Broadband speeds will continue to ramp up in coming years and consumer price per megabit will continue to drop, NCTA blogged Thursday. It said online traffic is expected to quadruple over the next four years, with 4.6 billion global Internet users and the number of connected devices outnumbering people three to one. It said numerous cable ISPs are pursuing gigabit projects now, continuing a decades-old industry trend that has seen top speeds grow 700 percent over the past five years.
Charter Communications and Missouri settled the state's 2015 telemarketing sales rule lawsuit, said an order (in Pacer) denying all pending motions posted Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Ronnie White of St. Louis. The suit claimed Charter and third-party telemarketing firms regularly called Missouri residents even after being told to quit calling (see 1612200011). Charter and the state didn't comment Thursday.
Being bought by Liberty Interactive will put General Communication Inc. on more stable financial footing, making it easier for GCI to raise the money needed to meet its Alaska Plan fixed broadband commitments, though it won't change the market realities GCI looks at when determining whether an investment is economically viable, the companies said in a docket 17-114 filing posted Wednesday. The filing included answers to a series of FCC staff questions on Liberty/GCI. They said the Liberty/GCI deal wouldn't let GCI make additional Alaska Plan commitments. On how the deal would affect mobile wireless customers, Liberty/GCI again cited expected better GCI financial stability and said that would let it participate more meaningfully in the Alaska Plan reverse auction. Liberty's $1.12 billion buy of GCI is expected to not face major regulatory challenges (see 1704040048).
A variety of Viacom channels began returning to legacy Suddenlink lineups Tuesday in markets including areas of Texas and Oklahoma, Suddenlink parent Altice told us Wednesday. It said channels will continue to launch throughout the Suddenlink footprint over the coming months. Suddenlink dropped Viacom channels in 2014 (see 1501140012), but Viacom and Altice in May announced a content distribution agreement that would see Viacom's return (see 1705250042).
Comcast Business expanded its DOCSIS 3.1-based data service to business customers across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic U.S., including the Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., areas, it said in a news release Tuesday. It said additional deployments would be done through the fall, adding to its existing DOCSIS 3.1 footprint in Atlanta, Chattanooga, Chicago, Detroit, Huntsville, Miami and Nashville.
CNN will cease and desist from failing to hire former Team Video Services employees at its Washington, D.C., and New York City bureaus because of their union-represented status at TVS or because of their union activities and membership, the National Labor Relations Board said in a proposed judgment (in Pacer) filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The proposed order also would have CNN notify the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians that it recognizes the union as the exclusive representative of the employees in the bargaining units recognized by TVS and that it will bargain with the union concerning those workers' work terms and conditions. The proposed judgment also lists more than 100 TVS unit employees from the D.C. and NYC bureaus who would be offered employment at their former positions or substantially equivalent positions within 14 days from the order, and more than 200 D.C. and NYC bureau employees who would be made whole with lost earnings and benefits. CNN outside counsel didn't comment Monday. The D.C. Circuit was split earlier this month on enforcing the NLRB action against CNN (see 1708040050).
Citing an AT&T cybersecurity report based on a survey of 5,000 global enterprises, CableLabs on Thursday blogged that 85 percent of enterprises have IoT device deployments in the works, but only 10 percent of those feel confident they could secure them in a cyberattack. On what the cable industry is doing to secure devices, Ron Ih, Kyrio Security Solutions director-business development, said the most important IoT security trend this year is the use of digital certificates and public key infrastructure to better secure the onboarding process when a device is authenticated and added to a network. Main challenges facing the IoT, Ih said, are that most device makers don’t have security experts and are “unprepared to manage security complexities.” Device makers deal with millions of devices per year, work with firmware and small footprint applications and the devices have limited computing power and storage, he said: Security can be limited to what’s deemed essential to reduce costs and delivery times.
Xfinity Mobile has been rolled out across all of Comcast's footprint, it said in a news release Thursday. The company said it doesn't anticipate soon offering the wireless service beyond that (see 1704270001).
Anticipating piracy of its pay-per-view broadcast of the Aug. 26 boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, Showtime is suing an array of John Doe defendants who allegedly operate livestreaming site LiveStreamHDQ and 41 affiliated websites that apparently plan to pirate the broadcast. In a lawsuit (in Pacer) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Showtime asked for a temporary restraining order and injunctions prohibiting the sites from making the fight available for streaming. Mayweathervsmcgregor.livestreamhdq.com on Thursday had a disclaimer that it existed for information purposes only and that it "will not stream any videos live here."
Layer3 TV CEO Jeff Binder met with Chairman Ajit Pai to talk about opportunities for and hurdles to new entrants in the market, the company said in a docket 17-105 ex parte filing posted Wednesday: There are "considerable costs and resources required to provide a competitive suite of channels to a wide range of subscribers, while" many cable network and broadcast partners are "supportive of Layer3 TV’s growth, expansion and reduction of costs."