State Regulatory Practice

Our firm has a long history of representing incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers, inter-exchange carriers, wireless service providers, and other telecommunications companies such as pay phone and operator service providers.

We have represented incumbent and competitive local exchange and inter-exchange carriers in Illinois in a wide variety of proceedings before the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) and in related litigation and appeals, including:

Negotiation and arbitration of interconnection agreements and amendments, including four major arbitration proceedings for various competitive carriers
Traditional (rate base-rate of return) rate cases
Proceedings to set TELRIC prices for unbundled network elements
Proceedings relating to terms and conditions for collocation, reciprocal compensation, termination charges for customer contracts, and charges for power supplied by the incumbent to collocation sites
Proceedings relating to standards of service for both wholesale and retail service and to the terms of wholesale performance measurement and remedy payment plans
Applications for certificates of service authority
Other rulemakings, investigations, and complaint and dispute resolution proceedings

We have represented competitive carriers in a number of proceedings arising out of the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) Triennial Review Order and Triennial Review Remand Order, including negotiation and arbitration of the Illinois interconnection agreement amendment to implement these FCC orders and, most recently, a proceeding to determine if the incumbents' designations of wire centers as non-impaired were in conformance with the criteria established in the triennial review remand order.

Schiff Hardin also represents clients in obtaining regulatory approvals in connection with mergers and acquisitions, other corporate restructurings, asset sales and leases, and financings. Our firm also provides ongoing advice to telecommunications clients on matters of regulatory procedure and compliance. Additionally, we have counseled and represented clients on legislative matters in Illinois affecting telecommunications carriers.

The Firm often represents groups of competitive carriers in ICC proceedings, which enables the individual companies to realize reduced costs of participation while enabling an overall more comprehensive case presentation than may be possible for individual carriers.