By Mike Sicoli, CEO of DQE Communications LLC, a Pittsburgh-based fiber-optic Internet and data network access provider serving businesses and carriers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Ohio.
Washington County, Maryland, is a region on the move. A bustling logistics industry is adding jobs and investment, a downtown revitalization in the county seat of Hagerstown is anchored by a sparkling new minor-league ballpark, and the population is growing. When DQE Communications brought its enterprise-grade high-speed fiber network to town, we did not expect 19th century bureaucracy to delay 21st century critical infrastructure.
Our 30-mile network was completed in June of this year – except for three short segments spanning railroad tracks. The attachment of a single cable to existing utility poles spanning the tracks can be completed in about 30 minutes, but it has taken us five months and counting. We have been waiting – and continue to wait – for CSX to schedule the flagging crews that they require during construction near the tracks. DQE has invested millions of dollars of private capital (without a dollar of public subsidy) to further Washington County’s growth, but our state-of-the-art network remains idle and unused while we wait. Time is money, and five months is an eternity in competitive business. The region will likely see the calendar flip to 2026 without reaping the economic benefit of a new purpose-built network to serve businesses and anchor institutions.
This is why we strongly support the bipartisan, bicameral effort in Congress to enact reasonable rules to prevent these interminable delays. The Broadband and Communications RAIL Act (HR 6046) will provide predictable timeframes and cost certainty for broadband operators by requiring the railroad to schedule installations like this within 30 days of application and without exorbitant fees.
This would be a game-changer for rapid network deployment. Currently, the entire process from application to installation can take up to a year or more, and there are no limits or proportionality to the fees that railroads can charge. INCOPMAS CEO Chip Pickering has described it as a “wild west environment” where the railroads are accountable to no one. Universal broadband, AI adoption, educational opportunities, and technology breakthroughs are all at risk if we continue the status quo.
Imagine you are hiring a contractor to complete a home renovation project. The first prospective contractor tells you they can do the job, but they can’t commit to a cost or a delivery date. “That will be somewhere between $50,000 and $200,000, and I can finish it sometime in the next two years,” the contractor says. Assuming the contractor to be incompetent, you try four more contractors, who all provide the same answer. It sounds insane, but that is what broadband providers and our customers experience today. That’s no way to run a railroad.
There is no incentive for railroads to prioritize this activity, despite the tremendous economic importance of these projects to the broader community. Our project is but one example of how miles and miles of new fiber construction – including new builds to reach unserved rural communities – can be held up by one railroad crossing of a single track.
The railroads claim this plodding approach is necessary to ensure safety, but the same delays occur whether the new broadband installation crosses a busy main line, or a single-track spur used once a month. Broadband installations create minimal impact on railroad operations. Highway crossings create identical safety concerns, but state and local transportation agencies routinely approve applications within the same timelines proposed in the legislation. Clearly, speed and safety are not mutually exclusive goals.
AI adoption is the bellwether of future economic success, and the US is falling behind in the global race. We cannot afford to be held hostage by railroads and their procrastination. Congress can act now to end the waiting game . Passing the Broadband and Communications RAIL Act will eliminate these delays and get our digital infrastructure moving on the right track.
