Provo doesn’t know where its fiber is, Google makes city spend $500,000 to find it

The Provo (UT) city council formally approved the transfer of its iProvo fiber network to Google, making the city the third metro area to gain that sweet, sweet gigabit service. Google is only paying $1 for the network, but in return it will have to provide a “basic five-megabit” connection to all residents for seven years and provide free gigabit service to 25 public institutions. As it turns out, though, it’s as good of a deal as it might seem.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Provo Mayor John Curtis revealed Tuesday that the city now owes an additional $1.7 million to keep those fiber-optic lights on. The city must also pay “about $500,000 to a civil engineering firm to determine exactly where the fiber optic cables are buried, a requirement by Google," the Tribune reported. "Curtis admitted that the construction company that installed the fiber cables underground did not keep records of where they buried all of them.”