Comcast is boosting the speeds for a variety of its broadband tiers by anywhere from 25 Mbps to 200 Mbps starting this week, it said Monday.
About 93% of U.S. households will have a broadband subscription by the end of 2025, either fixed or mobile, as the market enters a “time of renewed competition and innovation,” Parks Associates said Tuesday. Adoption of the original broadband bundle, with pay-TV and voice services, is declining, but “new value-added services are providing new opportunities for increasing customer satisfaction and growing revenue,” said analyst Kristen Hanich. Optimized Wi-Fi and gateway-based cybersecurity are becoming increasingly popular in the residential market, and bulk internet and managed Wi-Fi deployments in the multi-dwelling unit space are making broadband a “competitive, but potentially lucrative, market,” Hanich said. Parks plans the virtual Connections connected home conference Thursday at noon EST.
Cable One and Stephens Capital Partners, which together own a majority of Wisper, are seeking FCC OK to sell their holdings to Wisper founder Nathan Stooke, who has a minority interest. In a Section 214 transfer application posted Monday, Cable One and Stephens said some financing for the purchase of their holdings would also go to Wisper to allow it to accelerate buildout to its Connect America Fund and Rural Digital Opportunity Fund locations. Wisper provided fixed wireless and fiber-based broadband and voice services in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.
The Q2 2022 inflation adjustment figure for cable operators using Form 1240 is 9%, said the FCC Media Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics Tuesday. In the year-ago quarter, it was 6.07%.
The FCC's cable operations and licensing system (COALS) won't accept filings between 5 p.m. Oct. 11 and 8 a.m. Oct. 18 as the agency moves to an updated version, the Media Bureau said Tuesday. The updated version, here, should bring more security, reliability and performance, the bureau said. It also makes cable antenna relay service filings completely online and will host cable equal employment opportunity annual filings, it said. Draft filings stored in the current COALS version and filings with unpaid fees won't be processed or migrated to the new system, it said. Filings to transfer community units that haven't been accepted by the recipient will also be canceled, it said. Legacy COALS ID logins will be canceled with the transition, it said. A webinar here and on the agency's YouTube channel at 1 p.m. EDT Oct. 26 will give more information on the features, capabilities and login of the updated COALS, it said.
ACA Connects is backing NCTA's request that the FCC delete the fair market value language from its in-kind contribution rules to align with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on the agency's cable local franchise authority order (see 2205100051). In a docket 05-311 filing Tuesday, ACA said arguments that the agency instead begin a rulemaking to revisit that language haven't shown why that approach is necessary, nor have they challenged NCTA's position that the agency can make the change ministerially.
A combination of factors drove set-top box shipments to another decline in 2021, including the migration to streaming, market saturation, consumer cost-cutting measures and supply chain constraints, reported ABI Research Thursday. ”Subdued demand” will cause continued market “contraction,” with annual shipments declining to 195.2 million units globally in 2025 from 203.1 million in 2022, it said. ABI projects that shipments thereafter will “level off” at around 194 million set-tops between 2025 and 2028. “Vendors must adapt to remain competitive in a contracting market,” said ABI. “To counter the competition from streaming, particularly in mature markets, vendors should look to develop more hybrid set-top boxes that integrate streaming services.”
Some Comcast claims about its Xfinity Wi-Fi service being faster than AT&T's Wi-Fi are supported, but others should be modified or dropped, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division said Wednesday. AT&T challenged Comcast's comparative internet and Wi-Fi ad claims. NAD said Comcast agreed to make the recommended changes.
Shipping of self-installation equipment to cable customers was up 200% in 2021 over 2020, WideOpenWest said Monday in its inaugural annual sustainability report. It said it expects self-installation trends to grow. It said it decreased its real estate footprint by 59% in 2021, in part due to its move to a hybrid work environment. It said 98% of customers have access to 1 Gbps data service.
Agriculture, healthcare, education and entertainment will all get major changes in a 10G future, NCTA blogged Tuesday. Citing an analysis by Future Today Institute in partnership with the cable industry group, NCTA said cable's high-speed and high-capacity data networks, when delivering 10G, will enable smart farming using sensors and nanotechnology for real-time monitoring and autonomous harvesting of produce, plus widespread use of wearables and smart-home sensors to capture health data, along with many medical appointments happening virtually. It said 10G will also allow immersive, remote educational and entertainment experiences and artificial intelligence-driven lessons.