I, Cringely -- When Being a Verb is Not Enough: Google wants to be YOUR Internet.

From TFA:

I spoke recently with an old friend who is a bandwidth broker. He buys
and sells bandwidth on fiber-optic networks around the world. And he
told me something that I found not completely surprising, but I
certainly hadn't known: Google controls more network fiber than any
other organization. This is not to say that Google OWNS all that fiber,
just that they control it through agreements with network operators.

I knew they'd been snapping up fiber en masse for years, but I didn't know they'd managed to control more fiber than anybody else. That's a hugely impressive feat... I dunno if Cringely is right here, but I'm just as curious as he to see exactly what they're up to.