Google Fiber wasn't really that inscrutable. It's clearly outside of their core competency, it required collaboration and agreement with local governments, as w

Google Fiber wasn't really that inscrutable. It's clearly outside of their core competency, it required collaboration and agreement with local governments, as well as construction projects, and to AT&T's snarkily made point, it's way harder than a typical software project. This is closer to their existing product portfolio, it doesn't have nearly as a difficult upstart cost relative to Fiber, and the business models are pretty clear. I think a closer analog would be the rumored reductions in their hardware division, but given that they're still making successful hardware + software, it could be more about reorganizing around priorities than it is an indication of their reduced investment