Telecommunications
The team has advised on the financing, regulatory, real estate, and commercial aspects of major national telecoms projects:
BT Wholesale provides comprehensive network services within the UK to more than 500 communication companies, network operators and service providers. We advised BT Wholesale on its contract with communications services provider Redstone Telecom PLC, which was the first time that BT had offered its complete facilities management service to cover all aspects of another operator's network infrastructure. The Redstone network is one of the largest guaranteed bandwidth networks in the UK. The six year deal with an aggregate value of £170 million incorporated the existing interconnect arrangements between BT and Redstone and added further value added services. The provision of network management services to other telecoms operators marks a significant new strategic direction for BT Wholesale, and the arrangements are structured to ensure that Redstone retains strategic control of the network and its traffic, in order to retain its telecoms operator's licence, whilst passing responsibility for the day to day network management to BT.
Global Crossing provides telecommunications solutions over the world's first integrated global IP-based network. Its core network connects more than 300 cities in 28 countries worldwide, and delivers services to more than 600 cities in 60 countries. Our contract work for Global Crossing's subsidiary Fibernet has included:
- Review of contract with Scottish & Southern Energy plc and advising on shared customer use of the telecommunications services
- Systems integrator contracts for use with third party systems integrators including IBM (with Siemens as customer) and Energis
- Transfer of ownership of optical fibres from Easynet Group plc to Fibernet, including related arrangements for the installation, use and maintenance of the optical fibres
- Master Service Agreement for Connectivity and Co-Location Services to be provided by Fibernet to Netservices
- Services agreement for telecommunications services to be provided by Fibernet to AOL
- We advised MegaFon on the liability of mobile operators in Europe for the provision of audio/visual content over its network
- We advised 02 on a master site sharing agreement with Crown Castle
We have also recently acted for Geo Networks Limited in relation to its crossings of the Manchester Ship Canal and Bridgewater Canal involving a rent review arbitration, an arbitration pursuant to the Code and Court Proceedings. In particular, LG advised Geo on its statutory right contained within the Code (seldom, if ever, relied upon by an operator before) to cross a canal with a fibre optic cable and keep the cable in situ without payment. That advice culminated in an unanimous win for Geo in the Court of Appeal (with leave to petition the Supreme Court refused);
Other telecoms clients include Virgin Media Ltd and Airwave Solutions Ltd.