Railroad Crossing Killing Rural Broadband Deployment, Says Virginia Telecom Official

ORLANDO, Fla., Nov. 17, 2025 — "Railroads have become one of the biggest barriers to broadband deployment in Virginia," a Virginia broadband lobbyist said at a panel at the Broadband Nation Expo here on Monday.

"They charge excessive fees—hundreds of thousands of dollars—just to cross their right-of-way or run fiber alongside tracks," said the official, Ray LaMura, president of the Broadband Association of Virginia. "We had one member who wanted to run fiber along a railway to reach 60 new homes. The railroad quoted $600,000. That wiped out the entire grant budget. The project died."

The panel, moderated by Chris Pedersen, executive vice president of development and planning at Connected Nation, also explored tensions between fiber deployment and alternative technologies, including wireless and satellite.