carrier. The carrier doesn't yet have 100-gigabit capability across the Atlantic or Pacific but is working on it, Wellbrock said.

Also on Friday, Verizon said it has begun to use the same general architecture for high-speed land-based networks, such as those in North America and Europe, that it already uses for its connections across oceans. That architecture, based on a mesh of cables, gives traffic across its core network more alternate routes to take if one cable breaks. This is a step up from a ring architecture, in which the network recovers by sending bits the other way around the ring if one spot on it is damaged. This has limitations.

"If you had two outages at the same time, you were out of business," Wellbrock said.