Cox Communications and Warmington Residential said they held a smart home event in Rancho Mission Viejo, California, Wednesday to showcase gigabit internet speed and the products and activities it enables. Future homes will have an increasing number of Wi-Fi-enabled devices, and “it will become imperative for everyone in the household to experience the same level of connectivity,” said Sam Attisha, Cox region manager-California, in a news release. Cox's residential gigabit internet service is 100 times faster than the average speeds offered in the U.S., said the provider. Today's average household connects six devices to the internet, expected to increase to 50 devices by the year 2022, Cox said. The event highlighted next-generation technologies including virtual reality and telehealth. The model home will be open to the public Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT, it said.

The increased convergence of wireless and wireline networks -- due to the wireline backhaul needed to support the numerous 5G wireless cell sites and the increased access of wireline networks by wireless devices -- will give the cable industry a particularly big advantage in wireless due to its wired infrastructure, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett emailed investors Wednesday: "Cable wins in wireless just as it has won in wired broadband." Cable networks already are in essence wired backhaul layers "with a wireless short-hop access layer," Moffett said, pointing to consumer use of wireless tech. "He who has the best wired network (i.e. the cable operators) will ultimately win in wireless," since it will be cheaper for cable operators to add a wireless access layer atop their existing wireline infrastructure than for wireless operators to do the reverse, Moffett said. Pointing to Comcast's plans for a wireless service rollout next year (see 1609200042), Moffett said the operator exercising its Verizon mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement will likely be "just the first piece of Comcast's entry into the wireless business." The cable company will put as much traffic as it can over its own W-Fi network and likely buy spectrum in the current broadcast incentive auction and ultimate have a hybrid network that uses Verizon as fill-in, he said, saying Comcast likely will try to buy a national 20 MHz-wide block for as much as $9 billion. The company also likely will sell some spectrum in Telemundo/NBC duopoly markets, he said. Charter Communications -- which also has activated its Verizon MVNO -- might also enter a joint venture with Comcast to jointly build out the 600 MHz spectrum layer, with each adding its wire networks to provide the capacity layer in-region, Moffett said.

The number of lawsuits filed in federal courts about cable and satellite TV payments in FY 2016 is expected to be down 42 percent from FY 2016 and down 56.2 percent from FY 2011, said a report Wednesday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. TRAC said the first 11 months of FY 2016 saw 613 such suits, putting the year on pace for 669 suits. There were 1,158 a year earlier and 1,526 five years earlier, said TRAC, which is run out of Syracuse University. The suits usually involve restaurant and bar owners allegedly pirating signals by showing pay-per-view programs in their establishments without paying the commercial rate, said the clearinghouse. The amount of such litigation grew sizably in FY 2010 and 2011 and plateaued for a time before dropping notably in FY 2016, TRAC said. It said much of the litigation comes out of U.S. District Court in Houston, which had 101 of the 613 suits. That court also ranked first with the highest rate of filings, followed by U.S. District Court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, TRAC said.

Without issuing an opinion, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judges Pauline Newman, Timothy Dyk and Richard Taranto affirmed a U.S. District Court ruling in a patent fight between Broadband iTV and Hawaiian Telecom, Oceanic Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Cable, said a judgment (in Pacer) issued Monday. BBiTV was appealing the Honolulu court's 2015 ruling on its patent violation litigation (see 1609260010). BBiTV didn't comment Wednesday. Charter Communications now owns TWC.

The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable (MDTC) still has the power to regulate basic cable service rates in Falmouth, the FCC Media Bureau said in an order Wednesday, dismissing as moot the town's petition for the bureau to reconsider a determination that Comcast is subject to effective competition in some communities, including there. Citing a joint motion by Falmouth and Comcast requesting it remove the town from its list of communities where the operator is subject to effective competition, the bureau said MDTC has shown the effective competition presumption doesn't apply to the town.

The Fox Sports Go streaming service is now available via Chromecast and Xbox One, Fox Sports said in a news release Tuesday. It said Chromecast and Xbox One customers who get Fox or one of its sports networks as part of their pay-TV subscriptions can access Fox Sports’ programming through the streaming service, including extensive live programming and Fox Sports 1 shows.

Eighty percent of people surveyed are somewhat or very satisfied with their wireline home Internet connections' reliability, NCTA said in a blog post Tuesday, citing an NCTA-sponsored survey done by Morning Consult, the results of which the trade group announced last month. "While that 80 percent number is great, we’re not resting," NCTA said, pointing to broadband speeds domestically vs. those in other nations.

Nielsen's Digital Content Ratings (DCR) service -- giving a daily measurement of viewing audiences across digital content types, with metrics comparable to TV -- will be available for clients starting Friday, the company said in a news release Tuesday. Nielsen said DCR "marks progress toward industry adoption of consistent and comprehensive measurement in digital." The company said DCR is based on complementary methodology to its Digital Ad Ratings. Mike Wann, head-business development and strategy at Nielsen client TasteMade, said it has "been a challenge to get a full view of your audience across every screen and distributor. We have been enthusiastic working with Nielsen Digital Content Ratings to begin truly unlocking the value of our community wherever they are."

Since Comcast's appeal of an August order denying its motion to compel arbitration is without merit, that also makes its motion to stay the underlying Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint while that appeal is underway without merit, plaintiff Malik Brown said in a memorandum (in Pacer) filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. "Comcast has no chance on appeal and yet its brief skirts the issue entirely," said Brown, who's suing the company for repeated debt collection calls when he was never a Comcast customer (see 1608220037). Pointing to the multifactor test for granting a stay set up in Supreme Court's 1987 Hilton v. Braunskill decision, Brown said Comcast doesn't make any showing about its likelihood to succeed in its appeal, and it doesn't present any serious legal question that would favor a stay. In its August motion (in Pacer) for a stay, Comcast said its appeal raises two substantial questions about the arbitrability of the claims -- whether an arbitration agreement in a cable service's terms and conditions is binding on a resident of an address who uses the service and whether Federal Arbitration Act Section 4 required a trial to determine whether Brown agreed to arbitrate his claims.

A+E Networks channels will be included in AT&T's DirecTV Now streaming service when it debuts in Q4, A+E said in a news release Monday. The network said the DirecTV Now lineup will include A&E, Lifetime, History, LMN, FYI and Viceland channels.