...In their haste to install tens of thousands of miles 
of fiber-optic lines, telecom companies have paid millions to
pipeline companies and electric utilities, as well as the 
railroads, for permission to use the rights of way. 

There's just one problem. The railroads and utilities often 
don't own the land they blithely leased to the telecoms for 
as much as $25,000 per mile. 
...
Qwest was originally part of the Southern Pacific Railroad. 
Before SP merged with Union Pacific in 1996, Southern 
Pacific's biggest shareholder, Philip Anschutz, spun off 
Qwest and got permission from SP to lay fiber along its 
right of way. Now more than two-thirds of Qwest's 20,000 
miles of fiber runs along the Southern Pacific and other 
track beds. (Qwest did not reply to questions about 
right-of-way problems.) MCI and Sprint have placed more 
than half their networks along rail and utility easements 
too. 

How many fiber lines are in the wrong place? Ackerson [the 
lawyer who has already settled with AT&T in one case] says 
his research suggests that railroads own a third or so of 
the land where their tracks run; the rest traverses easements 
that limit what can be done on the land.
...
But one expert at appraising the value of railroad rights of 
way says the issue is murky and will take scores of lawyers 
years to settle. "I've studied thousands of miles of railroad 
corridor," says Charles Seymour, an appraiser at Insignia/ESG 
in Philadelphia. "There are all sorts of defects in the 
railroads' titles to the land." Odds are good, however, that 
if anyone pays, it will be the telcos, not the railroads.