Officials announce next steps as Google Fiber prepares to leave Louisville | In depth

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A day after Google's surprise announcement of Louisville's abandonment, company and city officials have not talked much about what's going on.

Will the Silicon Valley giant, who made $ 31 billion in profits last year, restore the streets he carved mainly in Portland and some areas of the Highlands?

Will the miles of fiber optic Google installed in the city be destroyed or bequeathed to the metropolitan government? Could another Internet provider use what Google leaves behind?

In a statement released Thursday, a representative of Google Fiber said the company would talk about these issues with the Louisville subway officials before the service was halted on April 15. The spokesperson did not respond to the second interview request on Friday.

Neither Mayor Greg Fischer nor Civic Innovation Leader Grace Simrall were available for questions on Friday. Al Andrews, who oversaw Google Fiber's licensing of public works on the Louisville subway, referred a reporter to city spokespeople.

"In terms of infrastructure, municipal officials will meet Google next week to outline the logistical details and obligations badociated with the company's planned release," said Louisville's Metro spokesman , Joe Lord, in an email.

Mr. Lord stated that Google Fiber "is required to reinstate excavation or construction work carried out in the Louisville tube right-of-way to its original state or to a higher state."

This is a directive of the city's public works policy, to which Google Fiber has subscribed as part of its Metro 2016 franchise agreement.

Pat Mulvihill, a board member of Metro, a lawyer who was dealing with telecommunications franchise issues when he was working for the Jefferson County Attorney's Office, said he understood that Google Fiber would be legally required to repair the city's street defects to the satisfaction of Metro Public. Works.

"I think they have the responsibility to repair or fix that, or to pack it up or something else," he said, citing the fact that sealant was coming out of the shallow trenches that Google Fiber had dug along the roads.

Mulvihill added that he believed that fiber optic lines installed by Google Fiber in the streets of the city would become property of the metropolitan government if they were abandoned, while lines under residential courts and boxes attached to homes became the property of the owners.

Could the city use Google's fiber optic infrastructure or give it to another Internet provider?

Valerie Baute, a member of the family at the head of IgLou Internet Services, a local provider that sells access using AT & T cables, said he doubted that the remains of Google Fiber could be recovered because they were "so badly installed".

"You almost have to destroy what's there and start all over again," she says.

Brandon Coan, a member of the Metropolitan Council, who represents the regions of Belknap, Deer Park and Strathmoor where Google Fiber is the center of attention, said a Google Fiber official who promised Thursday to solve all the problems and " leave the place as beautiful as she had found it. "

Coan stated that this should mean, at the very least, the pouring of asphalt into all shallow trenches and the removal of any remaining sealant that would have come out and exposed the fiber optic conduit.

Coan noted that the joints currently visible in the streets of the city will eventually be removed as each street is repaved.

"I am confident that we will be able to erase the visible reminders of this experience in time and, hopefully, sooner than later," he said.