If not for the end of the affordable connectivity program, Charter Communications would have added broadband subscribers in Q3, CEO Chris Winfrey said Friday as it announced Q3 results. Comcast said the same about its Q3 broadband losses Thursday (see 2410310013). Charter said it lost 113,000 residential internet customers in the quarter. CFO Jessica Fischer said it retained the vast majority of subscribers who were previously receiving an ACP benefit. She said Q4 will likely see 100,000 internet subscriber disconnects for non-pay, as well as some voluntary disconnects, with ACP's end factoring in both. After Q4, the one-time impact from the end of the ACP program should be completed. Winfrey said Charter saw "significant" initial impact from hurricanes Milton and Helene due to power outages and downed poles and trees. He said all but roughly 10,000 customers have had their service restored. He said Charter is restoring service in the Asheville, North Carolina, area and pockets of Tampa Bay. Fischer said Charter anticipates 400,000 new subsidized rural passings in 2024 -- 35% more than in 2023, but lower than its original 2024 plan of 450,000 as it moved construction labor to storm-damaged areas. Winfrey said Charter now offers symmetrical, multi-gigabit speeds in eight markets, including Cincinnati, Dallas, Louisville and Rochester, New York, and is broadly marketing it. Network upgrades to bring symmetrical multi-gig speeds to other markets will be done by year's end. He said Charter's network upgrade should be done in 2027. Charter ended Q3 with 28.2 million residential internet subscribers, down from 28.6 million year over year; 12.4 million residential video subscribers, down from 13.8 million; 5.9 million residential voice subscribers, down from 7 million; and 9.1 million residential mobile lines, up from 7 million. It had revenue of $13.8 billion for the most-recent quarter, up from $13.6 billion the same quarter a year prior. MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote that going forward, Charter's broadband losses will be smaller "now that the worst of the ACP impact has been felt." He said fixed wireless access and fiber to the home competition also likely has peaked, "even if only slightly so."

Altice is rolling out a pair of video service packages, Extra TV and Everything TV, on Nov. 4. They come atop the company's Entertainment TV package introduced earlier this year and are the capstone of Altice's reworking of its video service to provide more viewer choice, it said Wednesday.

The boom in programming from diverse sources available on numerous outlets underscores that most-favored nation (MFN) and alternative distribution method (ADM) clauses haven't blocked the growth of multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) alternatives, according to cable interests. In a meeting with FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer (docket 24-115), cablers defended ADMs and MFNs and said the agency shouldn't imbalance programmer/MVPD negotiations by stopping MVPDs from seeking the same pricing and terms programmers offer to others. Meeting with the Media Bureau were representatives of NCTA, Charter, Comcast and Cox Communications.

A proposed Charter Communications/Liberty Broadband combination would fix tax issues stemming from the requirement that Liberty -- the single largest shareholder of Charter -- sell into Charter's share repurchase program, MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett noted Wednesday. The note recapped a conversation with Liberty Chairman John Malone. On Monday, Liberty Broadband said Charter had made an offer and that it had counter-offered. Liberty said the proposed deal has a closing date of June 30, 2027. According to Malone, Charter proposed a transaction that would exclude GCI, which Liberty owns, but Liberty's counteroffer includes GCI. A GCI transaction would require FCC approval, according to Malone.

Charter Communications is making a series of service commitments and benchmarks for its Spectrum broadband service. It said Monday that those commitments include a full-day credit for any neighborhood outage that lasts more than two hours and no annual contracts for any residential service. Within 15 minutes of identifying a neighborhood outage, the company said, it will notify affected customers and give an estimated restoration time. It said it would provide full refunds for any service within 30 days if a subscriber isn't completely satisfied. Charter rolled out Spectrum internet packages with guaranteed pricing for up to three years.

NCTA supports an FCC proposal exempting some video programmers from captioning registration and certification requirements when another entity, such as a programming network, has filed the relevant certification, the cabler said in comments posted Wednesday in docket 05-231. “Adopting the proposed exemption would relieve numerous program suppliers, including many small businesses, of needless paperwork obligations,” NCTA said. “Removing this regulatory burden will have no impact on the substantive captioning obligations for nonbroadcast programming.” The agency should make filing such certifications on behalf of multiple networks easier, NCTA said.

Noting WideOpenWest's limited cash on hand and declines in its high-margin broadband subscribers, S&P on Friday downgraded the cable operator's long-term credit trading from B to B- and its senior secured debt rating from B+ to B. It said management must take some cost-cutting steps and reduce capital spending; however WOW's longer-term viability depends on expanding into new markets. Lacking liquidity could mean capital spending reductions and a decline in revenue, S&P said.

Cable operators' effort at boosting their networks' upstream capacity is driven in large part by fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, operators and suppliers said Thursday. During an SCTE webinar, cablers said boosting upstream capacity also carries with it a variety of technical and spectrum challenges. The workplace changes the pandemic has driven, with more people working hybrid or fully remote, are pushing demand for additional upstream capacity, said Chris Topazi, Cox Communications principal architect. Also driving upstream demand is that people are increasingly prone to video chatting as opposed to phone calls, he said. Between 2020 and today, Midco saw average users' upstream usage go from 17-20 Mbps to 120-150 Mbps, said Vice President-Network Engineering Pao Lo. Competition also is a driver of upstream capacity supply, said Karthik Sundaresan, CableLabs director-hybrid fiber coaxial solutions. When cable competes in markets with fiber deployments, there often is pressure to offer higher upstream services even when actual upstream usage isn't close to what peak capacity allows, he said. Cable has multiple options for boosting upstream spectrum and capacity. DOCSIS 3.1 broadband delivery specifications can deliver up to 1 Gbps upstream, Sundaresan said. Operators' move to DOCSIS 4.0 in coming years opens the door to be closer to symmetrical service, with upstream capacity close to downstream, he said. But as operators focus on upstream, they must consider upstream "noise" problems. The noise comes from modems and active network components, as well as sources ranging from broadcast signals to wireless devices, he said. Vecima Chief Technology Officer Colin Howlett said freeing spectrum for upstream capacity might necessitate moving to internet protocol video. Lo said Midco is about 60% through an IP TV conversion. A year from now Cox will be heavily focused on field trials of DOCSIS 4.0, Topazi said.

Cable operators should be able to charge canceling subscribers for the full final month of service if the service, including local programming, is accessible for the full month using the cabler's streaming video application, the cable industry is urging the FCC. In a docket 23-405 filing Thursday recapping a meeting with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office and Media Bureau Chief Holly Sauer, NCTA and cable operators said charging for the full month also should be permitted if the subscriber cancels within the first month of service after the expiration of the required 24-hour cancellation period. In the meeting, the cablers reiterated arguments that an agency ban on early termination fees should be limited to "unjust or unreasonable" ones (see 2406200031). Joining NCTA at the meeting were representatives of Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications.

Internet subscriber losses due to the end of the affordable connectivity program more than offset what otherwise would have been small subscriber gains in Q2 for WideOpenWest, CEO Teresa Elder said on an earnings call Thursday as the company announced Q2 results. Elder said WOW's focus on growing its fiber footprinting in expansion markets has been paying off. The company would have added more than 300 broadband customers in the quarter if not for 5,000 ACP subscribers it lost. She said WOW expects additional ACP subscriber losses in Q3. The company ended Q2 with 485,000 high-speed data revenue generating units, down from 507,800 the same quarter a year earlier, and 71,600 video revenue generating units, down from 110,000 a year prior. Elder said WOW is seeing increased numbers of customers buying broadband buddle with YouTube TV as the cabler transitions from traditional linear service to the streaming package (see 2305150027). Elder didn't address questions about the pending takeover offer from DigitalBridge and Crestview Partners (see 2405030047). She said a special board committee is evaluating the offer.