Gigabit project in Seattle reportedly dead, leaves trail of unpaid bills

[silicon_toad2000]

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/01/gigabit-project-in-seattle-reportedly-dead-leaves-trail-of-unpaid-bills/

The Gigabit Squared project to bring fiber Internet to Seattle is reportedly dead, with the company having failed to pay more than $50,000 to the city.

Newly sworn in Mayor Ed Murray "has declared the city’s deal with startup broadband company Gigabit Squared dead," according to a Puget Sound Business Journal article yesterday. "Murray confirmed that the deal with Gigabit Squared had fallen through."

Murray received a donation from Comcast, which could lose customers to a fiber network, but told Ars before the mayoral election that he would not change the city's gigabit plan. In fact, the problems with the Gigabit Squared plan started before Murray was sworn in on January 1.

"About all that’s left of [former] Mayor Mike McGinn’s promise to bring high-speed Internet to Seattle neighborhoods in partnership with Gigabit Squared is the small company’s unpaid bill for $52,250," the Seattle Times wrote today. "Erin Devoto, Seattle’s chief technology officer, said that as of mid-November, the company’s phones were turned off and the city was unable to reach its officers. She turned over the bill for city staff’s preliminary engineering work on a broadband network to the City Attorney’s Office for collection."