Large and mid-sized cable operators and their associations are concerned about the Communications Act Title II broadband reclassification that President Barack Obama sought Monday (see 1411100035), they continued to say in written statements and blog posts. Forbearing from Title II regulations, as that approach would entail, "is Easier Said than Done," said the headline of an NCTA blog post Wednesday. It cited "the history of forbearance petitions." Executive Vice President David Cohen headlined his blog post Tuesday "Surprise!" which he said some would be that Comcast agrees with Obama's principles on net neutrality. "There is one important technical legal difference of opinion between the President and Comcast: we do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II," wrote Cohen. "Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act provides more than ample authority to impose those rules." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's January ruling against FCC net neutrality rules "made clear" that distinction, he said. Time Warner Cable "remains committed to an open Internet, but we disagree with the President’s statement that an open Internet can only be achieved by reclassifying broadband as a public utility," said CEO Rob Marcus in a Monday news release. Comcast has agreed to buy TWC, and some analysts and industry lawyers have speculated that the deal may be less likely to be completed if the FCC takes a Title II approach. Like Obama, Suddenlink backs an open Internet, said CEO Jerry Kent in an emailed statement. "Unfortunately, the President has proposed a 'solution' in search of a problem. There is no blocking of legal content by ISP’s and no paid prioritization with respect to broadband Internet access." Obama's "call for the FCC to impose heavy-handed government regulation under Title II on Internet service providers, like Mediacom, is politically motivated and ill-conceived," said CEO Rocco Commisso Wednesday. Smaller ISPs don't threaten the open Internet, and their subscribers "have long benefited from the government’s light touch in applying regulation to broadband," said American Cable Association CEO Matt Polka Monday. “Common carrier regulation of telephone service crafted in 1934 under President Franklin Roosevelt should not be applied to a thriving, bustling broadband Internet market in 2014 under President Barack Obama."

Comcast is “really sorry” about outages caused by “technical issues” during its upgrading of the X1 platform, the company said in a blog post Friday. Affected customers will receive credits within the next two weeks, Comcast said. The issue was caused by the software that updates the X1 platform, Comcast said. “Our engineers are now going back over this issue and taking extra steps to prevent it from happening again,” said the post. “The fix we’ve put in place should be automatic -- customers don’t need to do anything (such as rebooting or unplugging the box)."

The FCC should seek comment on “the full range” of possible consequences before modifying the definition of multichannel video programming distributor to include over-the-top video, NCTA said in an ex parte filing posted in docket 12-83 Friday. The commission should consider whether foreign OTT services would qualify, and the definition of “for purchase," NCTA said. Changing the rule wouldn’t give OTT services access to content since they wouldn’t qualify for the compulsory copyright licenses that the Copyright Act specifies go to cable systems, NCTA said. “There is no statutory license for 'MVPDs' generally. This hole cannot be filled by the Commission.”

Atlantic Broadband customers who receive any of the company’s TiVo bundles will get three months of free Netflix under a new deal between Atlantic and Netflix, the cable provider said in a news release Monday. “This promotion will be available to new, existing and returning Netflix customers who sign up with Atlantic Broadband through December 31.” Other free Netflix promotional periods will be offered by Atlantic in the future, as part of an ongoing partnership with Netflix, said the cable operator.

Lenovo completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google (see 1401310060) for $2.91 billion, including $660 million in cash, stock and a $1.5 billion three-year promissory note, the companies said Thursday. Lenovo will operate Motorola as a subsidiary that will stay headquartered in Chicago, it said. Google will continue to own most of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio, but Motorola Mobility under Lenovo’s ownership will control more than 2,000 "patent assets" and a "large number of patent cross-license agreements," plus the Motorola Mobility brand and trademarks, they said.

Comcast Xfinity customers can bring leased equipment such as set-top boxes to The UPS Store retail outlets to return to Comcast free of charge, the cable company said in a news release Thursday. “Equipment can be returned as-is, without wrapping or a box, and customers will receive a confirmation of receipt and tracking information from UPS.” Xfinity customers already were able to return equipment to Comcast’s 500 Xfinity Stores, and the deal adds 4,400 UPS stores as options. The collaboration is part of Comcast’s effort to improve customer service, said the cable operator. “Comcast is looking at every interaction it has with customers -- from the moment they order a new service, to the installation, to how issues are addressed -- in order to deliver an excellent experience and make customers’ lives easier.”

Comcast filed a proposed $50 million settlement in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia Tuesday in a bid to end an almost 11-year-long class-action lawsuit involving current and former subscribers in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery. The proposed settlement, agreed to by the plaintiffs, would include $16.67 million in cash and $33.33 million in services credits. Each current subscriber to video programming services other than solely basic cable would be eligible for a one-time $15 bill credit or up to $43.90 worth of Comcast services, such as a six pay-per-view movies or a two-month subscription to The Movie Channel. Comcast subscribers who don’t seek the $15 rebate or one of the offered services packages will automatically receive the free two-month subscription to The Movie Channel without needing to file a claim, Comcast said in the settlement papers. Former subscribers who file a claim will receive a one-time payment of $15 cash, Comcast said. If the U.S. District Court accepts the settlement, Comcast will be required to post notices in print media and on TV stations, and via a website. Plaintiffs sued Comcast in December 2003, claiming the cable company was overcharging subscribers because it had a monopoly in the Philadelphia-area cable market. More than 2 million current and former Comcast subscribers were part of an earlier plaintiff class seeking $875 million, but the pool narrowed after the Supreme Court overturned the larger class certification in March 2013 (see 1303280052). A Comcast spokeswoman said the company had no comment beyond the settlement filing.

Delaware and Japan have "about the same delivered peak broadband speed," NCTA said in a blog post Friday (http://bit.ly/12svdBB). If individual U.S. states are compared with other countries in average peak connection speed, 10 of the top 20 states and countries in the world are in the U.S., with Delaware the fastest at an average peak speed of 62.5 Mbps, said the association. Only Hong Kong, South Korea, Israel, Singapore and Romania beat Delaware’s speeds, NCTA said. Others in the top 20 include Virginia in eighth place, Washington, D.C., in ninth, and New Hampshire at 20th. Forty-nine of the 50 states and D.C. showed double-digit speed growth year over year, NCTA said.

Before expanding the definition of multichannel video programming distributors to include over-the-top video providers, the FCC should close the loophole in its program access rules that prevents their protections from being applied to the cable operators that buy content through the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), American Cable Association said in an ex parte filing posted online Thursday (http://bit.ly/ZQqsAf). “Fairness dictates” that before expanding the scope of the program access rules to new entities, the FCC should allow NCTC to fall under the rules as “Congress explicitly intended,” ACA said. The FCC has a two-year-old Further NPRM on the matter in which it tentatively concluded the definition of a buying group should be updated as ACA has requested, ACA said.

The FCC shouldn't grant a waiver of home networking output rules for cable operators that use TiVo set-top boxes, said standards body Digital Living Network Alliance (http://bit.ly/1wtQzt9) in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 97-80. TiVo had asked for the waiver in a petition (http://bit.ly/1vJGlFR), saying DLNA had taken too long to create a standard for home networking interfaces. TiVo’s equipment doesn’t conform to the goals or requirements of the rules and shouldn't receive a waiver, DLNA said. TiVo disagreed, saying that the commission should grant the waiver. “Consumers who lease TiVo products from their cable operators already enjoy the benefits of home networking that the rule seeks to enable,” TiVo said. “Under these circumstances, strict compliance with the rule would serve no public interest benefit.” Rather than granting the waiver, the FCC should rule that the home networking requirement was invalidated by the EchoStar decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, NCTA said. “The market has been providing far more investment, innovation and consumer choice in technological approaches to sharing programming than a government technology mandate can.” If a waiver is granted, it should be industrywide rather than specific to TiVo, NCTA said.