The amazing shrinking Google Fiber

8 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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More empty chairs.

In the latest sign that Google is backing out of the Internet access business, hundreds of employees, including two top executives, have been shuffled out of telecoms jobs and into other parts of the company. According to a Bloomberg story by Mark Bergen, Google is cleaning house at its Access division…

Milo Medin, a vice president at Access, and Dennis Kish, a wireless infrastructure veteran who was president of Google Fiber, are leaving the division but staying at the Alphabet holding company. Gregory McCray, who was appointed head of Access in February, told staff about the management changes at a Thursday meeting. An Access spokesman confirmed the changes, but declined to comment further…

The Access division has continued to shrink. About 600 employees are currently being reassigned to the Google internet business and other Alphabet divisions, according to sources familiar with the plans.

There’s no word on what Medin and Kish will be doing, which isn’t terribly surprising. When executives in troubled business lines are sent off to nebulous jobs in corporate limbo, the odds on bet is that they’ll soon be either pursuing other interests or spending more time with their families.

Now that Google has pulled back from launching new fiber markets and slowed, or perhaps even stopped, expansion of existing systems, the question is what will happen to its wireless plans in general and its acquisition of Webpass in particular.

Right now, the focus seems to be on delivering broadband service to apartment houses via wireless backhaul. That could be a good niche business, but Google has never been very interested in niche businesses that didn’t have the prospect of a hockey stick upside. Last year’s magic radio flirtation appears to be over, or at least Medin’s departure would seem to indicate that, since he’d taken the lead on it.