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Google Fiber To Cut Staff In Half After User Totals Disappoint, Says Report (dslreports.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the throttled-performance dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from DSLReports: Sources claim that Google Fiber has been disappointed with the company's overall number of total subscribers since launching five years ago. A paywalled report over at The Information cites a variety of anonymous current and former Google employees, who say the estimated 200,000 or so broadband subscribers the company had managed to sign up by the end of 2014 was a fary cry from the company's original projection of somewhere closer to 5 million. Google Fiber has never revealed its total number of subscribers. A report last October pegged the company's total broadband subscribers at somewhere around 120,000, though it's unclear how many of those users had signed up for Google Fiber's symmetrical 5 Mbps tier, which was originally free after users paid a $300 installation fee. Disappointed by sluggish subscriber tallies, The Information report states that last month Alphabet CEO Larry Page ordered Google Fiber boss Craig Barratt to cut the total Google Fiber staff in half to roughly 500 people. That's a claim that's sure to only fuel continued speculation that the company is starting to get cold feet about its attempts to bring broadband competition to a broken duopoly market.

3 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Laissez Faire Capitalist Here... by Motard · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...But I'm really starting to think internet-as-a-municipal-utility is the answer here.

    Well, except for the whole direct government control of my data thing.

    1. Re:Laissez Faire Capitalist Here... by swalve · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If done right, your data would be invisible to the government. Just an encrypted stream between you and your ISP.

    2. Re:Laissez Faire Capitalist Here... by Enigma2175 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      ...But I'm really starting to think internet-as-a-municipal-utility is the answer here.

      Well, except for the whole direct government control of my data thing.

      I have been on a municipal fiber network (UTOPIA) for the last ten years and I couldn't be happier. As far as I know, the government doesn't have anything to do with my data, they are just responsible for making sure the physical network is operational. My ISP is responsible for routing my data to the internet or other peers. I guess theoretically they could "control" my data if they really wanted to but why would my city care about my data? I'm just not seeing a motive for someone at that level of government trying to interfere with data on the network, I'm way more concerned about the feds snooping on my data and we know for that ISPs like Comcast and AT&T invite them right in. The owner of my (local) ISP has been very outspoken about free speech and net neutrality so I'm pretty sure they would resist any efforts for wholesale data harvest (although the feds can just as easily tap their upstream providers to see what's flowing off the network). And if I quit loving my current ISP, I can easily switch to a dozen others on a whim.

      At least to this point the network has been stable and blazing fast. On the few occasions there have been network problems, my ISP gives full technical details about the cause of the issue and what they are doing to fix it. It's been a lot cheaper and loads faster than my previous ISP, Comcast. With cable there was constant slowdowns and I seldom, if ever, received the advertised speed. With fiber, my symmetric connection delivers exactly the speed I bought at all times of day. Granted, it's been 10 years since I last was on cable and maybe it's improved since then but it's still light years behind judging by the posts about it on Slashdot. Plus, I don't have to deal with Comcast's "Customer Service" or "Technical Support" anymore, which is worth its weight in gold.

      --

      Enigma