Reference design kit (RDK) and games are among NCTA Cable Show categories where interest appears to be growing among exhibitors, said the Technology Policy Institute blog Monday (http://bit.ly/QRvzf9). Twenty exhibitors at this week’s show in Los Angeles claim RDK as a service, said TPI Vice President Scott Wallsten and Research Associate Corwin Rhyan. “Games and consultants showed a strong increase in representation as well,” said the economics think-tank. Cable programming, VOD, IPTV and multiscreen content ranked numbers one to four among most popular this year, said TPI. “The number of exhibitors continues to fall as it has in each of the past 4 years, from 345 in 2010 to 241 in 2014.” RDK, part of a joint venture of Comcast, Liberty Global and Time Warner Cable, is an operating-like system for cable operators.

Netflix reached a deal with three cable companies to offer its content through TiVo set-top boxes, said some of those operators in news releases Friday. RCN, Atlantic Broadband and Grande Communications are the operators involved in the deal. Customers of the three cable companies who are also Netflix subscribers will be able to access the service. “The partnership eliminates the complexity of multiple boxes, remote controls, input ports and cables,” said RCN. “Customers can use their TiVo DVR to easily search, browse and binge on a rich selection of commercial-free TV shows and movies that Netflix offers.” The cable companies are the first U.S. cable providers to offer Netflix on their set-top boxes, said RCN. It said the service is expected to begin this week, and involves no additional charges beyond TiVo subscription fees.

Netflix opposes the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal not out of support for net neutrality, but to shift interconnection costs to all Internet consumers, said Comcast in a post on its corporate blog (http://bit.ly/1jybPoY). “Netflix should be transparent that its opinion is not about protecting the consumer,” said Comcast, in response to a letter sent by Netflix to Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., about the deal (http://1.usa.gov/1lK0pEy). “The fact that Netflix paid to protect our consumers is evidence of Comcast’s power,” said Netflix. “Acquiring Time Warner Cable will only increase this leverage.” Comcast’s paid-peering deal with Netflix (CD Feb 25 p2) is “nothing unprecedented,” the cable company said. Netflix approached Comcast to set up the deal, cutting out the wholesaler transit companies -- such as Akamai, Cogent, and Level 3 -- it had used in the past, Comcast said. “This arrangement was thus about Netflix exercising its market power to extract a more favorable arrangement directly from Comcast,” said the cable company. Netflix said this wasn’t the case in its letter to Franken. “Netflix agreed to paid peering with Comcast to reverse an unacceptable decline in our members’ video experience,” said the letter. “Our agreement with Comcast is the first time that Netflix was forced to pay an ISP for what amounts to access to their subscribers.” If Netflix doesn’t like the arrangement, Netflix could work with a transit company instead, Comcast said. “Netflix can work with any of the multiplicity of partners that connect with Comcast. There was and is no need for Netflix or any other Internet content provider to work directly with us or any other specific ISP.” Netflix argued that, regardless, the pathways provided by transit companies are still ultimately controlled by Comcast. “Every transit provider must ultimately negotiate with Comcast for a connection to Comcast’s network and Comcast controls the terms of that access,” Netflix said. Using that argument in opposition to the Comcast/TWC deal is “unfounded,” Comcast said, because it applies to the industry as a whole. “Netflix’s arguments are not transaction specific,” Comcast said.

One America News Network will be carried nationwide on AT&T’s U-verse TV in a so-called cable news neighborhood in standard definition, and elsewhere on the telco’s video lineup in HD, said the channel’s owner Herring Networks in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1fbeQyq). The network will add 5 million subscribers with the carriage, said Herring. It lost previous FCC challenges to get its cable network -- now called A Wealth of Entertainment -- on major cable operators, and that channel now is in 17 million homes, and 11 million for One America, Herring President Charles Herring told us by email.

Charter Communications began providing International Media Distribution’s TV Japan in standard and high definition for $14.99 monthly on the operator’s cable systems in eight states, said the programmer in a news release Tuesday.

Time Warner Cable video subscribers will have access to Fan TV in Q2. Fan TV allows viewers to access TWC content with on-demand streaming services, allowing all choices to be seen on one screen, the companies said in a news release Tuesday. The first wave of streaming services available on Fan TV will include Redbox Instant by Verizon, Crackle, Target Ticket and the Rhapsody music streaming service, they said. More streaming services will be added over time, they said.

Seventy-six percent of cable, wireless and wireline providers are “planning or actively transitioning” to IPv6, according to a global survey (http://bit.ly/1flSZyX) by Incognito Software released Tuesday. Seventy-two companies replied to the survey, but only 51 were considered “acceptable candidates,” said the report. Thirty-one percent of the respondents were from North America, 14 percent were from South America, 12 percent were from the Asia Pacific, and 43 percent were from Europe, Africa and the Middle East, it said. Thirty-three percent of the operators had more than 1 million subscribers, it said. Eighty-three percent of respondents said they were transitioning to IPv6 because they are “running out of IPv4 resources,” it said. Half of respondents said that customer premises equipment upgrades were a “'large’ hurdle” to IPv6 adoption, it said. Thirty-four percent of respondents in the process of adopting IPv6 expect to complete their transition within the year, it said.

The number of RDK licensees rose 40 percent to 140, in the year since the last Cable Show, said the licensor of technology for cable systems and makers of consumer electronics supplying operators. Most technology development for an operating-like system and software package has been for set-top boxes and gateway devices, and this and next year more operators in Europe and North America are expected to have actual deployments, said the joint venture of Comcast, Liberty Global and Time Warner Cable in a news release Tuesday. “To support deployments in Europe and other parts of the world, the RDK code stack currently includes some of the initial, underlying elements needed to support DVB.” RDK has been used by operators to improve their products as they seek to better compete with high-tech and Internet companies (CD March 3 p4).

Netflix opposes the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger because it fears the Internet “faces a long term threat from the largest ISPs driving up profits for themselves and costs for everyone else,” said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Chief Financial Officer David Wells in a Q1 letter to shareholders Monday (http://bit.ly/RG48Ww). If the merger is approved, “the combined company’s footprint will pass over 60 percent of U.S. broadband households, after the proposed divestiture, with most of those homes having Comcast as the only option for truly high-speed broadband,” meaning speeds exceeding 10 Mbps, the letter said. “As DSL fades in favor of cable Internet, Comcast could control high-speed broadband to the majority of American homes. Comcast is already dominant enough to be able to capture unprecedented fees from transit providers and services such as Netflix. The combined company would possess even more anticompetitive leverage to charge arbitrary interconnection tolls for access to their customers. For this reason, Netflix opposes this merger."

The FCC should extend the deadline for comments on its rulemaking proposing eliminating the network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules, NAB said in a motion for extension of time filed Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ix8NTR). NAB wants the comment deadline, currently May 12, extended by 45 days to June 26, with the reply comment deadline moved to July 24. NAB “anticipates that it will need to retain expert economists or other analysts” to “conduct necessary research and analysis” to comment on the proceeding, necessitating the extra time, it said.