Ultimate Proof That Google Fiber Is Not Serious

[SteelCrysis]

Here is a story about Google Fibre that SC wouldn't post in a million years (because its a good news story about google fibre, not a bad news story).

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017...struction/

AT&T has lost a court case in which it tried to stall construction by Google Fiber in Louisville, Kentucky.

AT&T sued the local government in Louisville and Jefferson County in February 2016 to stop a One Touch Make Ready Ordinance designed to give Google Fiber and other new ISPs quicker access to utility poles. But yesterday, US District Court Judge David Hale dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, saying AT&T's claims that the ordinance is invalid are false.

Google Fibre has been slow to deploy not because Google is uninterested in deploying it, but because existing cable and telecommunication companies have put up roadblock after roadblock to prevent Google from deploying or to raise the cost of deployment.  But you will never see SC Admit that in one of his bashing threads.

The reason I didn't post it is because it's irrelevant to the point of this topic. As I've said before, Google Fiber didn't encounter one peep of opposition until it came to Louisville. Even without opposition, it rolls out at the rate of continental drift, and has cancelled orders for people in Kansas City who were waiting up to 18 months for it.

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Honey...ity-140252

Motherboard recently spent some time talking to locals in Kansas City to determine the fate of Google Fiber's dedication to the area, and found a decidedly mixed bag. Once held up as the vanguard of the company's attempts to disrupt the uncompetitive broadband market, the future of Google Fiber's deployment in the city appears very much in question.

"We were saying that in all likelihood this is too good to be true," Isaac Wilder, co-founder of the Free Network Foundation and a Kansas City native told the website. "Lo and behold, just a few years later and it's beginning to become clear that [Google Fiber] was just a lot of lip service," he added.

Part of the problem is that Google Fiber executives are enamoured with next-generation wireless as a cheaper deployment option, but many of these technologies (including millimeter wave and 5G) remain uncooked. So while Google fiber management is stuck in a holding pattern waiting to see if wireless is the answer, PR reps are stuck with no real answer for annoyed users. That was reflected once again by the rather meaningless statement Google Fiber provides Motherboard.

"We hear loud and clear from communities in the region who are interested in talking with us, but for now we're heads down in innovation that will help us to do this business in a way that's maintainable for the long haul," said a company spokesperson.

To be clear, Google Fiber has done a hell of a lot of good for the broadband market by fostering a much-needed conversation on the abysmal lack of real competition in the market. They've also doled out connectivity to numerous low income areas that have been consistently ignored. But the future of the entire effort remains anything but certain, and it wouldn't be shocking to see Google grow tired of the venture, ultimately selling it to any number of interested, incumbent suitors like CenturyLink.

[SteelCrysis]

I'm linking directly to this since DSLReports got the coins detail wrong: http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/...44767.html

The bizarre episode reflected a confluence of events that included an upfront payment, an unwatched gmail account, a sales tax increase and a customer who has no use for a $30 credit.

More to the point, it shouldn’t have happened. Retail businesses know that it’s much cheaper to keep current customers happy than to try to replace them with new ones. Especially when it’s a matter of 12 cents.

“Flags should have been raised when they were about to lose a customer,” said Micah Solomon, a customer service consultant who has written about Google for Forbes.

Solomon said the company’s systems should have been set up to detect that the rift was over such a small amount of money and drop the case instead of the customer’s service. Google Fiber’s systems may have operated efficiently, he said, but in this case they “backfired.”

Tane, like a lot of others in Kansas City, bought Google Fiber’s service by paying $300 to cover the cost to connect her home.

She opted for a basic service option. Yes, it is slow, with download speeds of only 5 megabits per second, not the superfast gigabit service Google Fiber is known for.

But it worked for her. More important, Google Fiber’s basic internet service would be free for seven years.

Tane also paid the total upfront. $300 to connect, plus $25.08 for taxes and fees. Transaction done. Free for seven years.

Google Fiber, however, didn’t treat her account that way. Instead, it spread the $300 out over one year, officially recognizing a dozen monthly payments of $25, plus taxes and fees.

And when the sales tax rate rose to 8.475 percent from 8.35 percent, Tane’s account was hit for extra taxes.

“At the end of the year, they came up short 12 cents for taxes,” Tane said she was told after her service was cut off.

Tane acknowledges she missed the emails Google Fiber sent advising her of the balance due and the warnings that she would lose service. They went to a gmail account set up when she bought the service but that she doesn’t use.

Others contacted by The Star and who bought the same $300/seven-year deal said they were unaware of an added 12-cent charge. They said their service has remained uninterrupted.

Tane is glad to have the internet back but is not sure what she can do with a $30 credit. She won’t owe the company a dime for the next six years.

Solomon noted that’s when Google Fiber will hope to convert each of those free accounts into paying ones.

“They want her to be a paying customer in seven years and one day,” he said.

Right now, at least, Tane’s not sold.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” she said. “Why would you penalize a customer who paid up front?”

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Local...nta-140358

Reports out of Atlanta indicate that Google Fiber has slowed its pace of deployment in the city, another indication that the company's love affair with its once-ambitious disruption project may be on the ropes. Local Atlanta news outlets state that Google Fiber deployments in metro Atlanta areas including Sandy Springs and Brookhaven have "significantly stalled," and that the company simply stopped seeking the necessary build permits late last year -- right around the time Google Fiber began laying off employees amidst reports execs were growing weary of the pace and cost of the project.

“I’ve checked with our utilities manager and to date, Google has not provided any formal notice of delay,” said Sandy Springs spokesperson Sharon Kraun. “They halted their permits about six months ago. Restoration work continues, which ensures property where work was conducted is left in order.”

As is now tradition, Google Fiber was only willing to issue a statement that doesn't actually answer any of the questions asked of the company.
...
Google Fiber has given similar non-answers in places like Kansas City, where consumers that had been waiting for service for years were recently informed their installations had been cancelled. It's fairly obvious to most that Google Fiber is dramatically slowing down its deployment, but it's also fairly obvious Google/Alphabet doesn't want to admit as much.

Part of the problem is that Google Fiber executives are enamoured with next-generation wireless as a cheaper deployment option, but many of these technologies (including millimeter wave and 5G) remain uncooked. So while Google fiber management is stuck in a holding pattern waiting to see if wireless will be a less expensive alternative to fiber, PR reps are stuck with no real answer for annoyed users, who have slowly but surely begun to notice Google Fiber's waning interest in its own existence.

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Misse...ber-140435

Motherboard recently spent some time talking to locals in Kansas City to determine the fate of Google Fiber's dedication to the area, and found a decidedly mixed bag. Once held up as the vanguard of the company's attempts to disrupt the uncompetitive broadband market, the future of Google Fiber's deployment in the city appears very much in question.

Another, very similar story popped up last week in the Kansas City Star, in which the Kansas Corporation Commission confirmed that Google missed deadlines to bring service throughout four Kansas cities -- Mission Hills, Westwood, Westwood Hills and Kansas City. Google promised in 2012 to bring connectivity to these regions within five years. That report was followed by an editorial by the paper questioning the company's dedication to a project it hyped for years.

The report is clear to note that Google Fiber has had a scattered, positive impact on many communities, but locals are pretty clearly growing agitated by the company's refusal to seriously address the company's obvious wavering enthusiasm. Similar questions have started bubbling up in Google Fiber markets like Atlanta, where locals also say the company's deployment cadence has notably slowed.

In each instance, Google Fiber isn't helping itself by simply regurgitating PR missives that don't seriously acknowledge any of this is happening.

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Alpha...ber-140608

Capital expenditures (CAPEX) for Alphabet/Google's “Other Bets” -- the unit that contains Google Fiber -- has dropped precipitously, reflecting a growing disinterest in funding the once well-hyped and disruptive offering. CAPEX for Other Bets during the third quarter was $77 million, down dramatically from $324 million in the year-ago period. Granted "other bets" also includes numerous other units like Nest, but the cuts come as Google Fiber continues to face questions about the company's dedication to the project, after numerous layoffs, the firing of two CEOs, and numerous missed deadlines and cancelled installs.

[SteelCrysis]

It's happy to lay down fiber when there is no interference, it just won't lay it down faster than continental drift. And it can stall out, like in Kansas City and Atlanta.

[SteelCrysis]

My rant on those things is non-existent, because they get plenty of condemnation as it is. Meanwhile, Google Fiber has usually not gotten the criticism it deserves. That activates my contrarian side.

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.gamersnexus.net/industry/320...ct-twc-att
Wow. Just wow. This is such Comcast-level incompetence that I'm not going to spoil any of it.

[dmcowen674]

All of the Carriers have 1Gb wireless now so any landline is being abandoned now.

[SteelCrysis]

GamersNexus managed to get Google Fiber working:

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Atlan...ays-141829

By now it's no secret that Google Fiber isn't quite as bullish on actually deploying...Google Fiber as it used to be. The company paused most of its deployments in late 2016 and laid of numerous employees, after burning through two CEOs in a matter of several months. The company's been pretty cagey ever since, happy to absorb the hype of the disruptive potential of Google Fiber, without really candidly acknowledging the fact that they overhyped their deployments, then left a large number of cities waiting at the altar for better broadband that never arrived.

Google higher ups became frustrated by the high cost and slow pace of the projects, despite numerous warnings from those intimately familiar with how hard it is to disrupt a market dominated by a handful of politically-powerful players.
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Deployments have also stalled in cities like Atlanta, where local news outlets state Google Fiber now won't even respond to requests for additional information:
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It's believed that as Google Fiber pivots to wireless it will simply shift gears and focus more heavily on emerging technologies like millimeter wave. But it's also entirely possible that if the company is already tired of the high costs and slow cadence of disrupting the broadband sector, it may ultimately just give up on the effort entirely.

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Googl...ays-141870

For its part, Google Fiber this week apologized for the delays in Atlanta, while insisting it's doing everything in its power to meet its build out obligations.

"Unfortunately, our rollout in Atlanta hasn’t met our original goals," a Google Fiber spokesperson told the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
"That said, we’re connecting new customers in the Atlanta area - and all of our fiber cities - every day," the company said. "At this time, we’re available in over 100 multi-unit residential buildings and portions of several neighborhoods. We’re currently focused on providing an excellent customer experience for our customers, and we continue to engage with partners across the city to work on digital inclusion issues as well."

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.kxan.com/news/investigations/...1211786008
I found this through DSLReports.

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Googl...ges-142028

A spokeswoman for Public Works states that the city mandated microtrenching bury fiber at a depth of at least four inches back in 2016, a requirement that should prevent such disruption. But much of the earlier Google deployments were at a shallower depth, meaning there's likely more outages to come for area Google Fiber customers. Google Fiber has been forced to embrace microtrenching in Nashville, in part, thanks to nuisance lawsuiits by AT&T and Comcast making it more cumbersome to use city (and frequently AT&T owned) utility poles.

[SteelCrysis]

Google is refusing to say how deep they buried the fiber lines: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Googl...lle-142065