Google Fiber Sheds Workers As It Looks to a Wireless Future

Google Fiber is getting a lot smaller. Alphabet is sending hundreds of employees at Access—the division that runs the high-speed internet service—to work at other parts of the company. It’s not the end of Fiber, not exactly. But the slimming-down likely signals a future for Alphabet’s broadband ambitions that involves less fiber. Google first announced Fiber in 2010 with a widely publicized contest to see which city the company would first grace with its ultra-fast service. Since then, Fiber has spread to several US cities and metropolitan areas. But Access said in October that it was curtailing plans to expand to new locations, and Alphabet has clearly lost faith in the idea of running fiber optic cables right into people’s homes, at least in the traditional way.

Instead, Access has hired a new CEO, tech and broadband veteran Greg McCray, to figure out new ways to bring faster—and presumably cheaper—high-speed internet access to the rest of the country. McCray used to be chief executive officer of telecom services provider Aero Communications Inc. He also sits on the board of CenturyLink Inc., one of the biggest U.S. providers of internet and phone services for businesses.