Due to the rapid deployment of phasor measurement units (PMUs) on large power grids, the system operators now have access to high speed high resolution data. A new class of monitoring and control applications are made possible with the PMUs. Although PMU based monitoring systems have been well developed, implementations of PMU based fast acting closed loop wide area control systems are relatively rare. To meet the stringent latency requirements of a wide area controller the communication and power infrastructures have to collaborate strongly. In this paper, a combined process for design and simulation of both communication network and power network has been presented with the objective of damping interarea oscillations. A method to determine the optimal location of data routing hubs so as to minimize the volume of communications is also proposed. The IEEE 118 bus system is used to study the performance of communication system and the wide area power damping control system on both centralized and decentralized topologies, and the results are discussed. One of the conclusions of the paper is that the decentralized communication architectures involving data routing hubs are better suited for control applications requiring fast control actions. © 2014 IEEE.