The FCC Electronic Comment Filing System experienced a minor processing delay Thursday and Friday that has since been fixed, a commission spokeswoman told us. The delay was responsible for a very low number of filings being timely posted online, she said. No filings from entities outside the commission appeared in ECFS Thursday, but Friday afternoon some filings were posted.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated multicircuit petitions for review of the FCC declaratory ruling and order on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a Friday panel order said. The panel randomly chose the D.C. Circuit as the circuit of record, acting on a notice of petitions for review filed there and in the 7th Circuit, the order said.

Sprint urged the FCC to throw out objections to agency sharing of the sensitive carrier data it collected as it reviews its special access business service rules. "Tellingly, none of the objecting parties even attempts to allege that the release of confidential or highly confidential information to any of the Filers would violate the terms [of] the October 1, 2014 Protective Order," said Sprint, an advocate of Bell special access regulation, in a filing posted in docket 05-25 Wednesday. Brown County C-LEC, Jason Tole, JSI, Parker FiberNet, Service Electric Cable, Transworld Network, US Signal Co. and Vantage Point Solutions objected to sharing of their business data -- or the data of their clients, including scores of RLECs -- with other parties, even subject to the protective order's safeguards (see 1507210027). Some said they would be harmed in a competitive market by such sharing with parties that would include their rivals (through outside counsels). But Sprint said the objecting parties "oppose any disclosure of commercially sensitive information and demand additional protections beyond those adopted by the Wireline Competition Bureau last October -- in essence challenging the Protective Order itself." Sprint said those objections are untimely because the deadline for challenging the protective order passed last October, and it urged the bureau to dismiss the objections and make the special access data available to all appropriate reviewing parties. Noting some objections that cited the need for additional information about parties seeking to review the data, Sprint said each requesting party "appears to have completed, without omission, the template Acknowledgement adopted in the Protective Order." Some of the objectors had said the FCC failed to follow through on assurances it would provide details about the requesting parties and their reasons for viewing the data.

The General Services Administration issued a presolicitation notice for office space for the FCC, according to a post Monday on the GSA’s FedBizOpps.gov website. The FCC’s lease at its current location at the Portals buildings ends in 2017 (see 1501090040), and GSA and FCC officials have told us the commission is examining plans for either moving or using a smaller space in its existing building. “It is anticipated the incumbent Lessor(s) may compete for this procurement,” Monday’s post said. A Washington Business Journal report on the solicitation said the FCC’s relatively large space needs are going to be of special interest to some of Washington’s largest developers. The presolicitation seeks between 394,000 and 473,000 square feet of office space -- the FCC leases 537,812 square feet in the Portals. The commission’s budget request mentioned the need to consolidate space. The presolicitation notice seeks a 15-year lease, with a five-year option, and specifies that the new location should be in Washington’s Central Employment Area, which means it won’t be in Virginia or Maryland. The new site must also be “within 2,640 walkable linear feet of a metrorail station.” The FCC also needs a minimum first-floor ceiling of 11 feet 6 inches, and the right to fully control and secure the roof, which must be “free from signal interference as determined by the FCC.” If the current building remains the FCC’s home, it’s going to need some renovations, the GSA posting said. “The Government is seeking to improve their current occupancy efficiencies and it is anticipated that most of the existing space will need to be redesigned and renovated.” The GSA is being represented by real estate broker CBRE, and expressions of interest in the presolicitation are due Aug. 3, while offers are due in September. The FCC is expected to take occupancy “no earlier than October 17, 2017 and no later than December 31, 2019,” the GSA notice said.

Correction: Noncommercial broadcasters pay a flat fee of $500 annually to stream sound recordings to no more than 218 average listeners (see 1507220078).

FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly voted on a draft order to approve AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV with conditions, a statement indicated Thursday. "After reading the Order as prepared by Commission staff, reviewing the voluminous record in the proceeding, and listening to interested parties, I voted the item this afternoon," he said. "To be clear, this process shouldn’t have taken this long, and we shouldn’t have been so cavalier with the Commission’s merger review ‘shot clock,’ but at least we have arrived at this final stage." The FCC's 180-day nonbinding shot clock remains stopped on Day 170. O’Rielly didn't say how he voted, but industry analysts said this week they expected the order to be approved unanimously or without major opposition in coming days (see 1507220076). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Tuesday said he had circulated a draft order to approve the transaction that would impose various conditions on the postdeal AT&T. Among them are conditions to vastly increase its fiber-based broadband deployment and "build on" the network neutrality order by preventing the company's fixed broadband data caps from discriminating against online video rivals and requiring it to file interconnection agreements and network performance reports, he said. Some critics said the draft order, based on what was known, wasn't demanding enough of AT&T, which could "game" the conditions, but Wheeler also said, "Importantly, we will require an independent officer to help ensure compliance with these and other proposed conditions." An FCC official told us Thursday that the latter compliance condition shouldn't be underestimated. "The independent compliance monitor will be looking over AT&T's shoulder to make sure they comply -- including by reporting back to us to help ensure compliance -- and that's extremely significant, given the resources necessary to enforce merger conditions," the official said. While Comcast and NBCUniversal in 2011 accepted FCC and Justice Department conditions requiring the combined company to comply with network neutrality rules for seven years if they are thrown out in court, no such condition was imposed on AT&T/DirecTV, said an informed source.

AT&T isn't concerned about FCC conditions on its buy of DirecTV articulated by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Tuesday (see 1507220076), AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said Thursday during a call with analysts on Q2 earnings. “We feel very confident that we can make an adequate return on any investment we make as part of this deal,” he said. “Our threshold for investment and determining what’s best for our shareholders has not changed.” AT&T still expects to achieve $2.5 billion in cost synergies from the deal, he said. AT&T plans to webcast an analyst day shortly after the deal closes “to discuss our strategy in much more detail,” Stephens said. AT&T added 2.1 million net wireless subscribers in the quarter, including 410,000 postpaid and 331,000 prepaid subscribers and 1 million connected cars. Postpaid churn was 1.01 percent, a record low for the carrier. On the wireline side, U-verse consumer revenue of $4.1 billion was up 19 percent year over year. AT&T reported adjusted earnings per share of 69 cents in Q2, up from 62 cents a year ago. Consolidated revenue was $33.0 billion, up 1.4 percent versus the year-earlier period. “Our wireless strategy” of moving customers away from subsidized handsets “is working,” Stephens said. “This is a pivotal time for us,” CEO Randall Stephenson said in a news release. “We look forward to closing DIRECTV and building on this momentum by delivering a new TV everywhere experience integrated with mobile and high-speed Internet service.”

CTIA filed a petition for reconsideration asking the FCC to revise rules for the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band. “A handful of policies adopted in the 3.5 GHz Order … threaten to undermine the investment and innovation necessary for the new 3.5 GHz Band to succeed,” CTIA said. The wireless association asked the FCC to increase the license terms for priority access licenses (PALs) to at least five years “and adopt an expectation of license renewal so that the risk of stranded investment does not deter interest in the band.” The FCC approved three-year license terms as part of the rules for the band. CTIA also asked the agency to revise a decision to auction one less PAL than the total number of PALs applied for in a given Census tract “so as to avoid systematically phasing out PALs with each subsequent auction.” The commission also should increase out-of-band emission limits “that otherwise will force licensees operating 20 MHz LTE channels to engage in power backoff” and increase power limits “to allow for meaningful indoor and outdoor coverage,” CTIA said. The commission approved its order creating the new Citizens Broadband Radio Service in the 3550-3700 MHz band at its April meeting (see 1504170055). Parts of the rules took effect Thursday.

Dish Network officials have been told the FCC will deny its proposed use of bidding credits to buy AWS-3 spectrum indirectly through designated entities Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless, Dish said in a filing Wednesday with the SEC. Dish reported on a meeting with the FCC, also Wednesday. A draft order by the FCC Wireless Bureau has found that Dish “has a controlling interest in Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless, therefore DISH’s revenues should be attributed to them, which in turn makes Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless ineligible to receive the 25 percent bidding credits,” Dish said. Northstar Wireless used $1.9 billion and SNR $1.4 billion in bidding credits in the auction, Dish said. The FCC has also determined that Northstar and SNR are eligible to hold the licenses and questions of bidding irregularities shouldn't be referred to the Enforcement Bureau or Department of Justice, Dish said. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler indicated last week that he had recommended a course for addressing the Dish bids in the AWS-3 auction (see 1507160054). The filing Wednesday is the first concrete information available on Wheeler’s draft proposal.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set a briefing schedule for North Carolina and Tennessee's case against the FCC in dockets 15-3291 and -3555, said a briefing letter Monday. The petitioner's brief appendix must be filed by Sept. 1, respondent's brief appendix is due Oct. 5 and the petitioner's reply brief must be filed 17 days after the respondent's brief. If a party wants an oral argument, it must include a statement in the brief, the letter said.