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Once we got a quote for getting fibre at an address that is about 500 meters away from the Googleplex in Mountain View. Ultimately it was more cost effective to set up a FedEx schedule to mail SSD's across the globe.

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Your quote might have been “fake” and intended to convince you that they offer fiber to your address when they actually don’t. I went through this with Comcast in San Jose. Requested the service, weeks of run arounds and “we lost your ticket I’ll make a new one” followed by increasingly ludicrous quotes starting at $500 and then going up to $20000(!). All when the map on their site showed a trunk in my neighborhood. Eventually I started playing along just for a laugh, until they finally fessed up and said they don’t offer fiber in my neighborhood at all.

Some sort of fraud? I dunno.

The telcos do all sorts of funny business and it can take them months to figure out if they can offer service to a particular building. Sometimes they need to send out people to actually poke around, sometimes they have to see if anyone else has access, etc.

If you're a big enough building or throw money at it, they can usually figure out a way to make it work - but it's unlikely to be something an individual wants to spend.

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