Charter Communications and Comcast representatives met with officials from the FCC’s Comcast/Time Warner Cable task force last week to discuss the commission’s information requests, said Charter (http://bit.ly/WmqrSm) and Comcast (http://bit.ly/1wbNxbn) in ex parte filings posted Friday in docket 14-57. Comcast officials said “the NBCUniversal transaction conditions are generally applicable other than those that have expired” or apply only to NBCU properties. Comcast officials also asked for “information concerning the standards and process” the FCC would use for “any exceptions made to the ex parte rules for this proceeding,” it said. In Charter’s meetings, the company and FCC staff discussed Charter’s internal databases and how data is tracked in them, said that firm.

The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on TiVo’s request for a waiver of the agency’s home networking digital interface requirement for cable operators that use the company’s set-top boxes, said a public notice issued Friday (http://bit.ly/1rfY1lG). TiVo filed a petition for the waiver, in docket 97-80, saying its set-tops already meet the intent of the home networking requirement “by allowing consumers to send video content throughout their homes” and had that ability before there was an industry standard for such technology, the PN said. TiVo also asked the FCC to clarify that the requirement hadn’t been stripped away by the EchoStar decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Comments on TiVo’s request are due in docket 14-146 Oct. 6 and replies, Oct. 20, the PN said.

The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) asked the California Public Utilities Commission to grant the group party status in its ongoing review of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal. CETF said in a filing posted Wednesday that it has expertise in programs meant to close the state’s “digital divide” and can provide information on the public benefit of Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, which has come under scrutiny during merger reviews elsewhere (http://bit.ly/1AbwAy5).

Comcast officials met with members of the FCC Media Bureau and the agency task force overseeing its proposed buy of Time Warner Cable Friday, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday to docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1lD27ro). It said Comcast “sought clarification and guidance” on the FCC’s recent information requests on the deal (CD Aug 26 p1) and “requested modification of certain questions” to allow for a timely response.

The company that will be spun off from Comcast if its purchase of Time Warner Cable and divestiture deal with Charter Communications are successful will be called GreatLand Connections, Charter and Comcast said in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/YbGRic). The spinoff has been referred to as SpinCo or Midwest Cable in FCC filings on the deal. “The name GreatLand Connections pays homage to the rich history and striking geographies of the diverse communities in which the company will operate,” said the prospective company’s CEO, Michael Willner. GreatLand Connections will be an independent, publicly traded company made up of former Comcast systems with about 2.5 million customers in the Midwest and southeast U.S., the release said: “At its inception, it is expected to be the fifth largest cable company in the United States."

Reclassifying the Internet as a common carrier would be “a disaster,” said NCTA in a blog post Wednesday (http://bit.ly/YcfLrk). The association has begun a print and digital ad campaign (including in Communications Daily) “to show how laws that were originally written for telephone lines in 1934 are totally ill equipped to handle modern broadband networks in 2014,” said NCTA. The ads direct readers to NCTA’s Title II page (http://bit.ly/1uneg4o), headlined “Net Disaster, not Net Neutrality.” Title II would turn the Internet into “a slogging, permission-based government utility,” NCTA said. “Title II reclassification would allow for the very things Title II advocates are most afraid of."

TDS Telecom bought “substantially all of the assets” of Bend, Oregon, cable provider BendBroadband for $261 million, TDS said Tuesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1tXTcCk). TDS Telecom is a subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems, it said. BendBroadband reported annual revenue of $70 million in 2013, and the deal will add 300 employees to TDS, said the buyer, which had previously announced the deal and just completed the transaction.

Charter Communications officials met with members of the FCC task force overseeing Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable Wednesday, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday to docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1trkMsT). It said Charter officials discussed the FCC’s recent requests for information on the deal to Charter, which is getting some systems that Comcast/TWC are divesting (CD Aug 26 p1), and the Department of Justice’s investigation of the transaction. Charter “sought clarification and guidance on the scope of the FCC’s questions,” it said. Charter also submitted a copy of its organizational chart to the FCC as part of its response to the information request. The chart was kept confidential under a joint protection order.

The FCC should grant cable operators that use TiVo set-top boxes a waiver of the requirement that they must include “an industry-standard, interactive, and recordable home networking interface,” the company said in a waiver petition (http://bit.ly/1vJGlFR) posted Tuesday in docket 97-80. TiVo had successfully sought an extension for the deadline for set-tops to fulfill that requirement because the Digital Living Network Alliance had not released industry standards for the boxes on time (CD April 7 p16). “TiVo could not anticipate the precise outcomes of the DLNA process or the timing and content of published specifications, and had to develop its own home networking solution in order to maintain its role in providing innovative solutions to retail consumers,” TiVo’s petition said. If TiVo has to change its technology to fit the DLNA standard, it could “hinder TiVo’s ability to compete on both a retail and a wholesale level,” the company said. If the FCC takes the position that the home networking requirement was invalidated by the EchoStar decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, TiVo said, its petition would be moot.

Time Warner Cable officials discussed the company’s responses to a recent FCC request for information (CD Aug 26 p1) and to the Department of Justice’s investigation into its planned buy by Comcast, with the FCC task force overseeing the deal. That came in a meeting Tuesday, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1lAbcBw). “We provided an update on the status of TWC’s production of documents to the Department of Justice in connection with its ongoing investigation of the Comcast-TWC transaction.” TWC also “sought guidance from Commission staff regarding potential limits on the scope of TWC’s responses to the commission’s requests,” the filing said.