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Google Fiber's biggest failure: ISP will turn service off in Louisville
Google Fiber will turn off its network in Louisville, Kentucky and exit the city after a series of fiber installation failures left cables exposed in the roads. Google Fiber's customers in Louisville will have to switch ISPs and will get their final two months of Google Fiber service for free to help make up for the disruption.
Google Fiber went live in Louisville late in 2017, just a few months after construction began. The quick turnaround happened because Google Fiber used a shallow trenching strategy that is quicker than traditional underground fiber deployment and doesn't require digging giant holes. Instead of a foot-wide trench, a micro-trench is generally about an inch wide and four inches deep. In Louisville, Google Fiber reportedly was burying cables in "nano-trenches" that were just two inches deep.
But Louisville residents soon found exposed cables, as a WDRB article noted in March 2018. "When you're walking around the neighborhood, [the lines are] popping up out of the road all over the place," resident Larry Coomes said at the time. "People are tripping over it."
In August 2018, Google Fiber announced a plan to fix the problem, WDRB reported at the time. But Google Fiber never quite got it right, and yesterday the Alphabet-owned ISP announced that it will leave the city in a blog post titled "Saying Goodbye to Louisville."Google Fiber is now in Louisville thanks to new fiber deployment strategy
"As we told our customers today, we will be turning off the network on April 15 and their next two months of service are on us," Google Fiber wrote, pledging to "work with our customers and partners to minimize disruption."
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:29AM (4 children)
Southerners seldom hear the term "frost line". It's something that everyone should know about though. If you put something in the ground, and expect it to stay where you put it, you have to get below the frost line. I live in the south, where it seldom freezes, but I still put my water lines three feet deep. Underground electric lines need to either be at the frost line, or enclosed in some kind of conduit to resist the movement of the ground. Stuff moves, and it can be broken when it moves.
Funny that Google tried something so stupid. Even funnier that they are going to bail, instead of working to fix the problem. Are they going to leave all the hardware behind? Geez, Louise - they could still salvage the situation.
Oh well, they have billions to waste. Someone will benefit from Google's stupidity.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 10 2019, @05:17AM (2 children)
Three feet? Fuck, man, half that is fine anywhere below Kansas. Now if you're planning ahead for pet burial and such, fine, but that's a lot of unnecessary work otherwise.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 10 2019, @05:52AM (1 child)
Unnecessary work, maybe. You've got a hundred yards of pipe to put in the ground. You rent a Ditch-Witch, and start the trench. You may, of course, dig any depth you choose, up to the maximum reach of the trenching machine. You can dig that trench as you learned to do in construction, or you can "cheat". I used my experience, and laid that pipe at 3 feet. I didn't fight the rocky spots, a few spots are only 2' 9" or so. But, I'm well below the frost line, even if the climate decides to get colder, rather than warmer.
Something I've noticed at neighbor's and relative's homes. In the summertime, when the temperature is 100 degrees or higher, the tap water is always warm. My tap water remains cool. Certainly not cold, not chilled, but cool. Lower than body temperature - maybe 85 or 90 degrees. Their water is higher than body temperature, and I certainly don't want to drink it. It's like trying to get a drink from a garden hose that has been lying in the sun all day - yuck!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 10 2019, @06:13AM
Ditch-witch my ass, those fuckers were trenching with a goddamn rototiller.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:17PM
It's Google we are talking about. Bailing out on customer service and abandoning projects is their second nature.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:31AM (5 children)
This is why Silicon Valley fucks are so goddamn dangerous. They wield immense levels of power and influence on the rest of the world, and think just because they can code they also can have some common fucking sense. Any day-laborer Mexican pulled from the side of Home Depot would have laughed at the idea.
Did anybody who was microtrenching for Google tell them, "hey, this is really stupid and will never work" or were they just contractors who did it because they were paid to and knew that Google wouldn't come back to do this again?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:55AM (1 child)
Google is run by Jews. You, of all people, should know this.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 10 2019, @05:38AM
Jews are smarter than that though. This half-baked idea could have only come from a White woman who has experience gardening only strawberries and peppers.
Real Jewish ideas make more sense, like Zuckerburg's idea of using a blimp or microsatellites or drones or some shit to beam internet to the African ooga-boogas. Those fuckers will cut out your heart and eat it if you even look at them the wrong way, so it makes sense to provide them with internet using a more hands-off approach.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @06:37AM
Aye Sir, you hit it on all cylinders. The fucking arrogance of these asshats is amazing. "Oh what's that? You say you can't get cheap fiber in every home in america? Hold my soymilk!" Thinka bout the dumb shit Facebook is spendign money on, Drones to beam internet to Mudhats in Africa, so they can monitize the data of who is lynching who, and where the rapes happen.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Sunday February 10 2019, @11:42AM (1 child)
My thoughts exactly. The only reason you'd bury anything two inches under a road surface if it was, say, important evidence but you wanted a delay of a few months to a year or two before it surfaced. Two inches under a road that heavy trucks run over, that gets scraped and bumped by objects sticking out of/hanging off vehicles, and that potholes six to eight inches deep appear in? The instructions for the install must have read:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @06:54PM
I could see cut quickly stand it up quickly. Get everyone up and running. Then come back with the slow equip to 'do it right? Step 2 is important though...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Sunday February 10 2019, @05:04AM (1 child)
Is there not some form of installation code akin to building codes that would prevent utilities from installing unsafe and unstable services along public roads and walkways?
Did Google not have to show some form of project summery and installation plan to the city council to get permission?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 10 2019, @05:19AM
Consider the amount of money they have to shovel around and how much less expensive city officials are than federal ones and you'll have your answer.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kalas on Sunday February 10 2019, @05:32AM (1 child)
Google's biggest failure by far is the failure to live up to their original motto of "Don't Be Evil."
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday February 10 2019, @01:59PM
> Google's biggest failure by far is the failure to live up to their original motto of "Don't Be Evil."
Assuming it was more than just a nice soundbite to get nerds to like them. that motto unofficially ended the moment they went public, those three words were replaced with "initial public offering".
Although they officially removed it only in 2018, apparently:
https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 [gizmodo.com]
I guess they could not even keep up the pretense anymore, in the face of their past and future plans. At least they have become honest with themselves, even though the rest of us have known what they are for a while now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @01:04PM (5 children)
not sure what the real problem is/was.
lots of phiber cables were put into "micro trenches" in india when the mobile phone revolution happend.
from the picture i recall, the "micro trenches" were made into concret road, no asphalt, and cemented over.
asphalt is awesome for "finished" neighbour hoods. super smooth rides. it is crap and "breakes" when used to early in the zone development phase because large and heavy truck traffic hauling dirt, soil, agregate, cement and whatnot.
so the phiber def. needs to be embeded in the underlying cement layer ...
as for ground movement, if the sheat surrounding and protecting the phiber core isn't bonded to it, so one could theoretically pull the phiber core out of the sheat, but it would bond with the surrounding concret ... well the phibercore could slide ... and finish.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:19PM (4 children)
The way it worked in India was that they have a very large number of utility poles [wikipedia.org] everywhere so they can put wire above the ground where necessary. The other thing was that nobody in India complains if wires shoot out in the sidewalk, people just walk on the streets.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @09:22PM (3 children)
But there is a risk of electrocution when they squat down to shit on the sidewalk.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday February 10 2019, @11:06PM (2 children)
Not electrocution, not with optic fibre.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday February 11 2019, @10:45AM
It's funny how all the racist comments show such a high level of stupidity. Correlation?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday February 11 2019, @05:37PM
Haha! Gives another meaning to shitty internet connection :D
But seriously, I read an article in 2013 explaining how lack of strong governance in India has given rise to jugaad [wikipedia.org] or hacky solutions. That article was pro-libertarian, going as far as calling India the best example of success of libertarianism, but it got me thinking - lack of governance does give more freedom to individuals. You do get to reach your destination faster if you know how to bribe the traffic police, and other people get the right to stone you to death if they can finally get away with it (because at the end there is some government).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:04PM (1 child)
For a couple of years now, I know enough to toss the application if the person claims to have worked at Google
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday February 10 2019, @11:07PM
Perhaps you should ask if this kind of asshattery is what he can't tolerate at Google any more.