Delivery drones are supposed to be fast, yet, the long-promised technology has been slow to take off in the United States. More than six years after the Federal Aviation Administration approved the first commercial home deliveries with drones, the service still is confined to a handful of suburbs. That could soon change. The FAA proposed a new rule last week that would make it easier for companies to fly drones outside of an operator's line of sight. A handful of companies do that now, but they had to obtain waivers. Walmart, Amazon, DoorDash and the drone companies they work with say they are preparing to make drone-based deliveries available to millions more U.S. households.

A new federal rule would make it easier for companies to use drones over longer distances out of sight of the operator without having to go through a cumbersome waiver process. The federal government had already approved 657 waivers to allow companies to do this, but the waiver process made it difficult. The industry has long pressed for this rule because being able to operate drones out of sight opens up a multitude of possibilities for their use. Being able to do this enables more use of drones for deliveries, inspecting infrastructure like bridges and power lines and other uses in agriculture over thousands of acres on large farms.