LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Google Fiber has announced that it is shutting down its fiber network in Louisville less than two years after its launch in 2017.
The announcement, made on Google Fiber's blog, said the company would be discontinuing service on April 15, 2019. They sited a small customer base and issues testing "nanotrenching" as reasons for leaving.
"In Louisville, we’ve encountered challenges that have been disruptive to residents and caused service issues for our customers," the blog post read.
The company said nanotrenching, or testing burying fiber lines just two inches deep, has been disruptive, and the Fiber team would need to rebuild the entire network to provide better service — something the company said would not be a good business decision.
Current customers will not be charged for service between now and April 15.
When the city partnered with the company in 2015, they had three “Community Connections” partners. Love City, Neighborhood House and The de Paul School received free gigabit Internet service at their community location. After a conversation with Mayor Greg Fischer, the company is offering their partners a sponsorship of $15,000 to help support their needs. This amount is double the initially planned $7,500.
Louisville was one of the 12 cities Google Fiber chose to serve high-speed internet. When Fiber launched Fiber service in October 2017, it was the fastest the company had moved from announcement to service at the time.
