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-- OriginalOwner_ [tinyurl.com] writes:

from the you-gotta-break-some-eggs dept.

El Reg reports [theregister.co.uk]

Residents of Austin, TX may be regretting the decision to bring Google Fiber to the city. The Austin American Statesman [mystatesman.com] says that last year, 254 complaints were filed with the city over problems related to construction of the network.

The complaints include reports of landscape and property damage caused by crews tasked with laying cable for the Fiber network.

One such incident was an October flood which, residents say, was caused when contractors laying Fiber cables blocked off storm drains. The resulting flood is said to have caused an estimated $760,000 in damages.

The Statesman report notes that other homeowners have complained of trespassing and blocked driveways.

[...]Not every city should expect to see construction to the extent of Austin, as some of the host cities (Provo and Huntsville, for example) are selling or leasing their existing (or planned) municipal fiber networks to Google.

In our previous coverage of Austin's upgrade, we linked to KXAN TV's report of messiness already associated with construction.
Google Fiber Signups in Austin to Begin in December [soylentnews.org]

Google Fiber is a popular topic here [soylentnews.org][1]--specifically how it is evoking competition from fat, lazy incumbent providers.

[1] The submission engine is still stripping out ASCIIfied double quote marks in links (though, in this case, the results are the same).

Original Submission