Charter Communications must respond by April 12 to a data request by the California Public Utilities Commission Public Advocates Office (PAO), CPUC Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer ruled Tuesday in docket A15-07-009. PAO asked Charter for data supporting claims that it’s upgrading broadband as conditioned in CPUC’s OK of the company’s 2016 buy of Time Warner Cable and Bright House. Wednesday, Charter didn’t comment.
NCTA and America’s Communications Association jointly opposed Metrom Rail's proposal to operate ultrawideband positive train control systems in the 3.272-5.014 GHz band (see 1809200041). “While Metrom’s goal of promoting railway safety is worthy, Metrom has not provided any interference analysis -- much less the detailed interference analysis that is warranted given the importance of incumbent operations” in the C band, the cable groups said in docket 18-284, posted Tuesday. The FCC should approve the plan only with detailed technical analysis demonstrating its proposed operations won't interfere with C-band downlinks, they said.
Cable One expects to close in Q4 on its $525.9 million cash acquisition of Missouri-based cable ISP Fidelity Communications, it said Monday. Fidelity's network passes roughly 190,000 homes in Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, it said.
BeIN Sports' latest carriage complaint against Comcast included an additional pleading without first asking the Media Bureau and it didn't show the circumstances that would allow the FCC to accept an otherwise-prohibited pleading, the bureau said in a docket 18-384 order Friday dismissing the complaint. It said though beIN included in the February complaint (see 1902060052) a new allegation of unreasonable refusal to deal that wasn't in its two 2018 complaints, the programmer should have made that claim in its second complaint since the allegation comes from the same set of facts as the second complaint. BeIN outside counsel didn't comment.
The National Cable TV Cooperative plans to start negotiating master service agreements with national access carriers and regional transport circuit providers through its Broadband Solutions -- Access Program. That frees NCTC members from independently contracting with larger carriers for broadband access and transport costs, it said Thursday.
A new TiVo product lets MVPDs integrate easily with Android TV. It upgraded user experience with an operator-branded interface powered by Google Assistant search and browse functionality, said the vendor Wednesday.
Charter Communications and the nonprofit US Ignite selected St. Petersburg, Florida, as a smart gigabit community, Charter blogged Tuesday.
The FCC should shift cable industry price reporting requirements to a biennial schedule, reducing the reporting “burdens of the price survey,” NCTA filed, posted Tuesday in docket 17-105. “A biennial survey of prices covering the year immediately prior to the survey would still provide the Commission and ultimately the public with information on rate trends for inclusion in the biennial Communications Marketplace Report without sacrificing the quality of the survey data." The group said the commission should consider “a simplified survey form for cable operators with uniform national pricing for their cable services.” NCTA with Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises met Media Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff.
Cable executives and America’s Communications Association representatives worry about rising retransmission consent fees (see 1903230001 or 1903250065) and about Nexstar's buying Tribune, they told aides to all FCC members and front-office Media Bureau staff. "Member companies pass through most, if not all, of these fee increases to consumers, such that subscribers’ bills have increased precipitously. Devoting additional resources and bandwidth to broadcasting also hinders efforts to expand and improve broadband in rural areas," said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-71. Consider "the recent behavior of Nexstar, which has earned itself a reputation as an exceptionally bad actor in an already dysfunctional retransmission consent marketplace," ACA said. It's difficult to negotiate retrans deals with the broadcaster, executives said. "Nexstar has promised to raise retransmission consent rates -- and, indeed, cites this as a benefit of the proposed transaction." As the agency weighs letting one TV station owner reach a larger percentage of U.S. viewers, cable executives noted that increasing the cap "will invariably lead to higher [retrans] prices," they said. Another ACA-member confab included Wireline Bureau Chief Kris Monteith and commissioners' aides, and Pai Chief of Staff Matthew Berry attended another gathering. Executives attending at least some meetings came from Armstrong Utilities, Cable One, HTC, Liberty Puerto Rico, Shentel and TDS. Nexstar didn't comment. The FCC meetings occurred Thursday during ACA's conference in Washington (see 1903200009), noted Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman. Most of the group's members attending went to Capitol Hill, he emailed. "Two small groups were taken to FCC as reflected in ex parte" filings, he added. NAB responded to the lobbying, saying ACA "rehashes tired anti-broadcaster rhetoric that we’ve heard before." TV stations and networks "provide the most popular content on cable systems," emailed NAB's spokesperson. "The FCC should reject ACA calls to inject itself into the free market retransmission consent negotiation process, and should allow local TV stations modest relief from 'I Love Lucy' era ownership rules.”
Municipal code taking effect April 1 and requiring all telecom providers with facilities in city rights of way to pay compensation for ROW use isn't a cable franchise fee, Rochester, New York, emailed us Monday in response to NCTA's naming it as an example of cities violating or exceeding franchise fee caps (see 1903140068). Rochester said before the new code, the city "has been arguably inconsistent" in ROW management, with different utilities and telecom providers paying different levels of compensation. The code establishes a uniform compensation requirement reflecting reasonably approximate costs for the maintenance, operation and management. "We are not 'double billing' Charter" Communications, it said.