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Services Available
Communications Transactions
By virtue of our distinguished Business Practice Group and our vast experience devising creative solutions to complex FCC regulatory challenges, Williams Mullen is one of the premiere firms in media and competitive carrier financings, mergers and acquisitions. We assist clients in all aspects of their radio and television transactions, including the negotiation of advertising agreements, local marketing agreements, joint sales agreements, shared-services agreements, program production and distribution agreements, and licensing agreements.
Our communications transactional engagements have included several major international transactions involving communications services and facilities, giving our attorneys extensive experience with a broad range of regulatory structures. We offer clients highly-effective counsel on the purchase, sale and structuring of wireless, wireline, telecommunications and Internet services, and in matters relating to the sale, leasing, sharing, interconnection, and construction of telecommunications facilities.
We also have substantial experience in negotiating an extensive array of contracts and agreements related to telecommunications services in areas such as master service agreements, licensing, manufacturing, retailing, management, content acquisition, dark fiber lease and IRU, marketing and sales agency, collocation, non-disclosure, equipment acquisition and evaluation, and pole attachment and conduit access agreements.
Dispute Resolution and Litigation
The Communications Practice Group is experienced in prosecuting and defending complaints involving both inter-service and intra-service interference; customer/carrier disputes involving price, terms and conditions; carrier/carrier disputes involving facility sharing arrangements, interconnection, price, terms and conditions; disputes between and among broadcasters, programmers and distributors, and customer/carrier complaints and disputes. We defend clients in enforcement matters at the FCC and in connection with official investigations or complaints. We represent clients in disputes arising under the FCC’s cost-sharing reimbursement plan as administered by PCIA’s Microwave Cost-Sharing Clearinghouse. We also represent clients before state and federal courts and state and federal regulators to enforce contract rights in agreements entered into under the terms of the 1996 Telecom Act.
Federal Communications Commission Representation
Williams Mullen’s communications practitioners have decades of significant experience before the FCC. This experience spans virtually all areas of the FCC’s jurisdiction including broadcasting, wireline communications, wireless telecommunications, cable television, Direct Broadcast Satellites (“DBS”) systems, spectrum allocations and assignment; private and common carriage, Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”), and international matters. Our attorneys counsel clients in licensing and regulatory compliance matters; rulemakings, comments and policy advocacy; spectrum allocation and auctions; enforcement actions involving intercarrier compensation; customer base transfer and discontinuances; telemarketing; equipment authorization and marketing (Parts 2 and 15); international radio-communications treaty matters; and domestic and international mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and transactions involving communications assets or requiring prior FCC consent.
FCC Licensing, Transfers and Assignments
We counsel and represent clients in virtually all areas of FCC licensing matters, including Earth station and very small aperture terminal (“VSAT”) licensing. We advise holders of FCC licenses and authorizations on the regulations affecting the operation and improvement of existing services, e.g., facility changes to expand or shift service areas. We also have extensive experience in major mergers and acquisitions requiring prior FCC consent to the assignment or transfer of licenses, including those requiring waivers of statutory and regulatory ownership restrictions, including negotiations and coordination involving complex foreign ownership issues involving the Department of Justice and other domestic agencies. Most importantly, we offer cost-effective, integrated, and comprehensive business, tax and regulatory counsel in these matters and have extensive experience working closely with FCC Staff to expedite and obtain FCC clearance.
Policy and Advocacy
We have advised and represented clients before the FCC in a broad number of rulemaking proceedings and litigation. We have substantial experience in counseling and advising clients on regulatory strategy for FCC rulemakings and written and oral FCC advocacy. Group members have represented satellite carriers, broadcasters, wireless providers, and competitive telephone service providers in key proceedings, including domestic and international spectrum allocations, intercarrier compensation and implementation of the interconnection and network unbundling requirements of the 1996 Telecom Act.
FCC Regulation and Enforcement
We advise clients on all subjects of FCC regulation, including mass media, wireline, wireless, international, and technology. We are experienced in providing counsel to both private and common carriers with FCC regulatory compliance and enforcement actions, including those related to intercarrier compensation. In addition, we advise clients on consumer marketing and advertising matters, including electronic privacy requirements, do-not-call lists and junk fax prohibitions. We assist clients in bringing electronic devices and equipment to market both domestically and internationally by guiding them through the equipment authorization process and product labeling requirements of the FCC and foreign regulators.
Spectrum Allocations
We have extensive experience advising and supporting clients in spectrum-related rulemakings and in preparing for spectrum auctions. A Group member has served not only as a Senior Policy Advisor to the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (the agency charged with responsibility for spectrum allocations and assignments on behalf of the U.S. Government), but also as the former Vice President and General Counsel of the television broadcasting industry’s leading spectrum advocacy group, the Association for Maximum Service Television (“MSTV”). In that capacity, he assisted television broadcasters in securing second channels – without going to auction – to offer the public Digital Television (DTV). He also provided counsel to the industry in numerous conflicts with other spectrum users (or would-be-users of spectrum) regarding interference problems and spectrum allocations involving overlays or adjacency.
Our attorneys’ spectrum-related experience includes:
securing multiple orbital assignments for satellite space stations through negotiation of a consensual band plan among applicants in the first round of the KA Band frequency allocation;
successful negotiations of numerous post-auction band-clearing transactions in the 1850-1990 MHz band, involving the compensation and relocation of fixed-service users displaced by Personal Communications Service (“PCS”) auction winners;
filing the very first application for a DTV construction permit involving “maximization” and prosecuting that application successfully, resulting in significantly increased populations and areas served by the applicant; and
securing enhanced relocation rights for disadvantaged SMR licensees in the Public Safety/Nextel 800 MHz rebanding process.
International Communications
Williams Mullen counsels international business organizations entering or expanding in the U.S. market, as well as those entering or expanding in foreign jurisdictions. For example, our team successfully negotiated with Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting Company for the first CNN International affiliation with a foreign 24-hour news programmer. Our Romanian client in that transaction continues to rely on Williams Mullen and Williams Mullen Strategies for the planning and structuring of many of its international transactions.
We counsel clients on business alliances, identifying and negotiating with U.S. partners, preparing international joint venture agreements, and forming U.S. subsidiaries. With fluent Spanish capabilities, we have extensive experience representing clients on Latin American ventures and telecommunications regulatory structures, as well as guiding them through acquisitions and divestitures of broadcast properties in Latin American and European countries. In addition, we assist clients with foreign market entry and access counseling, including the import and export of electronic equipment and devices.
Our attorneys have substantial experience in international communications regulatory body matters, including years of advocacy work within in the U.S. preparatory process for several successive World Radio Communications conferences (“WRC”) of the International Telecommunications Union (“ITU”). In addition, we have substantial practice experience in licensing and interference matters before the FCC’s International Bureau. We assist clients to secure the necessary regulatory FCC approvals such as International Section 214 authority. In many engagements, we develop enterprise-wide strategies for regulatory compliance during and after cross-border transactions.
Legislative and Policy Advocacy
Our attorneys team with our government relations professionals and Williams Mullen Strategies (“WMS”) to offer clients a powerful combination of legal, regulatory, legislative and policy advocacy on communications issues. Recognizing the interplay between Congress, the Administration, and independent regulatory agencies in achieving a client’s overall strategic objectives, WMS’s strong lobbying practice – combined with the firm’s communications regulatory expertise – enables clients to achieve successful outcomes through the crafting and execution of a comprehensive overall strategy.
Common elements of such strategies include:
organization and formation of issue-focused lobbying alliances and coalitions;
drafting legislation, testimony and other documents integral to the legislative process;
developing strategies and testimony for witnesses in Congressional hearings and before the FCC, State Department, United States Trade Representative and the Department of Commerce;
lobbying federal agencies, Congress, the White House, and foreign governments.
This integration of legal, regulatory and lobbying expertise makes Williams Mullen especially adept at inter-agency and Congressional coordination especially in matters involving shared or overlapping jurisdiction among the FCC and the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Aviation Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
State and Local Communications Representation
Our Communications Practice Group has more than 25 years of experience representing regulated communications providers before state public utility commissions (“State PUCs”) in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We routinely represent regulated communications companies before the State PUCs in diverse matters including:
Obtaining Consents and Approvals
Our attorneys have extensive experience obtaining state consents and approvals for virtually all types of regulated transactions before the State PUCs. Such transactions include mergers, asset and customer base acquisitions, securities issuances, credit facilities, service discontinuances, transfers of control, re-branding, and corporate restructurings.
Licensing, Tariffing, Regulatory Compliance and Reporting
We have represented competitive new entrant telecommunications carriers in market entry and licensing in every state and the District of Columbia. Our Communications attorneys have worked closely with numerous carriers to obtain the authorizations and complete the filings necessary for new entrant providers in virtually every type of state regulated service.
Interconnection Negotiations and Arbitration
We have enforced the interconnection, negotiation, and arbitration provisions of the 1996 Telecom Act on behalf of competitive telephone service providers throughout the country. Our attorneys are also in the forefront on emerging interconnection issues, such as the requirement of Internet backbone providers to permit non-discriminatory interconnection of packet-switched networks.
Rulemakings and Policy Advocacy
State commissions also conduct rulemaking proceedings on issues vital to the development of competitive telecommunications markets. Group members have advocated pro-competitive and market-opening policies on behalf of clients before numerous state regulatory agencies, particularly in the fields of interconnection and compensation obligations of the dominant telephone service providers. Recent representation has included participation on behalf of clients in a NARUC Task Force to completely overhaul the nation’s system of cash payments among carriers when two or more carriers collaborate to complete a telephone call.
Negotiation of Right-of-Way use and Franchise Agreements
We represent telephone and cable providers in negotiations with local municipalities and state agencies concerning rights-of-way use agreements, franchise agreements, easements, and permits. We also represent providers in resolving disputes with public and private entities involving use of rights-of-way and infrastructure.
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