Three more groups plan to defend the FCC net neutrality and broadband reclassification order against challenges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063). The American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a notice Friday, saying no parties to the case objected to their plans to file an amicus brief. The ACLU and EFF said their brief would discuss the importance of "de facto neutrality principles to the growth of the Internet" and explain how the FCC order "will support continued growth of the Internet as a platform for expression and innovation." They also said they would dispute arguments the order violates First Amendment speech rights, but "in fact advances the values at its core by safeguarding the right of individuals to freely speak and be heard online." Thursday, the Open Internet Civil Rights Coalition also filed a notice, saying all the parties had consented to its plans to file an amicus brief in defense of the order. The coalition said all its members -- which included the Center for Media Justice, Common Cause and National Hispanic Media Coalition -- participated in the FCC net neutrality proceeding "to promote the values of diversity inherent in the public interest standard of the Communications Act of 1934 and the First Amendment."

A federal court suspended its review of an AT&T challenge to a December FCC order on price-cap telco USF obligations. The commission had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to hold the AT&T case in abeyance while the agency considers related issues in a USTelecom forbearance petition and two other proceedings, which could render moot or alter the case (see 1507270038). In a brief order on Thursday granting the FCC request pending further order of the court, Judges David Tatel and Cornelia Pillard asked the parties to file motions on future proceedings within 14 days of an FCC decision addressing AT&T's issues in either the USTelecom forbearance proceeding or the two parallel rulemakings, or by Jan. 18, whichever comes first.

Library and consumer groups said they plan to support the FCC net neutrality order, which is being challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (the case is USTelecom vs. FCC, No. 15-1063). A major Internet group previously said it would back the order. The American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies filed a motion Tuesday asking the D.C. Circuit for leave to file an amicus brief in support of the Department of Justice and FCC as they defend the order, which also reclassified broadband Internet access service under Title II of the Communications Act. The groups said their brief would argue the net neutrality rules are needed to protect the interests of libraries and their users. "Without rules banning paid prioritization, libraries would be significantly hampered in efforts to provide the most vulnerable populations with access to content and services on the Internet, including educational resources and non-profit content," they said. The groups also plan to argue the that FCC general Internet conduct standard was an appropriate tool under the Communications Act to ensure the Internet remained "open" and "a democratic platform for research, learning and the sharing of the information" in the face of "future harms that cannot yet be defined." Consumers Union filed a notice Tuesday of its intent to file a brief supporting the DOJ/FCC. The group said all the parties to the case had consented to its participation. The Internet Association -- representing Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Yahoo and other prominent Web companies -- filed a similar notice Aug. 7. The DOJ/FCC brief is due Sept. 14 and the supporting intervenor and amicus briefs Sept. 21. Cable/telco petitioners challenging the order filed their briefs in July (see 1507310042) and intervenors and amicus briefs supporting their challenge were filed in August (see 1508070058).

The seven must-have changes pay TV seeks in retransmission consent rule reforms won't solve all that ails the retrans market, but they will improve it, Dish Network Deputy Counsel Jeffrey Blum told us Tuesday. Numerous multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) and allies -- including the American Cable Association, Cablevision, CenturyLink, DirecTV, Dish, ITTA, Mediacom, NTCA, Time Warner Cable and USTelecom -- through the American Television Alliance have lined up behind seven specific reforms they're pushing at the FCC. The deadline for the agency to issue an NPRM is Friday. Broadcasters are opposing many retrans changes (see 1508310026).

A federal court slightly delayed briefing in Neustar's challenge to an FCC order giving Telcordia conditional rights to the next local number portability administrator (LNPA) contract (Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Wednesday granted the joint motion of the Department of Justice, FCC and Neustar (the LNPA incumbent) to push back briefing due dates by a week or two to accommodate "competing work demands" (see 1508130042): Neustar's brief is now due Sept. 21; the FCC/DOJ's response Oct. 28; intervenors' brief supporting the FCC (CTIA, Telcordia and USTelecom) Nov. 12, Neustar's reply Nov. 25 and final briefs incorporating an appendix Dec. 17. Oral argument is usually held at least 45 days after briefing closes. Meanwhile, the FCC is moving ahead with efforts to transition the LNPA functions from Neustar to a Telcordia entity, subject to conditions and contract approval. Recognizing the need for certain communications between the LNPA entities, other telecom industry stakeholders and commission officials to carry out transition tasks seamlessly, the Wireline Bureau Tuesday exempted certain presentations from the agency's ex parte rules for disclosing FCC meetings and contacts, though it reminded parties that the agency can rely only on information placed on the record in making decisions.

Both sides sought more time to file briefs in Neustar's challenge to an FCC order giving Telcordia conditional rights to the next local number portability administrator (LNPA) contract (Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080). Neustar (the incumbent LNPA), the FCC and the Department of Justice filed a joint motion Thursday asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to move back briefing deadlines by a week to two weeks to accommodate "competing work demands." They said that intervenors CTIA, Telcordia and USTelecom, which back the FCC, consented to the motion. Under the proposed new schedule, Neustar's brief would be due Sept. 21, the FCC/DOJ brief would be due Oct. 28, intervenors' brief would be due Nov. 12, Neustar's reply brief would be due Nov. 25 and final briefs incorporating an index would be due Dec. 17. The D.C. Circuit recently set the current schedule (see 1508050023).

Seven industry and public safety organizations submitted a proposal to the FCC recommending key principles for guiding efforts to deploy and operate next-generation 911 systems with effective governance and accountability, said a news release from Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions. For the IP transition, the recommendations said efforts should be made to accelerate the continued development and implementation of NG-911 standards and systems, while assuring reliability. On governance, providers of 911 services must be accountable for the reliability of their services and vendor contracts, the filing said. On NG-911 reliability, the transition to NG-911 must be accomplished in a manner that doesn't undermine the availability, reliability and resiliency of the system, it said. ATIS is one of the seven organizations that submitted these principles. Others are the National Emergency Number Association, National Association of State 911 Administrators, Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies, USTelecom, Commission on State Emergency Communications and the Texas 911 Alliance. The principles included in the proposal are designed to help the FCC address the issues about governance, accountability and reliability that exist in today’s evolving 911 systems and services, ATIS said in docket 13-75.

Bipartisan net neutrality legislative negotiation in the Senate didn’t die with the start of the long congressional recess, senators from both parties told us before leaving Washington. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., has sought compromise with ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., on possible legislation since before January and had seemed to have made progress by summer. But observers question lawmakers’ ability to dig into anything later in the year, caught between debate over government funding and the 2016 White House race.

Rural telco groups presented FCC officials with a bevy of potential "technical assumptions" for implementing an overhaul of rate-of-return carrier USF support mechanisms. Representatives of the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, NTCA, USTelecom and WTA said that none of their associations were ready to endorse the assumptions they outlined to the FCC in a document, but they were submitting them to help in the identification and discussion of issues that may need further examination and resolution. "This approach has not been fully defined or modeled, and thus does not represent a fully-formed proposal that has been vetted by or is necessarily supported by industry representatives; some of the associations also have continuing questions and some concerns about issues that may arise in connection with such an approach," the groups said in a USTelecom filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. Derrick Owens, WTA vice president of government affairs, told us that the assumptions incorporated feedback from FCC officials, and are to be used to generate projections for rural telco funding under proposed USF changes. "The idea is to see what the effects are for the companies and the fund in general, and to see what other issues will pop up that need to be addressed," he said. The groups in May proposed a two-track overhaul of rate-of-return USF that would create a voluntary model-based approach and revise existing USF mechanisms to support stand-alone broadband, but many details remain in play (see 1506030052 and 1506040028).

The FCC issued its IP technology transition order and Further NPRM Friday, fleshing out specifics of what commissioners adopted 3-2 Thursday (see 1508060044). The 179-page text sets “rules of the road” for telecom carriers retiring copper-based networks and services. The commission often agreed with competitive LECs and their allies and disagreed with incumbent LECs on basic policies, though it declined to accept various proposals of both CLECs and ILECs.