Communications
Sonnenschein represents communications service providers, users of communications services, and manufacturers of communications equipment. We also counsel financial investors in these market sectors. Our experience is as wide-ranging as it is technologically diverse and our attorneys are leaders in their field, with decades of experience representing various industry segments.
Our firm’s service provider clients include telecommunications carriers subject to regulation at the federal and/or state level, such as competitive local exchange carriers, interexchange carriers, franchised cable operators, and wireless carriers. Our team counsels these clients in federal and state telecommunications regulatory matters, including obtaining initial certification and tariff approval when required; advising clients on compliance with federal and state regulations governing Universal Service Fund (USF); Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA); Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) and truth-in-billing requirements; reviewing customer information security and marketing programs to ensure compliance; responding to consumer and regulatory commission complaints; negotiating interconnection and resale agreements with incumbent telephone companies; and arbitrating clients’ positions on interconnection, reciprocal compensation, and tariff issues.
At the same time, we increasingly represent service providers not subject to traditional utility regulation, such as VoIP providers, information service providers and systems integrators. We also represent regulated service providers that offer recently deregulated service offerings, such as cable modem and DSL broadband services. For these clients we provide strategic regulatory counseling as we also guide them through complex commercial contract negotiations.
We also represent users of communications services in the negotiation, documentation, and interpretation of customized service arrangements. Our work in this area complements our extensive public policy, outsourcing, and information security practices. Clients have included leading companies in the financial, securities, hospitality, real estate, pharmaceutical, advertising, and consumer products industries, as well as public sector and nonprofit organizations. Our firm’s transactional approach to this work includes the use of special organizational and administrative structures such as joint ventures for group purchase arrangements and third-party guarantees.
We advise investment banking clients in connection with debt and equity securities offerings of competitive telecommunications providers. We also advise sophisticated financial investors such as venture capital and hedge funds on regulatory, antitrust, and legal issues in connection with possible investment and merger and acquisition activity. Our cross-border representations range from counseling a privatized Latin American provider of telecommunications services in its U.S.-related corporate and securities matters to assisting a start-up IP telephony carrier in raising capital and initiating operations in several countries.
