The Q4 2024 inflation adjustment figure for cable operators using Form 1240 is 2.34%, said the FCC Media Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics in Monday's Daily Digest. In the year-ago quarter it was 1.63%.

Section 18 of the FTC Act, which gives the agency power to establish rules that specifically define deceptive acts or practices, limits its rulemaking ability, and "click to cancel" is anything but specific, since it applies to a lot of contracts across the economy, petitioners told the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday. NCTA and others are challenging "click to cancel" (see 2411220029). In a reply brief (docket 24-3137) to the FTC's response (see 2503170039), the petitioners said the FTC hasn't identified instances of problems commensurate with the rule’s economy-wide scope. They said the FTC's response also doesn't address the arbitrary and capricious aspects of the rule, such as how the agency downplayed the effects of the rule. There's no legal authority backing the FTC's request that the court limit relief to certain parts of the rule or to certain parties, they added.

U.S. cable operators should adopt a fiber-to-the-premises strategy to deal with increased fiber and fixed wireless competition, Analysys Mason's Simon Sherrington said during the consultancy's podcast Wednesday. Cable networks today pass 86% of U.S. residences, but fiber-based broadband providers will pass more than 75% of homes by 2030, creating "a huge cable and FTTP overlap" and putting even more competitive pressure on cable, Sherrington said. The fiber plans of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile would give them more than 100 million homes passed by 2030. While a lot of cable operators outside the U.S. are overbuilding their networks with FTTP, there's more focus in the U.S. on using DOCSIS technology to increase bandwidth and improve speeds, he added.

Altice USA faces a "more and more aggressive" competitive landscape, particularly from fiber overbuilders in its Western markets and fixed wireless in its Eastern ones, CEO Dennis Mathew said Wednesday at the New Street Research and BCG Future of Connectivity Leaders Conference. He said the fixed wireless competition is particularly centered on the poor, and Altice is changing its marketing approach for that segment in order to better compete. While Altice doesn't have sizable amounts of fiber in its own Western network, that's not a big impediment as the company has improved the quality of its hybrid fiber-coaxial network, he said. He added that Altice is about 70% overbuilt by fiber in its Eastern markets and expects fiber overbuilding in its Western ones -- now about 45% -- to reach a similar level.

As part of its goal to extend its network past 400,000 homes in new communities, WideOpenWest said Tuesday it had reached more than 100,000 additional households. That figure includes more than 80,000 fiber-to-the-home passings in its greenfield markets, as well as hybrid fiber-coaxial passings. The company announced market expansion plans in 2022.

A mobile offering at Cable One doesn't seem likely in the near term. CEO During a call with analysts Thursday, Julie Laulis said Cable One is "certainly open to partnering with a mobile provider," but small and midsize cable operators that have added mobile have seen "very mixed results." Announcing its most recent quarterly earnings, Laulis said, "The best use of our time is pursuing organic broadband revenue growth ... I don't think we need mobile to do it." The end of the Affordable Connectivity Program depressed Cable One Q4 results. It said revenue for the quarter was $387.2 million -- a drop from $411.8 million the same quarter a year earlier. CFO Todd Koetje said the loss of about 10,000 customers in 2024 due to ACP hurt residential data results. Excluding ACP losses and customer gains from a small acquisition, data customers grew by about 2,200 during the year, he noted. Cable One said it ended Q4 with 955,000 residential data customers, compared with 960,500 a year earlier; 107,500 residential video subscribers, down from 134,200; and 67,300 residential voice subscribers, down from 79,200.

Altice USA and MSG Networks reached a carriage agreement that ends an MSG blackout on Altice's Optimum channel lineups, the companies said Saturday. The blackout began in early January (see 2501130068).

With Comcast's planned spinoff of cable network assets, Peacock is its lead TV service, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon wrote Wednesday. Accordingly, NBCUniversal must focus on retaining subscribers who might otherwise cancel and restart just for particular seasons of sports programming, he said, adding that Peacock will likely be a hub for NBA programming, all NBCU-licensed sports and reality programming. One challenge for Peacock is that its subscribers will bear the cost of Comcast's NBA and Premier League soccer licenses, he said.

Charter Communications' Spectrum Mobile has topped 10 million mobile lines, the company said Tuesday. Charter ended 2024 with 9.6 million mobile lines (see 2501310005). It launched the mobile offering in fall 2018.

While there's speculation that Comcast or T-Mobile might have an interest in acquiring Charter Communications, the rationale for either deal is questionable, consultant Terry Chevalier wrote Thursday. Comcast/Charter would have operational and mobile synergies, but the lack of competitive overlap means there wouldn't be big opportunities for revenue or cost synergies, he said. While T-Mobile/Charter offers strong synergy possibilities, a deal "feels like a stretch," given such issues as Deutsche Telekom's ownership stake in T-Mobile possibly running up against the White House's "America first" approach and T-Mobile's recent investments in new fiber technologies.