The FCC will begin taking applications Feb. 18 from interconnected VoIP providers seeking to obtain phone numbers directly from numbering administrators, the Wireline Bureau said Thursday in a public notice in docket 95-116 listed in Friday's Daily Digest. The rules were approved in June (see 1506180060) but didn't take effect until Thursday after they were approved by the Office of Management and Budget and published in the Federal Register. NARUC is challenging the order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for giving the rights and obligations of telecom common carriers to unclassified service providers (NARUC v. FCC, No. 15-1497) (see 1601050050).

An appeals court upheld a district court's denial of a motion to dismiss a junk fax lawsuit, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling that found rejected settlement offers aren't grounds for suit dismissal (see 1601200057). "Because the Supreme Court’s decision in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, No. 14-857, 2016 WL 228345 (U.S. Jan. 20, 2016), controls the issue in this appeal, the district court’s denial of the motion to dismiss was proper," said a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an order Tuesday (Family Health Chiropractic v. MD On-Line Solutions, No. 15-3508). The 6th Circuit said Family Health Chiropractic had sued MD On-Line Solutions under the Junk Fax Prevention Act, prompting MD On-Line to extend a settlement offer, but FHC rejected the offer and sought class certification. MD On-Line then filed a motion to dismiss, arguing FHC's claims were moot because the rejected settlement offer covered all the relief it sought, said the 6th Circuit, which said the scope of the relief was disputed. "Campbell-Ewald, however, held as a general matter that 'an unaccepted settlement offer or offer of judgment does not moot a plaintiff’s case.' Campbell-Ewald, 2016 WL 228345, at *8. Thus, even if MD On- Line offered complete relief to FHC, FHC’s lack of acceptance of that offer means that this case remains a live case or controversy under Article III," the 6th Circuit said. It affirmed the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to not dismiss the case.

AT&T received nearly 143,000 demands for customer information from federal, state and local criminal and civil government agencies for the second half of 2015, about 2,000 fewer requests than during the first half, it said in a transparency report Tuesday. During the period, the company said, it acquired DirecTV, which has been included in the report but accounts for less 1 percent of total demands received by AT&T. Of the demands for the second half, more than 105,000 were subpoenas, more than 18,700 were general court orders and more than 19,000 were search warrants or probable cause court orders. AT&T said it rejected or challenged nearly 2,500 demands while providing partial or no information on more than 35,000. The company also said it provided more than 38,000 "location demands," nearly 63,000 emergency requests, and a range of 500 to 999 requests for national security letters. Due to a required six-month delay in reporting Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act information order requests, AT&T said it received between 0 and 499 FISA orders for both content and noncontent during the first half of 2015.

AT&T is making changes at the top, as the company looks to tie its services together following the takeover of DirecTV, the carrier confirmed Monday. Ralph de la Vega, head of the wireless part of the company, was named vice chairman over the business and international parts of the company, a company official confirmed. John Stankey, who ran the DirecTV, Internet and TV units, will now be in charge of wireless as CEO of the entertainment group.

North American Portability Management filed a status report for January on the planned local number portability (LNP) administrator transition that was mostly the same as the report it filed for December. The NAPM update posted Friday in docket 95-911 did note various details of the activities of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the transition oversight manager, including that it had invited 10,000 contacts to register for its outreach webcast on Wednesday. There, PwC officials outlined a preliminary timetable running through 3Q 2017 for the planned LNP administrator transition from Neustar to Ericsson's iconectiv (see 1601270069). Small carriers and consumer groups have voiced concerns about what they see as the lack of greater transparency in the process (see 1601150070).

Fred Campbell launched a new venture -- Tech Knowledge, he said in an email Monday. “The interconnection of virtually all technologies through a government-regulated Internet of things suggests a more holistic approach to tech policy is becoming necessary.” Campbell said he closed his former group, the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology. Last month, Wireless 20/20 said it hired him as senior policy adviser (see 1601190052).

Assist Wireless and others asked a court to dismiss their challenge to an FCC decision regarding use of an Oklahoma Historical Map to restrict Lifeline tribal coverage in the state, according to a motion filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit they said was unopposed (Assist Wireless v. FCC, No. 15-1324). The companies are backing an Oklahoma Corporation Commission request to delay the Feb. 9 implementation of the new map, and seeking 180 more days (see 1601190044).

Level 3 asked the FCC for a temporary waiver for classifying certain phone numbers it has provided to interconnected VoIP providers or other noncarrier entities under a 2015 agency order (see 1506180060). Level 3 said the numbers that haven’t been assigned to an end user by the noncarrier recipients shouldn't be required to be classified as “intermediate” instead of “assigned.” A “limited waiver of the rules is necessary because it is technically infeasible for Level 3 to upgrade the information technology” for a key product, conduct a phone number inventory and modify contractual relationships in time for a utilization report due Monday, the company said in a petition posted Wednesday in docket 13-97. It said it also sought the waiver for applications for "growth numbering resources" it may submit through July 31.

The FCC's planned local number portability administrator transition from Neustar to Ericsson's iconectiv is expected to last through Q3 2017, said officials from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the transition oversight manager, on an agency-promoted webcast Wednesday. Various testing regimes of software and other elements of new LNP administrator systems are expected to begin by the end of this quarter and continue through Q1 2017, they said. "Data migration" is expected to "go live" in early 2017, they said. All of the projected time frames are preliminary and will depend on the finalization of various contracts and agreements.

Windstream said its Carrier E-Access services gained "CE 2.0 certification" from MEF, an industry alliance promoting ethernet technical development. The E-Access services were "stringently tested" and found to meet or exceed all related CE 2.0 service level requirements, which are the "highest and most current industry standards," the company said in a Tuesday news release.