The U.S. has slow internet. It sucks. The giant iron fists of a handful of monopolistic ISPs continue to pound the weak, helpless masses. One bright spot in the dark, depressing wasteland has been Google Fiber, Google’s one gigabit high-speed internet service. Of course, Google Fiber is only in a few select areas–so looking to it as some sort of high-speed savior is ill-advised. But hey, they’re trying.

Now, it looks like the company wants to make their offering even faster. A lot faster. And they want to do so in a shorter time frame than you might expect. Sadly, you’ll probably never see it anywhere near your house.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference, Google CFO Patrick Pichette said that the company is currently working on bringing fiber of up to 10 gigabits per second–10 times the already blazing speed (at least in an American context) they currently offer.

He also referenced Google’s “obsession with speed.”

And in terms of when we might see this, Pichette threw out three years as a possibility.

“That’s where the world is going. It’s going to happen…why wouldn’t we make it available in three years? That’s what we’re working on. There’s no need to wait,” said Pichette (via USA Today)

Google Fiber is currently up and running in Kansas City and a handful of surrounding areas–as well as Provo, Utah. It’s also moving into Austin, Texas soon. Google charges $70 a month for their gigabit internet, and $120 a month if you add on a TV package.

Like I said before – all of this is great for Provo, Kansas City, Austin, and the additional cities that Google will no doubt bring the service to in the coming years. But for the rest of us? Well, the sad truth is that most of us are unlikely to see 10 gigabit fiber–or anything like it. Some analysts have calculated that the cost of bringing Google Fiber to most of the U.S. would be about $11 billion, or about 4% of Google’s current net worth.

While 10 gigabits per second isn’t even close to the fastest network in the world, it’s pretty damn fast. And compared to what most of us in America are used to, well, it’s downright blazing.

Image via Google Fiber, Facebook