Going "Behind the Scenes" with Google Fiber

I was pleased to see Derek Slater's blog initiating a series of pieces on the progress of the Google Fiber projects in the Kansas City, Austin, and Provo (Utah) areas, and hopefully elsewhere too. This first piece in this new "Going Behind the Scenes" series is about how Google is trying to work with municipal governments to get the fiber deployments underway without unnecessary delay. As Mr. Slater explains -- and he is someone who knows the challenges -- the main areas of discussion with the cities involve access to existing infrastructure, access to existing infrastructure maps, and expediting construction permits.

The country can benefit from more, faster deployment of high-capacity broadband facilities, and the municipalities need to do their part by streamlining and expediting their legacy processes, wherever possible, to expedite such deployment.

From my perspective Google's entry into the broadband provider marketplace is positive -- as long as other similarly situated broadband providers, such as Time Warner Cable and Verizon and all the rest, can avail themselves of the same local streamlined, expedited processes available to Google.

I think more competition is better, so I'm glad Google is building out high-capacity broadband infrastructure. And Derek Slater and the Google Fiber team deserve credit for leading the way in getting some local governments to reform their processes and for sharing what they are learning the rest of us.