Google's CFO just denied it's ditching Google Fiber, saying the unit is still 'very active'
(Google Fiber announced on Tuesday it was freezing expansion and laying off staff, but Google's CEO says the company remains "very active" in its other cities.George Frey/Reuters)
Google isn't getting out of the internet service provider business anytime soon.
That's according to CFO Ruth Porat, who reaffirmed the company's commitment to Google Fiber, its high speed internet cable company. News broke on Tuesday that Google was halting expansion plans and laying off 9% of its staff.
Here's what Porat had to say about the future of Fiber during the company's quarterly earnings call on Thursday:
"We are very active in a lot of cities. In the third quarter alone, we rolled out four new cities, so that brings us to 12 cities across the US where we're deployed, in construction or in development. We're making great progress in those cities and we remain committed to growth in those cities. We also have a presence in six cities with our wireless acquisition, Webpass. We're pausing for now in our work in eight cities where we've been in exploratory discussions but...it's to better integrate some of our technology work that we've been developing."
Porat said the company scaled back its growth to focus on new technologies that would improve effectiveness and efficiency. Google wanted to focus on those efforts before continuing with work in the eight new cities, Porat said.
In 2010, Google Fiber began offering Gigabit-speed internet access to residents in Kansas City, and began expanding to other cities soon after. But the project soon proved expensive and got caught up in numerous regulatory challenges.
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