I don't see how that's "cold water" - yes, covering the entire continental USA with anything is very expensive. They don't have to buy the whole thing at once now, do they?
I don't think Google wants to build this at all. They just want to put some pressure on Comcast, TW and the likes to offer higher speeds and without any caps. Google wants to bypass Windows and go straight to the cloud, but one needs high speed internet.
Cable companies are deep in debt for a reason. I just don't see Google hiring 80,000 people are whatever it takes and hope it just works financially.
