Charter Communications joined the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium, the connected car group said last week. AECC said Charter will work with consortium members on meeting the "increasing high-bandwidth, high-speed connectivity demands of connected vehicles."
Peacock subscribers were up and residential broadband customers slightly down in Q4, Comcast said Friday as it announced its Q4 2023 results. In a call with analysts, President Mike Cavanagh said that while Comcast hopes to see renewed funding of the Affordable Connectivity Program, the company has begun communicating with its 1.4 million ACP participants and "will provide a range of options" if funding is discontinued. Revenue for the quarter was $31.3 billion, up 2.3% year over year, Comcast said. It added that during 2023, its network grew, passing an additional 1.1 million homes and businesses. It now has 62.5 million passings. Cavanagh said Comcast should be "at or above" that level in 2024. Comcast said it started rolling out multi-gig symmetrical speeds in some markets in Q4, and deployed mid-split technology to 35% of its footprint as of the end of the year as a route to faster broadband speeds. Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said mid-split deployments should be across 50% of its network by year's end. Peacock ended the year with 31 million subscribers, adding 3 million in Q4, Comcast said. It said Peacock revenue for the quarter topped $1 billion, up 47%. Comcast ended the year with 29.7 million residential broadband subs, down slightly from 29.8 million in Q4 2022, and 6.6 million wireless lines, up from 5.3 million at 2022’s end. It ended Q4 with 14.1 million video subs, down 2 million year over year. Cavanagh said broadband competition "is likely to remain at these levels" for now; however, broadband remains "a very large, healthy and profitable market." LightShed’s Walt Piecyk posted on X that broadband subscriber trends aren’t likely to change soon, with revenue growth from price hikes instead. Asked about Comcast's participation in NTIA's broadband equity, access and deployment program, Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said the company "plan[s] to participate where it is consistent with our business goals," but the BEAD process "is still in flux." He said Comcast is looking at wireless/broadband bundled packages as a route to further wireless growth.
The National Content and Technology Cooperative signed a deal with AI services provider Actifai that will give NCTC members access to the Actifai platform and its e-commerce and call center software products, NCTC said Tuesday.
State and local interests continue to press for repeal of the cable mixed-use rules. According to a filing Friday in docket 05-311 recapping a meeting with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks' office, the state and local interests also advocated for a ruling that cable franchise obligation compensation must be for marginal cost, not fair market value. The local and state interests -- including Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles County, Hawaii and the National League of Cities -- this month had a similar meeting with Commissioner Anna Gomez's office (see [Re:2401080032]).
Expect to see Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 adopted this year, driven by increased demand for newer generation Wi-Fi networks, NCTA Chief Technology Officer Rikin Thakker said Wednesday. Also driving popularity of Wi-Fi 6E/7 will be their ability to use 6 GHz band spectrum, particularly as more countries open up the band, he said. Thakker said more cable operators will upgrade plants to DOCSIS 4.0 in 2024 as they move to multi-gig speeds. He expects some will deploy extended DOCSIS 3.1 as a precursor to end-to-end DOCSIS 4.0. He also said NTIA's National Spectrum Implementation Plan will set out strategies for bands of importance to cable -- 3.1-3.45 GHz, 7.125-8.4 GHz and 37-37.6 GHz.
The cable industry will report broadband subscriber losses of around 136,000 in Q4, which would be the largest decline on record, TD Cowen wrote investors Tuesday. It said fixed wireless is a competitive threat from low-end subscribers, and fiber to the home is a threat "everywhere else."
The National Content & Technology Cooperative joined the Associated Carrier Group, which should grease the path for NCTC cable operator members wanting to launch mobile virtual network operator service, NCTC said Tuesday. ACG membership lets NCTC members take advantage of discounts with mobile original equipment manufacturers, it said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau approved a transfer of control of Tennessee-based cable and fiber connectivity operator CableSouth from parent Hunt Group Holdings to Australia's Macquarie Group, according to a notice in Thursday's Daily Digest. It said that under the deal Hunt and Macquarie will each own 50% of CableSouth, with Macquarie having de facto control. CableSouth does business as SwyftFiber and SwyftConnect.
Ad-supported Disney+ is now a part of all Charter Communications' Spectrum TV Select packages at no extra cost, Charter and Disney said Thursday. The streaming service's availability is the result of a distribution agreement the two reached in September (see 2309110034). Tom Montemagno, Charter executive vice president-programming acquisition, said that as the video industry evolves, the cabler is "committed to including direct-to-consumer apps like Disney+" with its Spectrum service.
Wall Street might start looking at cable growth in 2024 as "a game of inches with growth and investment narratives dependent on short-term promotions and competitor offers rather than structural drivers," Barclays said in a note Thursday. Price hikes will likely be a focus again for the telecom industry in 2024 as they were during the past few years. Barclays also said a slowdown in cable subscriber growth due to issues such as competition from new entrants in a low-growth environment is likely to be exacerbated by Verizon and T-Mobile having greater access to spectrum for fixed wireless. An additional worry for cable is that AT&T is moving further into fixed wireless. Traditionally, cable grew through speed upgrades and price hikes. With Comcast and Charter offering minimum speeds "way higher than needed for most households," pricing becomes more important, Barclays said. However, price hikes come with trade-offs, it added, pointing to increased fixed wireless competition and wireless-only growth.