Google Fiber’s biggest failure: ISP will turn service off in Louisville

Enlarge (credit: Google Fiber)
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.'
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