JANUARY 24, 2023
Virginia’s legislature wants to cap crossing fees and speed up the review process, but railroad companies say current practices protect safety.
Fiber deployments that need to cross railroad rights of way sometimes get mired in bureaucratic delays and onerous fees that can impact the financial viability of deployment, some states say.
The long-standing issue goes back many years and in 2018 prompted NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association to file comments with the Federal Communications Commission in which it accused railroad companies of acting as “gatekeepers” to right-of-way access, a position NTCA urged the FCC to revoke so more people could benefit from broadband.
