Canadian cable viewers now have increased cable programming choices with a la carte regulations -- which U.S. cable programmers had strongly opposed -- just taking effect there. A similar regulatory approach seems unlikely in the U.S., industry officials said.
One of the biggest challengers of Charter Communications' plans to buy Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable still hopes for conditions on the deals, amid indications the FCC could be nearing a decision. The Stop Mega Cable coalition said a report in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday night that Chairman Tom Wheeler is close to circulating a draft order on approval of the deals "gloss[es] over the difficult questions that still must be addressed." The group, which has made its case about harms of the deal before the FCC multiple times (see 1603110048, 1602240030 and 1602110045), said New Charter "profoundly threatens competition and choice in the cable-and-broadband marketplace. This FCC and DOJ have made clear that these problems are a top priority and have a track record to back it up. This all suggests that the deal will not be approved without strong, enforceable and long-lasting conditions that protect consumers. The Stop Mega Cable Coalition will continue its efforts to ensure that this deal does not get approved until its many harms are addressed." The FCC declined to comment Wednesday except to say the deals remained under review. The agency's unofficial 180-day shot clock for that review stood Wednesday at 172. Charter also didn't comment. In a statement Wednesday, David Segal, executive director of activist organization Demand Progress, said New Charter approval would mean "Big Cable will see even bigger profits while American consumers will be stuck with higher prices and fewer options. Chairman Wheeler has talked a good game about supporting competition in the broadband market, and whether he rejects the Charter merger will put his words to the test." Free Press President Craig Aaron said much the same when he called Charter/TWC/BHN "a waste" considering the costs involved. "This same money could be spent to build new competitive broadband options for tens of millions of people," he said. "If this deal gets approved, however, these billions won’t help build anything. They’ll merely be a payoff to Time Warner Cable’s shareholders and executives. CEO Rob Marcus will get a $100 million golden parachute for his troubles, while cable customers will be stuck with the tab." Aaron said New Charter and Comcast "would have unprecedented control over our cable and Internet connections," resulting in fewer choices, higher prices and lessened competition. "No conditions can mitigate this merger’s many public interest harms or lower the monthly bills for those who’ll be hit hardest by these rate hikes: people in low-income communities and on the wrong side of the digital divide," he said, adding that Wheeler "needs to block this disastrous deal and get back to protecting the public interest."
Public Knowledge and Comcast are 180 degrees apart on whether Stream TV is a cable service or an over-the-top Internet service. Making that determination could be challenging given the hazy distinction between the two, legal experts told us. The statutes defining the two, and their differences, are vague enough that they could be read to indicate Comcast is in violation or the opposite, said Adam Candeub, director-Intellectual Property, Information & Communications Law Program at Michigan State University.
Spectrum allocation disagreements between the satellite industry and terrestrial wireless providers will be the norm for the foreseeable future, satellite officials said Thursday on a Satellite 2016 panel on the future of the satellite broadcast industry. November's World Radiocommunication Conference deferred several decisions, and frequency allocation issues will likely be on the agenda for WRC-23, said Gary Thatcher, U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau associate director: "I can't imagine everything will be resolved at WRC-19."
Whether the 1993 presumption of no effective competition in local cable markets stays or goes is beside the point because the legal challenge to the FCC's 2015 effective competition order involves ensuring the agency follows the statute through evidence-based findings of effective competition in each franchise area, said NAB, NATOA and Northern Dakota County (Minnesota) Cable Communications Commission in a reply brief filed Tuesday in U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in their challenge of the agency's June order (see 1506020060). "Rulemakings do not provide a vehicle to rewrite statutes, even if the Commission regards the statutory scheme as anachronistic or inconvenient," the filing said, and any remedy "lies with Congress." Oral argument hasn't been scheduled. Final briefs are due March 29.
The satellite industry isn't trying to obstruct sharing of the 28 GHz band with 5G but has "different priorities and timelines" than the FCC has, Satellite Industry Association President Tom Stroup told us Wednesday in response to comments by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler at the SIA's Satellite Leadership Dinner Monday. According to posted text of the speech, which was closed to the news media, Wheeler lambasted the industry. He said it was "beyond disappointing to see [it] work so hard to block the ITU from even studying 5G at 28 GHz" at November's World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC). "We're not really seeking to obstruct," Stroup said.
Ultra HD needs strict standards and policing of those standards to prevent what happened in the HD market, where non-HD screens were sold as HD, said Antonio Arcidiacono, Eutelsat director-innovation, during an Ultra HD panel Tuesday at the Satellite 2016 conference in National Harbor, Maryland. There already have been signs of such problems, such as sale of 2K Blu-ray discs as 4K, he said. "If you fool the customers, the market will not grow." While Ultra HD lacks a clear definition, traits beyond just higher definition -- from wider color space and higher frame rates to immersive sound -- when put together, "you get the 'wow' factor," said Peter Siebert, executive director of the DVB Project. He said industry specifications have been worked out cooperatively for the high-resolution areas, and now there's work being done on specifications for high dynamic range, high frame rate and related matters. The market is seeing Ultra HD TVs "somewhat in advance of our ability to deliver content to them," said Steve Richeson, Advantech Wireless senior vice president-global sales and business development. He said "4K seems to be customer pull." But the satellite industry is somewhat dropping the Ultra HD ball, with Netflix having launched service in 4K, said Arcidiacono. Satellite providers need to better promote Ultra HD, though the industry has launched some Ultra HD channels, he said.
In-flight connectivity company executives threw a number of verbal elbows at one another over data capacity and the future of air-to-ground (ATG) connectivity, at a panel Tuesday at Satellite 2016. "Some of the exaggeration is going to come back and bite some of us," said Leo Mondale, Inmarsat president-aviation. Air passengers want the same kind of connectivity they get on the ground, Mondale said, but "I don't know if there's enough [demand] to float the boat of everyone up here [on the panel]." Mondale and Gogo Chief Technology Officer Anand Chari went back and forth with Don Buchman, ViaSat general manager-commercial mobility, on ViaSat's in-flight broadband offering on JetBlue and United. Chari and Mondale called it "a marketing stunt." "It's not a claim -- just buy a ticket on JetBlue," Buchman said. Chari said that alongside Gogo's efforts on the launch of its 2Ku satellite connectivity service (see 1508240040), it's also working on its next-generation ATG, which includes its interest in the air-to-ground mobile broadband spectrum it asked the FCC to auction (see 1503100047). Financially, ATG becomes viable compared to satellite in-flight connectivity if there is adequate spectrum -- which Gogo doesn't currently have, Chari said. Cost of spectrum "is what swings this thing from reasonable to unreasonable," said David Bruner, Panasonic Aviation vice president-global communications services.
Video programming increasingly is shuttling from satellite to fiber networks, and eventually hybrid networks that include satellite will be the norm, industry experts said Monday at the Satellite 2016 conference in National Harbor, Maryland. Dropping fiber and data storage prices are leading U.S. broadcasters to cut back from the four video streams they used to put out -- one for each time zone -- while cable companies are getting more of their feeds terrestrially instead of by satellite, all of which is leading to a bigger satellite industry disruption than the digital transition, said Armand Musey, Summit Ridge Group president.
Latency issues are potentially a big stumbling block for satellite participation in 5G, speakers said at the Satellite 2016 conference Tuesday in National Harbor, Maryland. Some CEOs said it's a conversation to be avoided; others called it not that big a deal and easily worked around. "Latency is clearly an issue ... we are going to have to deal with," Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce said.