AT&T is ready to take the FCC to court if necessary over its net neutrality rules, Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said in the cover letter to the company’s annual report, released Tuesday. “Key policymakers in the administration and at the FCC are now going well beyond any previous concept of net neutrality.” The FCC has reclassified broadband as a Communications Act Title II service under rules “written in 1934 to regulate the rotary dial telephone,” he said. “We feel this antiquated approach will damage investment and damage the Internet itself.” AT&T will “aggressively make the case to policymakers -- and, if necessary, to the courts -- that the FCC’s proposed Title II regulation of the entire Internet is at best a solution in search of a problem and at worst a threat to the United States’ continued global leadership in technology and innovation,” he said.

FCC staff shouldn't be allowed to have the "editorial privilege" of making substantive changes to an item after it’s approved by the commission, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly wrote in a blog post Monday. O'Rielly raised objections to the granting of editorial privileges for the net neutrality order. Based on the name, editorial privileges may sound like they’d be limited to “non-substantive edits, such as correcting typos and updating cross-references in footnotes,” O’Rielly wrote, similar to technical and conforming edits in Congress. At the FCC, staff members “often do much more substantial editing, including adding substantive and significant rebuttals to Commissioners’ dissents and providing sometimes lengthy responses to ex parte arguments that had not been incorporated into the draft prior to the vote,” O’Rielly said. Such substantive changes should not “be made under the guise of 'editorial privileges,'” he wrote. “At times, changes seem intended solely to take further pot shots at dissenting Commissioners.” In the rare cases that substantive changes are needed, they should be approved by the commissioners who voted for the item, O’Rielly wrote. He criticized the agency practice in which dissenting commissioners are not asked about subsequent changes. “If the item is not fully baked in time for the vote, then the Commission should simply delay the vote by a month or two,” O’Rielly wrote.

Because the FCC was closed Thursday due to snow, all filings do that date were due Friday instead, the FCC said Friday in a public notice. It said Thursday “does not count in computing filing periods of fewer than seven days because it was a Commission holiday under rule 1.4(g).”

Correction: What an FCC spokesman said -- about small, rural ISPs choosing to become regulated under new Communications Act Title II FCC rules rather than the old ones they are now subject to -- is that the Feb. 26 net neutrality order would not count broadband costs in rate-of-return calculations (see 1503050054).

The FCC should reconsider its Feb. 3 policy statement creating treble damages in calculating fines for violations of federal payment rules, said Comptel, CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom in a joint petition Friday that also seeks a stay. The policy statement makes a “substantial rule change” affecting the USF, Telecom Relay Service Fund, local number portability, North American Numbering Plan and regulatory fee programs, USTelecom said in a blog post. The commission didn't follow proper notice and comment requirements, USTelecom said. Tripling damages is “’arbitrary and capricious,’” it said.

ABC filed an FCC compliant on interference Verizon allegedly caused to electronic news gathering (ENG) operations of WABC-TV New York. ABC said emissions from Verizon’s AWS network compromised the station’s use of the 2025-2110 MHz band. Problems have been ongoing since September 2013, ABC said. The letter asks that the Enforcement Bureau find Verizon is in violation of FCC rules and require the carrier to install notch filters “at all current and future” base stations that use AWS A- and B-block spectrum within 36 miles of ENG sites operated by WABC. “We are aware of the issue,” a Verizon spokesman said Friday. “We have been working cooperatively with WABC-TV and will continue to do so.”

Prominent communications and tech companies were among the dozens of firms in a diversity of industries signing off on an amicus brief in favor of “marriage equality” as the Supreme Court prepares to hear Obergefell v. Hodges. Among those adding their names to thee brief were Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Broadcom, Cablevision, Cisco, Comcast, DirecTV, Disney, eBay, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Twitter and Verizon. The companies said they do business in states that both allow and prohibit same-sex marriage. “It creates legal uncertainty and imposes unnecessary costs and administrative complexities on employers, and requires differential employer treatment of employees who are similarly situated save for the state where they reside,” the brief said. The case examines whether the 14th Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex or recognize such a marriage that is lawfully licensed and performed in another state. Justices will hear the case April 28.

Clarification: The focus of ex-White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Nicole Wong’s op-ed was the White House's Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. The multistakeholder meeting she mentions on Do-Not-Track discussions was facilitated by the World Wide Web Consortium (see 1503040035).

Dish Network is unlikely to build its own wireless network despite a rash of spectrum buys, said T-Mobile Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter Thursday at a Morgan Stanley financial conference. Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen “has done a masterful job” of creating a mid-band spectrum portfolio important to carrying data traffic, he said. “What Charlie ends up doing, gosh, I wish I could answer that.” Ergen has said recently that Dish would be in no hurry to monetize its spectrum holdings (see 1502230038). T-Mobile would be a “very interesting” party to work with Dish on deploying its spectrum, Carter said. Carter also said T-Mobile followed a “very disciplined” strategy in the AWS-3 auction since it's already well positioned in the mid-band spectrum offered in that auction. “We went into the AWS-3 auction with the best mid-band portfolio in the U.S. and we came out of it with the best mid-band portfolio,” he said. Carter hinted T-Mobile may go much bigger in the TV incentive auction and the 600 MHz spectrum that will be for sale. “Our priority is to perfect our low-band footprint” and put T-Mobile on a level playing field with the other three national carriers, he said. T-Mobile has “years of runway” to expand its network with its current spectrum holding, he said.

The FCC asked the three largest U.S. telcos for updated information about their interconnection deals linking systems, networks and equipment, in letters from Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake dated Tuesday and released Wednesday in docket 14-57. He asked AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon (see here, here and here) to provide copies of all deals between them and other companies about on-net-only interconnection service from Jan. 1, 2012, through Tuesday. Lake also sought copies of CenturyLink's and Verizon's paid peering deals. From them, he sought updated data through Dec. 31, 2014, on interconnection after data was submitted in response to a previous request to the telcos. Last week, Lake asked programmers including CBS, Discovery Communications, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox and Univision about their dealings with online video distributors (OVD), as part of the Comcast/TWC review (see 1502260022). Those letters suggest "FCC staff does not believe it has finished the fact-gathering phase," wrote New Street Research analysts including Jonathan Chaplin to investors Wednesday. "The primary focus of the government" appears to be on "the potential harm the transaction could cause the OVD market," they said. In Tuesday's inquiries, AT&T also was asked to report information on all national and regional sports channels the telco-TV provider distributes. Lake sought details including the number of AT&T subscribers to those networks and the per-subscriber fee the company pays, plus what it pays in retransmission consent fees to TV stations. AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon were asked to respond by March 20. “The FCC is taking this merger very seriously," emailed a spokeswoman for CenturyLink, which has "serious concerns" with how the deal may affect video competition. "It’s not unusual for the commission to ask for more information when they’re considering a merger of this significance. This is second data request we’ve received from FCC." The other two telcos and Comcast had no comment.