A deal between Cox Communications and TiVo will bring the cable operator’s VoD programming to some broadband-connected DVRs. A Cox digital TV customer who buys a TiVo Premiere box and broadband service from Cox will be able to access its VoD programming menus next year, the companies said Thursday. The service will be limited to customers who take both cable TV and broadband from Cox because requests from the TiVo box to the cable headend will be handled on the cable operator’s upstream Internet connection, Cox Vice President Steve Necessary said in an interview. When a customer makes a VoD request from a TiVo box, a signal will leave the box through the Ethernet port and travel through the cable modem up the Cox broadband path to equipment from SeaChange that will translate it for Cox’s VoD servers, he said.

Interest in fiber appears to be higher in the Middle East than in Europe, Fiber-to-the-Home Council Europe Director General Hartwig Tauber said in an interview. With several Mideast countries building up to decisions about broadband deployment in the next few years, now is the time for fiber proponents to tell players about the technology’s benefits, he said. But deployment of FTTH is being slowed by the absence of a regulatory framework like the EU’s, he said.

Broadcasters’ future with mobile DTV is “up in the air,” Gray TV CEO Bob Prather told investors Thursday. He said the formation of Pearl Mobile DTV group at this year’s NAB show with just nine large station groups created a split among station owners. “There’s now a split between those guys and the rest of us out there,” he said. “It’s delayed us from coming up with a plan overall. At this point mobile DTV is in flux.” The technology works, and Prather is still optimistic about it, but “it may be delayed a little longer than I initially thought,” he said.

Debate about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s third-way broadband reclassification proposal comes on the eve of a key international meeting on broadband, October’s ITU Plenipotentiary Conference where government regulation of the Internet is expected to be a key topic. Genachowski has not indicated when the FCC will vote on a reclassification order.

The National Transportation Safety Board Wednesday recommended that the Coast Guard issue a policy on cellphone use by members of the service while on duty. That came in response to two accidents between Coast Guard patrol boats and commercial craft. The NTSB issued a second recommendation to the maritime industry, asking it to also issue a notice on the danger of cellphone use while operating a boat.

Google will work as the sales representative for several channels offered by DirecTV, the companies said Wednesday. The partnership is a step forward for Google’s effort to gain recognition as an ad seller in traditional media in preparation for a possible flattening out of Internet ad sales, media industry analysts said.

The net neutrality proposal by Google and Verizon is a positive sign and a right step forward in coming up with a reasonable agreement, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets CEO Ralph de la Vega said Wednesday. The plan is good for the industry, De la Vega told an investor conference. He underlined that two companies from different industries can come together on a difficult issue. He’s hopeful that the rest of the industry as well as the regulators can use the proposal as a framework to come to an agreement. De la Vega wouldn’t speculate on how the FCC would react but said any debate should be settled by legislative process and not regulators.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A former senior Homeland Security official largely blamed the privacy-rights lobby’s success for what he called lack of U.S. preparation for cyberwar. Improved preparedness “requires that the public grow up and realize we need these capabilities,” said Stewart Baker, DHS’s first assistant secretary for policy, 2005-2009. Privacy advocates never got behind that, he said on panel at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting, which ended this week. Baker, a Steptoe & Johnson partner, criticized “privacy campaigners” as insisting that “we don’t want” the National Security Agency “anywhere near our packets,” even in a response to a cyberattack on the U.S.

FCC staffers reviewing Comcast’s planned purchase of control in NBC Universal may not complete their work this year, as the companies hope, said commission officials and industry executives not part of the ongoing staff work. They said there have been indications in private comments from commission officials familiar with the deal that an order on the multibillion-dollar transaction may not be finished in 2010. Staff work on Comcast-NBC Universal, with Internet video continuing to be a key area of focus, likely will be complete in the first quarter of 2011. though there’s still a possibility work will be done this year, commission and industry officials said. Once bureau work is done, an order will be circulated for a commission vote, which will take additional time.

Google’s and Verizon’s proposal for net neutrality legislation, unveiled Monday (CD Aug 10 p1), is having an unintended side effect, industry and public interest group officials said Tuesday: Galvanizing opponents and broadening interest in net neutrality. News of an agreement last week saw net neutrality emerge as a key issue for interest groups like MoveOn.Org, which played a big role in the election of President Barack Obama two years ago.