Google Fiber halts expansion plans, CEO Craig Barratt steps aside

Google Fiber CEO Craig Barratt announced that the time was right for him to step aside, but will continue to serve as an advisor to the company on the request of Larry Page. Barratt claimed that the company was healthy, but to remain competitive in the future it would have to fine tune its approach in terms of developing technologies and deploying them. Barratt announced his retirement from the post of the CEO in the Google Fiber Blog.

The immediate steps being taken include reducing the number of support employees in some areas of operations, and halting plans of expansion in some cities. Google Fiber lists Huntsville in Alabama, Irvine in California, Louisville in Kentucky, and San Antonio in Texas as the cities to which Google Fiber had planned to expand into. The co-operations with the cities continue, and the operations for expansion are just being paused till Google Fiber tweaks its approach.

The changes are being made to not only keep Google Fiber competitive, but ahead of the curve. Google Fiber was the pioneer in getting gigabit internet to households, has a sound business model, a rapidly growing subscriber base, and the revenues keep increasing. There are changes being made in business and product strategy, to remain competitive and retain the edge, going forward. The operations will continue normally in the cities where Google Fiber has already been deployed.

Google Fiber is currently available in nine United States cities, Atlanta in Georgia, Austin in Texas, Charlotte in North Carolina, Kansas City in Missouri, Nashville in Tennessee, Provo in Utah, Salt Lake City in Utah, and the triangle in New Carolina. Google Fiber provides internet connectivity, television services, and telephony over the same fiber optic cable in these cities.