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Denver Office:
6400 S. Fiddlers Green
Circle
Suite 1820
Denver, CO 80111
Tel: 720.200.0676
Fax: 720.200.0679
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Washington DC Office:
The Army and Navy Club Building 1627 I Street,
NW
Suite 850
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: 202.293.6840
Fax: 202.293.6842
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The telecommunications industry is highly
regulated and governed by a complex set
of state and federal statutes, regulations,
administrative decisions, and historical
practices. Telecommunications carriers
provide service pursuant to contracts
and tariffs that may be hundreds of pages
long, contain numerous terms of art, and
reflect a long course of regulatory give
and take. Effective advocacy in this industry
requires a detailed knowledge of the law,
the state and federal regulatory processes,
and the operation of tariffs and contracts
- not to mention deep familiarity with
the technology underlying the thousands
of interconnected networks that comprise
the national telecommunications infrastructure.
Steese ♦ Evans ♦ Frankel,
P.C. are nationally known telecommunications
litigators and counselors who have vast
knowledge of the law, business, and technology
of this industry. They have worked at
the forefront of telecommunications law
and policy since the passage of the Telecommunications
Act of 1996. The Firm's lawyers have represented
many different kinds of telecommunications
carriers - incumbent local exchange carriers,
long-distance companies, wireless companies,
and data and digital video providers -
in rulemaking, complaint, arbitration,
and enforcement proceedings in front of
the Federal Communications Commission
and over twenty state public utility commissions.
They are also nationally recognized for
handling intercarrier compensation disputes
before state and federal courts across
the nation, as well as appeals of federal
and state regulatory decisions.
The Firm's lawyers have substantial expertise
in contract and tariff disputes, interconnection
agreement negotiations and arbitrations,
intercarrier compensation arrangements,
network and wholesale performance issues,
the provisioning of unbundled network
elements, advanced data and digital video
services, operational support systems
issues, retail issues such as slamming
and cramming, consumer privacy issues,
and rate cases Many have advanced technical
backgrounds or are themselves former in-house
lawyers for major telecommunications companies.
And all of them are experts at taking
complex technical and economic issues
and presenting them in a manner that lay
fact finders can understand.
Examples of matters that the Firm's lawyers
have handled over the course of their
practices include the following:
- Representing Qwest
Communications Corporation in a series
of "traffic pumping" lawsuits in federal
courts and regulatory bodies throughout
the country. Each of these cases involves
millions of dollars of disputed charges,
and collectively the cases involve
hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
The Firm has been at the forefront
of this issue and tried the first
such case in the country. In that
case, the Iowa Utilities Board entered
a decision for the Firm's client on
all issues, finding that traffic pumping
is an unjust and unreasonable practice
and contrary to the public interest.
- Helping AT&T and
a consortium of international partners
obtain clearance from the Departments
of Defense, Justice, and Homeland
Security to build a trans-Pacific
fiber optic cable with landing stations
in U.S. territory. Obtaining clearance
required months of negotiations over
the terms of operating and governance
agreements designed to address the
U.S. agencies' domestic and international
security concerns.
- Trying and winning
an intercarrier compensation dispute
concerning whether an intermediate
long distance carrier must pay terminating
switched access charges to the terminating
local exchange carrier. The decision
set policy for transit traffic in
the state of Montana.
- Winning a 2-week
jury trial in the U.S. District Court
for the Northern District of Iowa
on a matter involving tariff charges,
and the applicability of those charges
to the wireless traffic in dispute.
Specifically, the jury found that
intraMTA calls were not subject to
switched access charges even if delivered
over a Feature Group D trunk.
- Successfully challenging
the FCC's rules for subsidizing telephone
service to rural and high-cost customers
on behalf of Qwest and SBC (now AT&T)
in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Tenth Circuit. The decision overturned
the basis of a $300 million federal
program and was featured in the American
Lawyer as one of the most significant
litigation victories of the year.
- Representing Verizon
in arbitrations with CLECs before
multiple state commissions in connection
with disputes over intercarrier compensation
and virtual foreign exchange arrangements.
- Winning approval
from multiple state commissions for
Qwest to enter the long-distance market.
The Firm acted as lead trial counsel
on issues relating to interconnection,
collocation, reciprocal compensation,
unbundled network elements, loop provisioning,
and performance issues - as well as
the overall policy question of whether
Bell Company entry into the long-distance
market serves the public interest.
The project involved trying and briefing
cases in multiple states simultaneously.
- Managing a series
of disputes for Qwest concerning the
SS7 signaling network. These cases
involved numerous parallel proceedings
before state and federal courts, as
well as state regulatory commissions.
- Helping Qwest develop
its 300-plus-page Statement of Generally
Available Terms (SGAT). This form
interconnection agreement addresses
all aspects of local competition,
the 1996 Act, and the FCC rules implementing
the Act.
- Representing multiple
major carriers and carrier associations
before the FCC in rulemaking proceedings
to implement the Telecommunications
Act, including the dockets addressing
network element unbundling, the provision
of high-speed data services, collocation
issues, universal service, and special
access services.
For more information about
our telecommunications practice, contact
any of the following:
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