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.

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.