Missed Deadlines, Non-Answers Raise Questions for Google Fiber

Last fall Google Fiber announced it would be putting a number of new fiber deployments on hold as executives -- rumored to be tired of the high cost and slow pace of fiber installs -- ponder a pivot to next-generation, ultra-fast wireless. While this shake up has involved firing two CEOs in a matter of months and shuffling around some employees, the company has continued to insist that existing deployments -- like the one in Kansas City -- would remain unaffected.

But that doesn't appear to be the case, with many Kansas City customers saying their installations were cancelled -- without real explanation -- earlier this year

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.

Part of the problem is that the company has burned through two CEOs in the last year, resulting in a fairly obvious identity crisis. Another 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.