Google Fiber hits a stall, stopping expansion to new markets

Google Fiber, launched in the Kansas City market with great fanfare to bring industrial-strength internet to home users, is hitting the brakes.

The company said the pause on its national expansion is unlikely to change the rate at which it continues to build out in Kansas City. And while the company expects to cut back staff in some places, layoffs of Google Fiber employees aren’t in the works in Kansas City.

But the announcement made on a Google Fiber blog Tuesday suggested a fuller national rollout — important to Kansas City because it gives developers incentive to invent new uses for the mega-broadband and provides clout to the service in bargaining for TV programming — won’t come soon.

The head of Alphabet’s “access division,” marketed as Google Fiber, said in the post that he was stepping aside and that “we’re going to pause our operations and offices while we refine our approaches” before continuing expansion into markets where negotiations had been underway with local government officials.

The company has talked in recent months about exploring ways to deliver broadband to the home wirelessly. Technology to give large numbers of users internet speeds nearing the 1-gigabit-per-second that Google Fiber sells over wired hookups in Kansas City remains untested.

Continued construction in Kansas City, the company said, will likely include conventional construction stringing fiber-optic cables underground and on utility poles. But that could be mixed with wireless systems — something the company hopes could ultimately speed deployment and lower costs.

Google has found construction an often-daunting task. It requires building permits and the hiring of scores of contractors, many of whom have ended up in disputes after work tears up yards, damages sprinklers and sewer lines and results in drawn-out disputes with property owners about repairs.

This story was originally published October 25, 2016 at 8:38 PM with the headline "Google Fiber hits a stall, stopping expansion to new markets."