The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an FCC request to "correct" the record in litigation over an AT&T challenge to FTC authority to regulate some services of common carriers. An en banc panel of the court Tuesday denied without comment an FCC post-argument motion to submit a letter disputing AT&T assertions at oral argument that the FCC could impose structural separation on common carriers to facilitate FTC regulatory authority over their noncommon-carrier services (see 1710230057). The en banc panel heard argument Sept. 19 on an appeal of a three-judge panel reversal of a lower court ruling that denied AT&T's motion to dismiss a 2014 data-throttling lawsuit in FTC v. AT&T Mobility, No. 15-16585 (see 1709180061 and 1709190025). The FCC and AT&T didn't comment.

The Supreme Court's new electronic filing system will begin operation Nov. 13, it said Monday. Under the system, "virtually all new filings" will be publicly accessible for free, it said. Paper still will be the official form of filing, but parties represented by counsel also will have to submit most documents through the system, and lawyers who expect to do so will need to register in advance for the system, it said. Filings from parties appearing pro se won't be submitted through the electronic filing system but will be scanned by court personnel and made available on the e-docket, it said.

The FCC should investigate the possible impact on emergency communications of doing away with the main studio rule before voting it out, said Common Frequency in a letter filed in docket 17-106. The repeal of the rule is on the agenda for commissioners’ meeting Tuesday. In Puerto Rico, “it was local origination capacity and a live human broadcast staff relaying local emergency information that made the possibility of saving thousands of lives possible,“ Common Frequency said, calling the proposal to eliminate the requirement “troubling.” The rulemaking “aims to turn the nation’s outlets for news, public affairs, and emergency information dissemination into internet streams from centralized sources,” Common Frequency said. “It is imperative for the Commission to investigate the impact of the local main studio prior to voting upon the R&O [report and order],” the filing said. The Wireline Bureau should waive the recertification process for some Lifeline customers of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company until April 1, PRTC said in an emergency petition Monday. The customers in question are being affected by network and power outages and “significant displacement,” the petition said. “This limited suspension and waiver will protect consumers who are unlikely to receive and respond to USAC’s [Universal Service Administrative Co.] recertification notifications, which would cause their Lifeline service to be discontinued at a time when it is most needed,” the filing said. The bureau should grant the petition “expeditiously,” said PRTC.

AT&T and Time Warner are extending the termination date of their merger agreement "for a short period" while they continue to seek DOJ regulatory approval, AT&T said in an SEC filing Monday. AT&T said it still expects to close on the deal by year's end and the merger agreement included the right to extend if government reviews of the deal went beyond Sunday, which was the termination date. The deal got Brazilian antitrust OK last week (see 1710180038), leaving only DOJ approval outstanding. Meanwhile, the fourth independent compliance officer report on AT&T/DirecTV conditions, posted Monday in docket 14-90, said the company "demonstrated its commitment to satisfying" the conditions. It said AT&T has offered 1 Gbps fiber to the premises service to E-rate eligible schools or libraries in its fiber to the premises FTTP and contiguous footprint. AT&T was required to deploy FTTP service to 12.5 customer locations within four years, but its FTTP deployment numbers were redacted in the report.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., having in September granted (in Pacer) a motion by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for summary judgment dismissing a discrimination suit brought by a former agency engineer, on Monday denied (in Pacer) six subsequent motions by the plaintiff. Boasberg in the docket 16-398 order said the motions seemed aimed at altering or amending the summary judgment but brought no new arguments or legal theories. Plaintiff Qihui Huang of Bethesda, Maryland, in her 2016 pro se complaint (in Pacer) against former Chairman Tom Wheeler alleged a hostile work environment at the agency involving her age, race and that she's foreign born. Huang didn't comment.

Local governments urged FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to “more fully” consider local perspectives on broadband infrastructure deployment issues. Presidents of the National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors and National Association of Counties asked for Pai’s attention in wireline and wireless infrastructure rulemakings and at the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), in an Oct. 17 letter released Thursday in docket 17-79. “Protect local authority over rights-of-way, honor our Constitutionally guaranteed protection of fair compensation on the use of public assets, and maintain our Congressionally recognized right to govern the siting of cell towers and small cells in our communities.” The groups sought “an appropriate level of local government representation” on BDAC, “if this body is to be continued, so that local governments can have more input into both the BDAC’s and the Commission’s deliberations on matters such as these two rulemakings and other proceedings related to broadband deployment in the future.” Pai should respond to “the perception that BDAC is solely interested in pursuing industry goals by making all meetings public, and sharing drafts of all BDAC working documents on the FCC’s homepage,” the associations said. The BDAC’s mission should be expanded to include deployment obstacles it’s missing, “such as broadband industry provider practices and market structure,” they said. The committee should produce interim reports, subject to public review and comment, before recommendations are finalized and the FCC acts on the infrastructure rulemakings, the groups said. The BDAC is expected to consider recommendations on local barriers and other issues when it next meets Nov. 9 (see 1710160061). The agency didn’t comment.

A draft FCC order on an AT&T-Iowa Network Services tariff dispute is before commissioners, said the agency's circulation list updated Friday. A spokesman noted the intercarrier-compensation dispute proceeding in docket 17-56. INS (also called Aureon), a provider of centralized equal access (CEA) service, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in 2014 alleging breach of its federal and state tariffs by customer AT&T; the court referred the case to the FCC, which ordered AT&T to file a complaint, said the parties' joint statement of stipulated facts. An AT&T brief said INS violated the law by engaging "in improper accounting methods that concealed manipulations of INS’s tariffed rate applicable" to CEA service. AT&T used "false cost allocation assumptions to contrive a lower rate in its CEA rate recalculations," replied INS. AT&T moved to strike portions of the INS brief; INS opposed the motion. AT&T and INS representatives didn't comment.

FCC review and updating of media ownership rules is “long overdue” and not precipitated by Sinclair buying Tribune, blogged Commissioner Mike O’Rielly Friday, referring to perception deregulation efforts are connected to the takeover. The deal is “in no way the catalyst for FCC action on these issues,” O’Rielly said. Such reviews are statutorily required and requested in petitions for reconsideration, and relaxing the “shoddy” rules is a cause he has long supported, he said. “It’s not a new position or reaction to a pending application. Instead, for the first time, we finally have a Chairman receptive to these ideas.” In considering ownership rules, the FCC should “reasonably define markets” to account for competition from internet-based entities such as over-the-top services and social media platforms, O’Rielly said. The agency should also go after cross-ownership bans and rules that prevent duopolies, he said. “To my friends who think we need regulations to ensure a diversity of viewpoints, here’s a newsflash: you are regulating the wrong market. Today, with thousands of new options, how can the FCC justify maintaining this rule in its current form?” O’Rielly said. The agency also should do away with additional restrictions as it did the UHF discount, O’Rielly said. Without mentioning the national ownership cap closely associated with the UHF discount, he said that “the Commission must resist calls that are counter to our goals of modernization and/or often outside the scope of our authority.” O’Rielly repeatedly has said he doesn’t believe the FCC has the authority to tackle the national cap. The agency should go beyond the petitions for reconsideration in relaxing media ownership, he said. “It’s possible that procedurally we may be unable to address all of our media ownership rules now, but we must tee them up for future consideration.” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel spoke against relaxing media ownership rules on Oct. 13 (see 1710120057).

Verizon's failure, without warning, to sign a contract extension with Univision that would have continued carriage while the companies continue negotiations was largely unprecedented in how abruptly the telco ceased talks and how precipitously it rejected the extension, Univision CEO Randy Falco said in a letter this week to Chairman Ajit Pai. The broadcaster was no longer available on Verizon's Fios and mobile platforms as of Monday. Falco said that just before 5 p.m. Monday expiration of the extension the two were operating under, Verizon dropped Univision and affiliated channels and began messaging viewers. Verizon Senior Vice President-Public Policy and Government Affairs Kathleen Grillo, in a letter Thursday to Pai, said Univision "consistently insisted on unreasonable terms," including more than double what the MVPD would pay annually despite declining viewership. She said the broadcaster's latest offer, hours before the expiration of the contract extension, "made it clear that the parties were at an impasse" and another extension wouldn't be productive. Verizon said it has been directing customers to the Univision Now app and expanding carriage of other Spanish-language channels. The FCC didn't comment.

AT&T and Verizon supported the thrust of an FCC plan for auctioning USF subsidies for fixed broadband services in areas traditionally served by large carriers. They, CTIA and a few others commented for the first time on proposed procedures for the Connect America Fund Phase II auction of up to $1.98 billion in support over 10 years. Replies were posted Wednesday and Thursday in docket 17-182. The commission largely "got it right," commented AT&T, saying the auction "must be simple enough to enable providers of all sizes, using different technologies, to participate." The design must "enable bidders to maximize efficiencies by allowing them to assemble contiguous networks across census block groups," it said. It disputed concerns package bidding would crowd out smaller bidders (see 1709190002) and urged the FCC to keep anti-collusion rules, while suggesting "modest modifications." Verizon backed the framework and endorsed "targeted changes," including USTelecom proposals to modify package bidding, bid-switching rules and a financial qualifications screen. CTIA objected to "proposals to require additional showings from applicants proposing to use spectrum to provide the supported services (wireless applicants)," including "calls for wireless applicants to include propagation maps in their short-form applications." The Wireless ISP Association also opposed the propagation-map proposal of a rural coalition. Microsoft again sought inclusion of unlicensed "white space" spectrum and backed a WISPA proposal for even broader spectrum use. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, joined this time by Public Knowledge and other consumer-oriented groups, said "the FCC should only consider bids that cannot cover all premises in the event that there is no bidder that can connect all premises" in an area. Bidders providing "high-quality fixed service" should be preferred over "high-latency satellite options," they said. SpaceX opposed measures "that exclude any technology that meets" baseline criteria. Hughes Network Systems said the FCC should grant its reconsideration petition to change bid weights and should eliminate package bidding and increase bid-switching flexibility from round to round. Repeating its concern about complexity, a rural electric and telco coalition urged the FCC to simplify the auction by "eliminating or substantially modifying its proposal to allow package bidding; prohibiting bidders from switching tiers between rounds; and allowing proxy bidding." It said anti-collusion rules should be altered to let small providers share auction consultants. The American Cable Association supplemented its arguments against package bidding, a proposed "five-point" financial screen, and anti-collusion rules preventing consultant sharing. Also filing again were GeoLinks, Illinois Electric Cooperative and the Rural Wireless Association.