Telecommunications Network
3,000-Mile California Fiber Optic Network Permitted — and Constructed Ahead of Market Competitors
When Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996, one of the primary policy goals was to create a major new competitive environment for startup telecommunications companies in the hope that this competition would provide more broadband services faster, and at lower costs, throughout the nation. The Act collided squarely with California's environmental review and permitting requirements in 1999, when a newly-elected California Attorney General decided that statewide construction authorizations granted by the California Public Utility Commission to dozens of telecommunications companies had unlawfully bypassed CEQA. Federal and state environmental agencies, Native American tribes, and dozens of California cities and counties weighed in to object to the accelerated federal mandate to make high speed Internet cyberspace a reality.
Midway through a national construction program and nearly a quarter of the way through the construction of a 3,000 plus mile broadband network planned for California, a nationwide telecommunications company retained Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. to restart a construction program under statewide suspension based on an archeological incident, and to allow that program to continue through completion, ahead of its competitors, by resolving a myriad of legal and technical objections raised by a wide variety of agencies and third parties.
Beveridge & Diamond preserved, defended, and expanded the statewide authorization the telecommunications company had obtained from the California Public Utilities Commission. We resolved endangered species and water quality regulatory issues for a system that looped from Oregon down to San Diego on Coastal and Central Valley routes, that looped east across the desert from San Diego, and that looped in complex webs throughout California's urbanized San Francisco-San Jose Bay Area, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego communities. Beveridge & Diamond was able to assist the telecommunications company in activating their network well ahead of the company's primary competitors, some of whom were entirely shut out of the California market because they were unable to overcome formidable environmental and land use barriers.
Other Telecommunications and Cable Industry Projects
Beveridge & Diamond has served as the lead environmental and land use counsel for a wide variety of telecommunication projects, including fixed facility and marine landing facilities in Morro Bay and Manchester, California, St. Thomas and St. Croix, USVI, Puerto Rico, Florida, and New Jersey. Beveridge & Diamond also advised a working group of telecommunications and cable companies on CEQA compliance strategies and options for California.
