Oral argument in the court challenge of the FCC’s confidentiality rules for programming and retransmission consent contract information related to the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal will be limited to 10 minutes for each side, said an order issued Wednesday. The FCC’s decision to put those contracts into the record but protected through confidentiality orders was challenged by a group of content companies that include Viacom, CBS and Univision. Oral argument is set for Feb. 20. The 10-minute time limit is not unusual and is unlikely to be strictly enforced, said Fletcher Heald appellate attorney Harry Cole. He’s seen oral argument in cases where each side had a 10-minute limit last as long as 40 minutes, he said.

Comcast's highly confidential documents refute its claims that it and Time Warner Cable wouldn't be in competition if the companies don't merge, Dish Network said in a heavily redacted filing in docket 14-57 posted Wednesday. The evidence in the documents establishes “unequivocally” that the deal is “a horizontal merger,” Dish said, by showing that Comcast was considering creating an out-of-footprint online video offering. Dish’s filing is so heavily redacted under confidentiality orders that the evidence it refers to is largely incomprehensible. “Such a service would benefit consumers in TWC territories and in areas served by other cable operators,” Dish said. “If the merger is consummated, the competitive benefits of Comcast’s potential entry will be lost." Comcast’s documents also show that NBCUniversal programming creates "a further incentive towards” foreclosure against other online video distributor offerings, Dish said. Comcast didn’t comment.

A June 1 trial has been set for Game Show Network’s program carriage complaint against Cablevision, an order from FCC Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel said Tuesday. Testimony is expected to be completed by June 12, the order said.

Time Warner Cable expanded smart home offerings to its IntelligentHome customers. In a news release Wednesday, TWC said its menu now offers a connected door lock from Kwikset, smart light bulbs from LG and a General Electric ZigBee in-wall light switch. Citing the explosion of connected devices in the market, Adam Mayer, vice president-Time Warner Cable IntelligentHome, said the provider wants its smart home customers to be able to integrate “the devices they want the most.” The three new products are “just a sampling” of what’s possible in the smart home, he said. TWC customers can buy the products online from Best Buy. IntelligentHome is offered by package: Security -- touch screen, two door/window sensors and one motion or glass break sensor (or an additional door/window sensor) with one-time equipment charge of $99; Security & Energy -- all security package items plus one thermostat, $149; Security & Video View -- security package elements plus one indoor/outdoor camera, $149; and Security, Video View & Energy -- all security package elements plus one thermostat and one indoor/outdoor camera, $199. IntelligentHome service starts at $39 per month and requires TWC Internet service, it said. To connect the devices to a system, consumers follow pairing instructions included with the add-on devices to pair them wirelessly with the system, TWC said. A la carte add-ons include additional sensors, cameras and lights, said the cable operator, which has agreed to be bought by Comcast.

Reclassifying small- and medium-sized cable companies under Title II in the FCC’s draft net neutrality order (see 1502040055) will “cause significant harm” to the broadband providers, ACA President Matthew Polka wrote in a blog post Monday. The organization continued to ask the agency to exclude smaller providers from the order. Reclassification would “impose unwarranted and onerous burdens on smaller ISPs, increasing their costs of doing business, increasing their customers' cost of receiving service, and inhibiting their ability to finance and deploy broadband,” Polka wrote. The agency told us it “carefully considered the needs of small business,” and it’s “another good reason that we’re applying a light-touch, Title II approach.”

The FCC should scrutinize whether “claimed harms” of Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable are deal-specific, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen told Hillary Burchuk of the FCC’s transaction review team and Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aide Maria Kirby in a meeting Wednesday, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-57 Monday. The FCC should “rigorously” filter out non-transaction specific objections to the deal, “whatever their merits,” Comcast said. “The Commission should take into account the motives underlying opponents’ proposals and suggested conditions, because motives can inform credibility,” said Comcast. The FCC should not use a 25 Mbps download speed threshold “for purposes of analyzing the competitive effects of this Transaction,” said the cable ISP. The commission’s new definition of broadband is “not designed or intended to be a market definition but rather is a future-oriented and aspirational policy,” Comcast said.

U.S. law enforcement and national security agencies requested customer information from Comcast 11,124 times between July 1 and Dec. 31, Comcast said in a transparency report released Thursday. Of the requests, 530 were emergencies “involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person,” and 8,208 of them were subpoenas, the report said. "Before providing any information to the government, we make sure that the request is appropriately tailored and that our response accords with governing law,” Comcast said.

Cablevision‘s new Freewheel Wi-Fi-exclusive unlimited data phone service went on sale Thursday, Cablevision said in a news release. The service uses Motorola Moto G Smartphones that operate only while connected to Wi-Fi and are sold at Freewheel.com. Freewheel costs $29.95 a month or $9.95 for Cablevision’s Optimum Online customers, and doesn’t use a contract, the release said. “Freewheel will introduce additional features in the coming weeks and months that will underscore WiFi’s superiority over the legacy cellular model,” Cablevision said.

It's “hard to imagine” Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable getting regulatory approval in the current political climate, said BTIG in an email to investors Wednesday. Also that day, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler revealed some details of the draft net neutrality order set for a vote later this month (see 1502040055). Cable ISPs told us they worry about the effects a Title II Communications Act net neutrality regime will have on their broadband businesses (see 1502040054). “A populist groundswell in favor of net neutrality” has brought “a whole new level of scrutiny” to the deal that makes it unlikely regulators will consider it in a favorable light, BTIG said. “The odds are now in favor of the government formally opposing/blocking the Comcast Time Warner Cable transaction -- we put approval odds now at 30 percent, at best,” BTIG said. Predictions that the deal would be approved were partly based on widespread belief that regulators would look at competition in the broadband market at the local level, where the two cable companies don’t compete, the stock analysis firm said. The current political climate makes it more likely that the deal will be looked at in terms of competition on the national level, BTIG said. Comcast’s own filings say that in “63 percent of their footprint post-Time Warner Cable, they were the only consumer choice for 25 Mbps broadband (we suspect even higher now),” BTIG said. “How can the government approve Comcast and Time Warner Cable?” Comcast declined to comment.

The FCC should extend an exemption for some small cable systems from rules requiring carriage of must-carry TV stations in digital HD, the American Cable Association said in a petition filed Friday. The extension is important for small cable companies that don’t have the capacity or resources to upgrade their systems to handle carrying the must-carry stations in HD, said ACA President Matthew Polka in a news release. The current exemption is to expire in June, but ACA wants the commission to extend it for three more years. The exemption, which applies only to cable systems with less than 553 MHz of channel capacity or that have no more than 2,500 subscribers and aren’t tied to a larger multichannel video programming distributor, has been extended twice before. “The harms that would result from requiring these very small cable systems to carry must-carry HD broadcast signals in HD remain as significant today as they were in 2008 and 2012,” ACA said.