Google Fiber Ditches Cable TV While Broadband Effort Remains Stuck In Neutral

When Google Fiber first dropped in 2010, the project was lauded as a game changer for the broadband industry. Google Fiber would, the company insisted, revolutionize everything by taking Silicon Valley money and using it to disrupt the viciously uncompetitive and anti-competitive telecom sector. Initially things worked out well; cities tripped over themselves offering all manner of perks to the company in the hopes of breaking free from the broadband duopoly logjam. And in some areas where Google Fiber was deployed, prices certainly dropped thanks to Google Fiber market pressure.

The party didn't last.

In late 2016 Alphabet executives made it clear that the company had grown bored with the high costs and slow pace of trying to disrupt the broadband market (if Google can't afford it, who can?). Employees were fired, the project was effectively mothballed, and all expansion was halted. The company bandied around a few suggestions it would pivot from fiber to wireless, but those efforts never actually materialized. While Google Fiber still offers service, the entire project now exists as a weirdly hollow brand that keeps smiling despite having been lobotomized four years ago:

Yesterday, our teams from across the country celebrated 10 years since we announced the beginning of our foray into the Internet universe.

And we can't wait for the years to come. ^3 #MoreCake #MoreInternet pic.twitter.com/I0JL58VtuQ

- Google Fiber (@googlefiber) February 11, 2020

Meanwhile, Google's product lineup continues to shrink. The company last week announced it would no longer offer traditional cable TV service because it was, allegedly, returning to basics:

"As we return our focus to where we started - as a gigabit Internet company - we're also ready to challenge the status quo, to finally come right out and say it: customers today just don't need traditional TV."

The move itself really isn't a terrible idea. As the pay TV sector gets dominated by giants (AT&T Time Warner and Comcast NBC Universal) that own both the conduit and the content, the cost of providing that content is only soaring. Many smaller cable TV providers are also getting out of the TV business to focus on broadband because margins are getting tighter. And Google isn't getting out of traditional TV entirely given it still offers live television via its YouTube TV live streaming service, which will now be upsold to Google Fiber users.

The problem for Google is that its promise to refocus on being a "gigabit internet company" really isn't true. There hasn't been a meaningful expansion of the service outside of a few key launch markets for years, and there's plenty of frustration and annoyance among users who had been on the installation waiting list for years, only to have their installations cancelled. Even Google's promised pivot to wireless, driven in part by its acquisition of Webpass, has resulted in less actual broadband availability.

All the while, the company's PR department continues to pretend there's nothing really weird about any of this, and should you ask them about it, you'll receive ample claims that everything is continuing normally.

To be clear, Google Fiber did yeoman's work highlighting a lack of competition in the U.S. broadband market. But the project is a faint echo of its original intent, and it seems awfully likely that sometime in the next few years the entire program gets offloaded to some incumbent telecom giant for a song.