Google fibre: Subs up, Revenue up, expansion over Google's taken another step in winding back its fibre rollouts, and Craig Barratt, CEO of the operation, is showing himself the door. Back in April, Google axed its free fibre offering in Kansas, switching to US$50 for 100 Mbps services and $70 for gigabit services. That part of the strategy seems to have worked, since Barratt …
Complainers in the UK might want to take note.
If the USA market can't support metropolitan fibre build out (with alleged higher charges both for fixed and mobile data) then perhaps the UK can't either? Especially outside metropolitan areas?
Not good news for rural areas, obviously.
"good news for a totally separate infrastructure company(ies)"
How does that work Ragarath?
There's more money and profit to be had from vertical integration - as in the network and the services that run over it. If you only do one of those things (the network) there's less money available. People are less likely to invest.
They did, but they knew they would. The reason they said was that the installs cost a lot more than planned, which is why they started looking at using wireless to deliver the "last mile". Not sure if the expansion being over means "real" Google Fiber, or even the wireless hybrid they started talking about recently.
The idea that they could give away free internet at lower speeds was always ridiculous. There is only so much data you can collect on people, and if you already have them via their mail, browser, search, phone, etc. being able to get at the internet pipe for further data mining probably doesn't add that much value for them. I imagine the data collected via Google Fiber sounded a lot more valuable when this was in the planning stages, and both Chrome and Android had tiny market shares.
It's entirely possible that this is simple indigestion for chowing into a completely different world/market/infrastructure too fast and needing to cough lumps back up and study them.
But it's also the case that Google scared the living **** out of some of the most powerful monopoly game players in the US, and this halt is fantastic news for them. I strongly suspect they'll have been trying to parachute pets behind enemy lines, possibly via that Gov revolving door Reg was banging on about.
An autopsy might be useful for seeing what weapons have been used against it, and whether the wounds are in the front or the back. Youtube has an ex-Comcast exec IIRC.
I'd imagine they've just run into the same economic problem that affects fibre rollouts everywhere. The amount of money people are willing to pay for Internet access over fibre doesn't cover the costs of doing it. Some individual homes can be economic, but across a given geography, not so much.
Remember the telco finance chief's mantra; Build it and we'll go bust.
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