Verizon's costs to deploy FiOS, which is the same underlying tech as Google Fiber, between 2004 and 2010 in some MSA's approached a billion in capital alone. They ended up spending $23 billion in total capital, and only in places where they already had data centers every few miles, conduit, fiber, poles, field cabinets, franchise agreements, a local workforce, a large customer base, storefronts, etc. And that only includes new equipment and construction, not recurring operational costs. $23 billion is more than Google's entire capital budget for the past 2.5 years.

This is almost certainly the result of somebody at Google finally asking serious questions about the total cost, or at least being asked to cut a particularly large check for the first time.