By Todd R. Weiss, eWeek, 2013-10-15
| The town's council delayed action on the plans last month, and | now Google is apparently out of patience. When Google Fiber | service will come to this town is now anybody's guess. | Google Fiber Gigabit Internet and cable television service in | Overland Park, Kan., has now been put on hold indefinitely by | Google, a month after city leaders on Sept. 16 delayed an | imminent contract agreement and raised a last-minute liability | concern with the pending deal. | | At the city's council meeting on Oct. 15, two local attorneys | working with Google told the city's leaders that the company | was now putting a hold on its plans for Google Fiber in the | area and asked the city to approve a continuance for the | existing proposal. No Google Fiber representatives attended | the meeting. | | What that apparently means is that Google plans for Fiber | services in Overland Park are now dead, at least for now. | | This appears to be the first time that a community had delayed | a decision on fiber after their discussions with the company, | and the first time that Google has then put its original plans | on hold just before a decision was scheduled for a final vote. | | Rob Walch, an Overland Park resident who attended both council | meetings, told eWEEK on Oct. 16 that the Google announcement | was a shock to the meeting's assembled crowd of several dozen | people. The meeting opened with city leaders saying that after | review, they were now ready to complete the contract, he said, | but the Google attorneys put a kibosh on those plans by | announcing a request for an indefinite continuation for the | proposal.
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I have encountered similar situations when I was working in cable TV. I recall one Wisconsin village (population about 6000) that sent out an RFP that demanded, among other things, a color TV studio for public access. Even though there were other companies operating in nearby communities, no company submitted a proposal. A few months later -- after the fuss died down -- a small upstart cable operator offered to provide service, but specifically rejected the color studio. Eventually, the village board gave up on the color studio and accepted the offer.
Neal McLain