San Antonians Angry About Huts, Google Fiber's Fast Internet Plan Hits a Speedbump

Google had planned to build a series of structures to house its fiber optic cable for its internet service, but after completing construction of some of these buildings the company has faced pushback. Ivy Taylor, council woman for San Antonio's District 3, summarized residents’ concerns about Google Fiber huts. "'We have a serious problem with the placement of several Google Fiber 'huts' in city parks and a vacant lot in a Southeast Side neighborhood. These fairly large structures threaten to reduce neighbors' access to their parks,' Taylor said in one email," Kristen Mosbrucker reports for the San Antonio Business Journal.

The huts, which Google called the system's nerve centers, are cement buildings ringed with fences. "Initially, 40 city-owned parcels were identified for use, mostly near libraries and fire stations but also public parks. These fiber huts are the second major step in building the network that can sell internet speed up to 1,000 megabits per second," Mosbrucker writes. Since facing complaints, Google engineers have reworked the design so as to need only 17 buildings. The 15 that the company has yet to build are currently on hold for permits from the city. "In October 2016, Google Fiber announced it was hitting the pause button for deploying a fiber network in Dallas but planned to continue in San Antonio," Musbrucker writes.