Google Fiber's quest to cover the country with high-speed internet has been put to a momentary pause as per management's decision. This in turn leads to the inevitable move of laying off around 9 percent of its staff concerned with this would-have expansion.
According to The Verge, current Access CEO Craig Barratt indicated in his blog post that those employees affected will come from cities where Google Fiber initially aimed to deliver Fiber internet service. Barratt mentioned that this decision to halt rollout is meant to give them time to think of ways to provide cheaper, more affordable internet access.
Along with this pause, Barratt has also decided to step down from his post as per USA Today. He will, however, remain with the company as an adviser.
The cities where Fiber has been in exploratory discussions and would be in a standstill are as follows: Oklahoma, San Jose, San Diego, Phoenix, Portland, Jacksonville, Tampa, Dallas and Los Angeles City. Such will be the case until an approach to reliable and inexpensive internet delivery is achieved.
In June 2016, Access successfully acquired Webpass, a San Francisco-based internet service provider that works with wireless antennas and transmitters on top of buildings. In theory, a combination of Fiber's technology, Webpass' innovative approach and leasing of existing fiber and municipal broadband networks, may lessen the burden of cost, thus accelerating the expansion to consumers in affected areas.
The bottom line is that there is no clear indication as to whether this halt is only meant to rethink the approach and strategize costs or if the deployment is to stop altogether.
One factor leading to this line of thinking is the fact that "more companies are already building fiber broadband rapidly," which in a way was orchestrated by Google, as is stated by Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research.
Another is the scenario illustrated above regarding Google's acquisitions, paving the way to discovering other internet delivery methods with lesser hurdles.
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