Inter-Provider Relations

We assist our telecommunication carrier clients in contract negotiations for wholesale services. We develop contract language and provide expert services in contract arbitrations. We assist our carrier clients in billing disputes, interpreting contract language, quantifying disputed amounts, providing expert witness support and technical expertise in litigation and settlement negotiations.

Government Policy and Regulation

We systematically monitor communications policy and regulatory developments at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and in all U.S. state jurisdictions. We assist our communications clients in developing and advocating their positions on various regulatory issues (including Universal Service, spectrum allocation, intercarrier compensation and deregulation) in front of regulatory bodies. Another example of QSI's involvement in regulatory affairs is the ongoing participation of its President, Mr. Starkey, in the Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA). The STI-GA is an FCC-sanctioned governance board tasked with combating unwanted "robocalling" and caller-identification manipulation referred to as "spoofing." The STI-GA provides policy and technical leadership in implementing requirements to be used, in the near future, by all domestic telecommunications carriers to authenticate traffic flowing between their networks. Mr. Starkey is a member of the STI-GA Board.

Communications Technologies

Established shortly after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which opened the local telecommunications marketplace to competition in local markets, QSI has been on the cutting edge of technology change in the communications industry. The new regulatory environment ushered in a myriad of technological changes, pushing service providers to retire legacy Time Division Multiplexing networks in favor of various IP and wireless applications, and blending the boundaries between voice, data and video sectors of the market. We have been providing our communications clients trusted regulatory consulting services and advice throughout this entire transformation. In recent years we prepared for our clients reports focused on the impact of such emerging technologies as Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN), Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), 5G, Internet-of-Things (IoT), High-Throughput Satellites and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite systems.