WideOpenWest's wireless service partnership with Reach Mobile (see 2202220045) is now available to customers across WOW's entire footprint, said the company Thursday. Under the partnership, WOW broadband customers get a discount on the mobile service.

DOCSIS 4.0 field trials could start by year's end, said Asaf Matatyaou, vice president-solutions and product management in Harmonic's cable access business, in a Light Reading webinar Thursday. He said the DOCSIS specifications and technology are ready, but the actual upgrades of cable operators' plants to allow 10G service will be a multiyear effort. Teleste Intercept Director Steve Condra said the time frame for 10G rollout varies from operator to operator. Some in particularly competitive marketplaces with high-end users "need it now," while in others could go for years before there's a critical need, he said. He said operators need to start upgrading equipment now in preparation. DOCSIS 4.0 will play a big role in the 10G rollout, but 10G is a platform requiring multiple technologies and cable operators have to have a systemwide perspective on planning, said Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Chief Technology Officer Chris Bastian. Mike Whitley, ATX Networks vice president-access network products, said there should be lab and initial trials later this year and into 2023 of some DOCSIS components such as amplifiers, with more products coming to market in the next six to nine months.

States and localities hoping to protect their cable franchise fee revenue streams in a world increasingly switching to over-the-top streaming will face some big challenges, said government finance and communications regulation experts Monday in a NATOA webinar. The wave of litigation from localities seeking franchise fees from streaming services could prompt Congress to revisit legislative efforts to define digital goods and digital sales and create a uniform framework for how they're treated by taxing authorities, said Michael Belarmino, Government Finance Officers Association senior policy adviser. That could be to states' and localities' disadvantage if Congress reintroduces provisions of the Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act, which tried to prohibit multiple taxes on digital sales of goods. The bill was last reintroduced in 2019 (see 1903130071). "It's not a sustainable path" to count on traditional franchise fee statutes as a route to getting revenue from online services, said Public Knowledge Legal Director John Bergmayer, noting court efforts to pursue streaming services for franchise fees haven't borne much fruit. The underlying purpose of cable franchise law is about physical buildout and physical access, but streaming services don't touch a town the way cable operators do, he said. He said an effort is needed to put public interest requirements on ISPs. He said one upside of NCTA's challenge of Maine's public, educational and government (PEG) access channel carriage provisions is the U.S. District Court deciding and 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding that channel placement and PEG picture quality requirements are consumer protections. Some members of Congress have been struggling for years with how to promote localism by streaming offerings, Bergmayer said. Newspapers and local broadcasters have an inherent local quality and there are mechanisms like promotion of local ownership, he said. Those issues and levers aren't as clear with online content, he said. Bergmayer said a cable operator offering fiber to customers in part of a community and traditional cable to customers in another part is "not good enough" and could be evidence of redlining.

A jury trial is scheduled to start Aug. 1 on record labels' claims of Charter Communications' Bright House Networks not doing enough to combat music piracy by its broadband subscribers (see 2108120002), per a docket 8:19-cv-710 order Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Tampa.

Altice boosted the download speeds of its Affordable Connectivity Program broadband service from 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps, the cable ISP said Thursday. ACP-eligible homes can receive the 300 Mbps service at no cost after the program’s up to $30 monthly credit is applied, said Altice.

WideOpenWest's 1.2 Gbps broadband data tier is now available across its footprint, the cable ISP said Tuesday. The speed tier also offers 50 Mbps upload speeds, it said.

When a previous group of music labels sued Charter Communications in U.S. District Court in Denver, the court "mistakenly granted confidential treatment to too many documents [and this court] does not intend to make the same mistakes in this case," U.S. District Judge Brooke Jackson said Friday (docket 1:21-cv-02020). Jackson denied an unopposed Charter motion to restrict access to a pair of declarations and three exhibits but approved restricting access to one exhibit. Charter is fighting claims it played a contributory role in music piracy by its broadband subscribers (see 2108120002). "The Court does its business in the public eye unless there is good cause to restrict access, namely, a specific and convincing indication that public access to the document would likely cause undo [sic] harm to a party," Jackson said. "That the disputing parties agree to confidential treatment of much of what they file is not dispositive."

The FCC shouldn’t modify or replace the emergency action notification (EAN) code used for alerting in nationwide emergencies, said NCTA in an ex parte call with the Public Safety Bureau Tuesday, according to a filing Thursday in docket 15-94. “The EAN code is substantially different” from other emergency alert system codes “in that it is hard-wired into downstream equipment” such as set-top boxes, NCTA said. “Thus, any changes to the EAN code would be difficult to implement.” Modifying the code was among several proposals the FCC floated last year for updating emergency alerting (see 2110200065). Cable set-top boxes have about a 10-year lifecycle, and many customers may have even older boxes, NCTA said. “Older set-top boxes are frequently phased out via attrition, rather than actively replaced.”

Administrative Law Judge Cameron Elliot at the International Trade Commission set Oct. 2, 2023, as the target date for completing the Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations in a Broadband iTV April 22 complaint that set-top boxes from Comcast, Charter and Altice infringe four VOD and electronic program guide patents (see 2204280027), said an order he signed Tuesday in docket 337-TA-1315. Elliot’s order has five days of hearings scheduled to begin Feb. 6, and his initial determination in the case is to be ready by June 2.

U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven in Tampa rejected summary judgment motions by Bright House Networks and music labels suing it (see 2205180022), in a pair of docket 8:19-cv-710 orders last week. Scriven disagreed with the music labels, saying a variety of issues preclude summary judgment, including whether the digital files that Bright House broadband subscribers distributed are infringing copies of the plaintiffs' copyrighted works and whether Bright House had knowledge of alleged infringement. In denying Bright House's summary judgment motion, the judge said such factual disputes "preclude resolution on summary judgment," adding the case will go to trial for a jury to decide.