Kellogg Hansen’s telecommunications group is well known for representing clients on regulatory, appellate, antitrust, litigation, and intellectual property matters. The firm advises a wide variety of telecom clients, ranging from emerging start-ups to some of the largest U.S. corporations. The firm’s attorneys have been at the epicenter of virtually every major industry proceeding over the past three decades and have spearheaded many of the most significant legal challenges during this period.
The firm has extensive experience in rulemaking, adjudication enforcement, and merger proceedings before the Federal Communications Commission and state agencies. Kellogg Hansen attorneys have represented telecommunications clients on mergers and investigations before the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as handle a range of high-profile litigation and appellate matters in federal and state courts, and before arbitrators. The team advises clients with contracts, transactions, regulatory advice, and developing regulatory compliance strategies.
Kellogg Hansen has demonstrated aptitude in telecommunications since the firm’s founding in 1993, and that aptitude is consistently recognized by Chambers USA, ranking the practice among the nation’s best. Kellogg Hansen’s founders and partners “wrote the book” on telecommunication law, including the leading treatise in the field, Federal Telecommunication Law, the groundbreaking Federal Broadband Law, and numerous other books and articles.
Notable Representative Matters
Cellco Partnership v. White Deer Township Zoning Hearing Board, 74 F.4th 96 (3d Cir. 2023)
Kellogg Hansen successfully represented Verizon in defending a district court’s ruling preempting a locality’s denial of a wireless tower permit in a case in which the Third Circuit overruled its earlier, narrow test for preemption and adopted the FCC’s broader test.
Inteliquent, Inc. v. FCC, 35 F.4th 797 (D.C. Cir. 2022)
Kellogg Hansen successfully represented USTelecom in defending the FCC’s order adopting rules to stem toll-free calling arbitrage schemes. The D.C. Circuit denied Inteliquent’s petition for review of the FCC’s 2020 8YY Access Charge Reform order in a unanimous opinion.
Autauga County Emergency Management Communication District v. FCC, 17 F.4th 88 (11th Cir. 2021) Kellogg Hansen successfully represented AT&T before the FCC and then on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit in a case in which the FCC for the first time interpreted an express preemption provision.
PSSI Global Services, L.L.C. v. FCC, 983 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2020)
To better use scarce mid-band spectrum, the FCC significantly narrowed a frequency band dedicated to fixed satellite transmissions so that wireless service providers could use it for 5G service. Kellogg Hansen successfully represented Verizon in defending the FCC’s order.
COMPTEL v. FCC, 978 F.3d 1325 (D.C. Cir. 2020)
Kellogg Hansen successfully represented USTelecom in defending the FCC’s order forbearing from the statutory obligations to unbundle network elements and sell discounted services to resellers.
Mozilla Corp. v. FCC, 940 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2019)
Kellogg Hansen successfully represented USTelecom in defending the FCC’s classification of broadband internet access service as a non-common-carrier, information service in its 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom order.
AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Board, 525 U.S. 366 (1999); United States Telecom Ass’n v. FCC, 290 F.3d 415 (D.C. Cir. 2002), cert. denied, 538 U.S. 940 (2003); United States Telecom Ass’n v. FCC, 359 F.3d 554 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 925 (2004); Covad Communications Co. v. FCC, 450 F.3d 528 (D.C. Cir. 2006). Kellogg Hansen represented all of the former Bell operating companies in four successive challenges to the FCC’s regulations implementing one of the centerpieces of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, with the courts vacating three sets of FCC rules imposing unbundling requirements on the former Bell operating companies and upholding all FCC determinations not to impose unbundling requirements.