"Part of the problem, it seems, is that Provo has laid so much fiber under its streets since it started building out its network in 2008 that it no longer knows where it all is.
The contractor that originally buried the cables didn't keep records, so the city will now need to pay a civil engineering firm around $500,000 to find them."
With piss poor management like that no wonder why the company was operating at a loss.
$1.7m may seem like a lot but when you consider that Google supplies schools, libraries, etc with free Gigabit internet it's a steal. Also Google is putting up $18m of it's own money to fix and update the network so it's not like Google is getting this for nothing.
I personally can't wait till Google fiber is everywhere. I'm tired of cable companies, who have a conflict of interest, nickle and diming us for internet access. Time to catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to speed and cost of internet access.