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> So Google's not getting $39m worth of stuff for $1, they're getting $39m worth of assets plus $Nm worth of liabilities (where n > 39) for $1.

Pete Ashdown of Xmission says "Google will not assume any of the debt, the Provo city taxpayer will continue paying that."

http://transmission.xmission.com/2013/04/18/the-1-fiber-opti...

Who is right? I haven't looked into it.

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I think the issue is that the city paid a bunch of money to build the system but still cannot run it for a profit. So the city has to keep paying ongoing losses for the system in order to run it. They can shut it down of course, but that would be a big black eye for the politicians. So they gave it away to Google, who promised to run it and provide free internet to people for a very low setup fee.

You can't blame google if the government officials were stupid enough to not extract the right value out if their assets

Watch me. I suspect there are many people here who had the opportunity to rip a client off but chose to instead do the right thing.

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