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Improved Wireless Connectivity Coming: U.S. Senate Introduces Law to Streamline Telecommunications Equipment Installation along Railroads

Posted December 2, 2025 at 12:44 PM

5G Wireless Infrastructure and Small Cells Zoning, Land Development, News & Events

U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Ben Ray (D-NM) have introduced bi-partisan legislation to streamline the process to deploy telecommunications and broadband equipment in public and railroad rights-of-way. The Broadband and Telecommunications RAIL Act will affect corridors alongside public roads and railroad tracks where utilities can install infrastructure, and would establish processes to speed telecom and broadband deployment in these areas in order to enhance wireless connectivity and services to the public.  

“Having good, reliable communications locally and nationally via wireless networks is critical for essential, non-essential and emergency communications,” said MM&C telecommunications and real estate attorney Sean Hughes. “This legislation will speed up the wireless infrastructure review to locations along the railways. Americans rely on the rail system for transportation, and millions more live and travel near the nation’s railways,” he added.

According to the National Emergency Number Association, 240 million calls are made annually to 911 for emergency services; 80 percent are from wireless devices. Furthermore, 76 percent of adults live in wireless only households.

As reported by Inside Towers, “the Senate legislation comes days after the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee advanced the House version of the RAIL Act, as one of nearly 30 bills to streamline broadband permitting.”

Learn more about the legislation here.

How MM&C Telecommunications Land Use Attorneys Can Help
The telecommunications land use attorneys at Miller, Miller & Canby are experienced in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, assisting cell tower companies, wireless carriers, and property owners in processing conditional use applications and other land use/zoning entitlement applications relating to improved wireless and telecommunications infrastructure. We assist wireless infrastructure companies who provide the locations to enhance high speed broadband wireless connectivity and services to wireless customers for all essential, non-essential and emergency communications. 

Sean P. Hughes is an attorney in Miller, Miller & Canby’s Land Use practice group. His career spans more than two decades of focus in zoning and wireless telecommunications and he has represented clients in land use and zoning matters throughout Metropolitan Washington, D.C. To learn more about the firm’s telecommunications practice, click here.

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