FCC chairman praises Google Fiber, wants to model future rules after it

Tom Wheeler — the Chairman of the FCC, the federal commission currently in the middle of a firestorm surrounding net neutrality — today praised Google for its checklist of requirements for cities to meet that are interested in working with Google to roll out fiber networking.

Google’s checklist includes various measures and decisions that help enable the company to quickly add their fiber services to a city or municipality. Wheeler specifically cites this as something that the FCC should look into, as it effectively cuts through red tape and speeds up deployment of faster service:

The private sector must play the leading role in extending broadband networks to every American. That’s why the FCC is committed to removing barriers to investment and to lowering  the costs of broadband build-out. Google has developed a checklist for cities that want to  participate in their Google Fiber project of steps that can be taken to ensure easier access to existing infrastructure and to make construction speedier and more predictable. The FCC should  be asking similar questions about our own rules, cutting red tape wherever possible.

Google Fiber is already available in three US cities (Austin, Provo, and Kansas City), though plans are in place to expand the program.