The Open Internet Consortium's planned purchase of UPnP Forum means UPnP "will be maintained and supported for as long as cable requires," CableLabs principal IoT architect Clarke Stevens said in a blog post Wednesday about the significance of the acquisition to the cable industry. OIC will put together a UPnP Working Group for maintenance of UPnP specifications and certification, which helps as some cable products require UPnP certification, CableLabs said. Much of UPnP Forum's work involved IoT matters in recent years, and the online OneIoTa tool it developed under CableLabs guidance for developing and adopting device definitions also will be available to OIC members, CableLabs said. CableLabs said it was "a major contributor" to both UPnP and OIC standards development, and the combination will turn OIC "into a system that enables cable operators to offer a coherent and simplified Internet of Things service to cable customers."

Comcast urged customers to use home automation features to protect their homes this holiday season. In a blog post, Comcast said more than 70 percent of Americans plan to travel this holiday season. To keep the home secure, it suggested turning lights on and off remotely or to set a lighting schedule using smart home devices. Comcast cited Lutron products that can also manage window shades controllable from an app. “This way, the house looks occupied when you’re away, and you don’t have to worry about remembering to switch off the holiday lights, which can save money on electricity bills,” it said. Surveillance cameras monitor a home inside and out, which can be useful for watching for package deliveries or to see if a puppy is drinking tree water, it said. Homeowners can watch security video from a laptop, tablet or smartphone, it said. Comcast suggested 24/7 professional monitoring on a secure network with cellular and battery backup. It also encouraged smart home customers to set rules via “if this, then that” actions so appliances, electronics and other devices work in harmony. An option with Xfinity Home customers: Get a text if the front door doesn’t open between certain hours when the dog walker is supposed to visit or get a text when a package is delivered to alert a neighbor for pickup.

NCTA will distort facts and “say almost anything” to prevent competition to leased set-top boxes, TiVo said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in FCC docket 15-64 responding to a recent NCTA filing (see 1512020050) that argued that the company was trying to manipulate the agency to create more targets for patent litigation. TiVo has “initiated” only four patent lawsuits, the company said. “Contrary to NCTA’s assertion, the majority of TiVo’s revenues come from services provided to MVPDs and retail customers." With consolidation of multichannel video programming distributors on the rise, “giving consumers a choice of user interface to access their pay TV programming” is increasingly important, TiVo said. Increasing set-top competition would benefit MVPDs by increasing “pay TV subscriber satisfaction” and making cord cutting less attractive, TiVo said. “Nonetheless, NCTA has chosen to oppose any meaningful consumer choice by suggesting that TiVo, which has approximately one percent of the set-top box market share, is trying to use patent litigation to harm device competition.” NCTA didn’t comment.

The FCC should minimize the burdens of any online public filing requirement that would apply to cable carriers, because of “the large number of cable systems and the numerous documents that must be retained in local public files,” NCTA told Media Bureau staff in a meeting Wednesday, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-127. The database should be designed so a single upload can populate multiple files, and any new system should enable cable operators to link to existing company electronic databases, NCTA said. “Any new rules should provide an appropriate transition period to avoid unduly taxing company resources.”

Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia are significantly more "attached" to the Internet than the nation as a whole, judging by response to NCTA's Onward Internet survey, wrote NCTA Senior Director-Digital Strategy John Solit on the group's blog. Roughly 23 percent of survey takers from the region indicated they would have "serious trouble" unplugging -- that response perhaps pointing to Washington's being tied to the news cycle or the high educational attainment levels of area residents, NCTA said. Onward Internet was launched in 2014 and relaunched earlier this fall, and focuses on a nine-question online survey about the Internet and Internet use (see 1511190040).

The Consumer Video Choice Coalition-backed downloadable security proposal doesn’t require a “second box” along with a set-top box, despite what pay-TV carriers have said, Public Knowledge told FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aide Gigi Sohn, and Media Bureau staff in a meeting Wednesday, according to an ex parte filing in docket 15-64. Depending on how multichannel video programming distributors “choose to implement support, customers could require no consumer premises equipment beyond a smart television or a cable modem, which is already required for broadband,” PK said. Pay-TV carriers are also incorrect in portraying the proposal as a “technology mandate,” PK said. “Since the competitive navigation proposal does not mandate any form of common reliance, MVPDs would have to change nothing about their proprietary set-top boxes and nothing would change for consumers who are not interested in purchasing competitive devices.” Third-party devices wouldn’t endanger MVPD licensing agreements, PK said. “Under the competitive navigation proposal, MVPDs would remain as free as ever to design boxes and interfaces however they like and to enter into whatever content agreements seem appropriate.”

Neither TWC SportsNet nor SportsNet LA -- both owned by Time Warner Cable -- is likely to get significantly higher equilibrium affiliate fees if Charter Communications' buy of Bright House Networks and TWC goes through, Charter said in an FCC filing posted Friday in docket 15-149. The bulk of the filing was an analysis by economists of programming foreclosure issues for the regional sports networks owned by TWC. Also unlikely would be permanent foreclosure of TWC SportsNet, which is carried by numerous multichannel video programming distributors in the Los Angeles area and some outside of it, Charter said. New Charter would profit less by refusing to supply TWC SportsNet to a rival MVPD than it would make from affiliate fees, Charter said. And while the Charter deals could result in higher equilibrium affiliate fees, it said, consumers on balance would be better off because of transaction-specific efficiencies elsewhere. Only Charter, BHN and TWC carry SportsNet LA, so analyzing temporary foreclosure issues is problematic, the analysis said, saying there's no evidence a deal would lead to foreclosure or a significant hike in affiliate fees charged for SportsNet LA.

Small and mid-sized video providers likely will jump onboard Amazon's rumored plans to offer third-party video services as part of its Amazon Prime Instant Video offering, because they're the ones facing the biggest travails in setting up their own distribution networks, wrote The Diffusion Group Senior Adviser Joel Espelien in a blog Wednesday. Being an add-on to Instant Video wouldn't be enticing to a major multichannel network since Amazon solely would be in charge of the app's home screen and such related issues as placement of third-party content and user experience, TDG said. The provider also would cede to Amazon the consumer billing relationship and control of consumer usage data from the app, it said. "It is difficult to imagine a large video provider (i.e. HBO, Hulu) getting very excited about Amazon’s offer. These providers have their own brands and their own user bases, and are understandably going to be pretty reluctant to hand over the keys to the kingdom to Amazon," TDG said, saying for small and mid-sized streaming video on demand providers, the chief difficulty is in building a customer base. "For these providers, a large ecosystem platform like Amazon (or Apple or Google or Microsoft) is very tempting indeed." Amazon didn't comment Thursday.

The Justice Department closed its review of Arris' buy of Pace without imposing any antitrust conditions, Arris said in a news release Tuesday. The takeover still is going through merger control regulatory review in Brazil, though it received needed clearances in Colombia, Germany, Portugal and South Africa, Arris said. The set-top box company cited regulatory review issues -- particularly DOJ concerns -- when it said in October that the $2.1 billion deal likely would happen in early 2016 instead of Q4 (see 1510190008).

From the harm it could bring to the online video distribution (OVD) market to "the suffocating duopoly" it would create in the nation's broadband market, with New Charter and Comcast controlling too much of the residential broadband marketplace, Charter Communications' buying of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable can't be allowed to go through, Dish Network said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday on a meeting between Dish CEO Charlie Ergen and top company executives and a variety of FCC staff, including Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. At the meeting, according to the filing in docket 15-149, Dish repeated its major talking points in opposing the merger. Not even the open Internet rules would be adequate to restrain New Charter, especially since adjudicating disputes takes time and new OVDs "are fragile as they try to grow into maturity," Dish said. Dish also said behavioral conditions would be inadequate as OVD protection since "OVD sabotage can be achieved in many opaque and subtle ways." In a statement Wednesday, Charter said, “With minimum broadband speeds of 60 Mbps and no data caps, no usage-based billing, no contracts and settlement-free interconnection, Charter is an industry leader in how to treat broadband consumers and online video distributors like Netflix. Claims that New Charter and Comcast would create a duopoly are baseless; New Charter would serve only 23 percent of broadband subscribers -- a smaller percentage than Comcast serves today and less than half of the percentage Comcast/TWC would have served, and the companies have different strategies on issues including data caps, usage-based billing, contracts, interconnection and customer equipment.” Dish has been a constant opponent of Charter/TWC/BHN (see 1511300049).