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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Google Fiber leaves Louisville about a year after it began offering its ultra-fast internet service to a few neighborhoods, citing problems with the method used to build the network through shallow trenches in the streets from the city.
The shutdown will be held April 15, announced Thursday Google Fiber, a unit of the technological giant Alphabet Silicon Valley.
"We do not respect the high standards we set ourselves, nor those we have demonstrated in other fiber cities," the company said. "We would essentially need to rebuild our entire network in Louisville to provide the exceptional service for which Google Fiber is known, and it's just not the right business decision for us."
This decision is a blow to municipal leaders who, eager to benefit from the technology community's cachet and more options for residential Internet services, have worked for years to attract Google's services to Louisville.
Shortly after Google announced that Louisville would be a possible location in 2015, the Metro Council had enacted an order from the utility pole at Google's request. He then spent $ 382,328 on outside lawyers to defend the order in the lawsuits filed by AT & T and the cable company now called Spectrum.
Mayor Greg Fischer said early 2016 that the Google Fiber landing in Louisville was "a huge signal for the world".
Google Fiber began its work in 2017 and eventually offered a service to a small part of the city.
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Although the company never revealed its service areas or customer numbers, it obtained priority permissions to install its network in census blocks containing just under 11,000 households, according to public records badyzed by WDRB last year.
These areas are Strathmoor Manor, Belknap and Deer Park in the Highlands (5,044 households), Newburg (3,728 households) and Portland (2,006 households).
The Louisville Public Works Department has enabled Google Fiber to try a new approach by exploiting shallow trenches in the sidewalks of the city streets to bury the cables.
This resulted in many problems, including sealant that came out of the trenches and sank on the roads.
"It feels like you're using us for a science experiment," said Greg Winn, an architect based on Napolean Boulevard, at Google Fiber's representatives at a meeting of the Belknap Neighborhood Association on Wednesday. 39, last year. "… our streets are awful."
Google Fiber would then fill the trenches with asphalt, which the company's executives have described as "filling a 60-mile pothole".
Google Fiber never used the law on electric poles that Louisville had adopted at his request, the company burying only his sons instead of attaching them to poles.
A public relations representative for Google Fiber said no one was available for an interview.
Nor did he immediately ask written questions about why the company was not enforcing the utility poles ordinance and what happens to the cables already buried in the streets of the city and under the owners' courts.
This story will be updated.
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