Plans to expand Google Fiber to major cities have been put on hold and Google Fiber CEO Craig Barratt has resigned, while 9% of the service’s employees are reportedly being axed.
Approximately 130 people of the 1500 Fiber employees will lose their jobs, according to a report from Bloomberg. CEO Craig Barratt said operations in Google’s “potential Fiber cities” will be ceased while the Fiber team plans to “refine our approaches.”
Barratt stated that although he is stepping down as the CEO of the Fiber project, he has been asked by parnet-company Alphabet CEO Larry Page to stay on as an advisor to the Fiber team.
Barratt and Fiber president Dennis Kish reportedly wanted further expansion of the Fiber service, but others within Google resisted due to the added construction costs of digging up streets and roads to lay Google’s fiber optic connection lines across some of the busiest cities in America.
Jan Dawson, an analyst with Jackdaw Research, said, “I suspect the sheer economics of broad scale access deployments finally became too much for them, ultimately, most of the reasons Google got into this in the first place have either been achieved or been demonstrated to be unrealistic.”
Barratt, although now no longer CEO, does seem confident that this is simply a delay and that the project will continue, saying, “I am humbled by our growth and progress across Access today, and I’m so grateful to have been part of such an extraordinary bet. And as we continue this bet, I remain confident that the future will hold a much more connected society and abundant access for all. Let’s keep doing our part to make it so!”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart Tech covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lucas@yiannopoulos.net
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