There turned out to be mechanical issues with their shallow trench design in Louisville's climate, and with their road conditions (ploughs, salt, grit, etc.), and once they found that out they didn't think they could improve the design sufficiently to function in Louisville while remaining solvent.
They found this out pretty early in their deployment, they were only a couple per cent into the deployment before it became a serious issue.
To my mind, they found out pretty late. If they didn't take our climate into account during the design process, they failed before they began. It's not like these were unusual weather occurrences. Further, they lobbied metro council to pass one-touch make ready and incur the expenses of a lawsuit from AT&T. And how many poles did they end up using? None, because they gave up and went home.
They found this out pretty early in their deployment, they were only a couple per cent into the deployment before it became a serious issue.