Google Fiber Cuts Staff, Halts Bay Area Expansion
Google Fiber will cut 9% of its staff and halt expansion into additional Bay Area cities, including Silicon Valley. Google Fiber CEO Craig Barrett is resigning, but will remain as an adviser for Google parent company Alphabet.
Google Fiber began its rollout of the high-speed internet network last February to apartments, condos and some affordable housing projects in San Francisco, including several Veritas properties, reports the San Francisco Business Times. It's available in eight cities, including Austin, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte and North Carolina's Research Triangle.
It will suspend its planned expansion into San Jose and other exploratory cities, reports MSN. Google Fiber will continue adding the service in cities such as Irvine, San Antonio and San Francisco where it has already begun the rollout.
The company has struggled to get much market gain from its product, which offers a gigabit per second download and upload speed, and is pulling back instead. Google Fiber is Alphabet’s most expensive division outside of Google. [SFBT]
