Plan Google Fiber's Expansion to Another City Using Lessons From the First Launch
Company: Google
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You were on the team that rolled out Google Fiber in its first city. Google now wants to bring Fiber to a new city. Explain how you would approach that deployment, drawing on what the original roll-out taught you.
```hint Start from where the first roll-out was hard
Think about which parts of building a fiber network across a city take the longest and cost the most, and which of those depend on decisions made before any construction begins.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Has the new city already been chosen, or is choosing it part of the task?
- Which services are in scope: high-speed internet only, or also TV and phone, and may wireless options be used alongside buried or overhead fiber?
- What is the main objective for this city: profitable subscriber growth, proving demand for much faster broadband, or meeting commitments made to the city?
- Are there budget or launch-date limits the plan has to fit?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A clear objective for the new city and the success measures that follow from it.
- City selection or readiness criteria, including permitting, access to utility poles and conduit, and cooperation from local government.
- How demand is measured and built before construction, and how the order of building across neighborhoods is decided.
- A phased plan from agreement and network design through construction, installation and support, tied to the economics that drive each phase.
- Specific lessons carried over from the first launch and the risks they address, including neighborhoods that could be left behind.
### Follow-up Questions
- Two neighborhoods are ready to build, but one shows far lower sign-up interest because many of its households have no home internet today. How do you decide the order, and would you change the offer?
- An incumbent provider owns most of the city's utility poles and is slow to clear space for your cables. What are your options?
- Halfway through construction, cost per home passed is running well above plan. What do you examine, and what would you change?
Overview: A Google Fiber launch question: drawing on experience from the original roll-out, explain how you would bring the fiber internet service to a new city. It tests city selection, partnership with local government, building demand before construction, phased deployment planning, unit economics and the risks of a physical infrastructure launch.