Average household bandwidth requirements will increase 31 percent annually over the next five years, a Ciena study said. The study, released Wednesday and done by ACG Research, provides information to help network planners model the impact of residential households’ increasing use of broadband and subscription video services across varied devices on specific network scenarios, Ciena said in a . Internet video use, including smart TVs, is expected to grow from 12 percent of overall peak average bandwidth in 2014 to 25 percent in 2018, it said. It will be the largest contributor to household bandwidth consumption by 2018, said Ciena. It said use of 4K streaming video services will grow from 2 percent in 2014 to 12 percent in 2018.

The FCC should let all of current rules for closed captions for online video clips take effect before imposing new ones, said NCTA, NAB, and the Digital Media Association in reply comments posted Monday in docket 11-154. In a joint filing, a host of consumer groups representing the hearing impaired disagree. Despite objections to the additional rules, “no commenter seriously disputes the immense public benefits of ensuring that consumers who are deaf or hard of hearing can access IP-delivered video clips on equal terms,” said the filing by National Association for the Deaf, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and other groups. To make sure IP clip caption rules don’t have unintended consequences, the FCC “must allow its recently appointed rules to take effect and study their impact before considering expanding the scope,” NAB said. Proposed additional rules requiring captioning for third party clips would be a “vast expansion” and extremely challenging, NAB said, echoing comments from NCTA. “In contrast to the relatively limited number of distribution channels for full-length programming, the number of potential online outlets for clips is virtually unlimited,” NCTA said, saying that within a few hours of last weeks Antares rocket explosion, a Google search for footage of the explosion returned 3.6 million hits on a wide variety of websites. No individual third-party providers have filed comments opposing the proposed clip caption rules, the consumer groups said. “The lack of apparent concern by affected providers should assuage any concerns over the impact of a nominal requirement to render captions for video clips owned by an entity other than the third-party provider itself."

Broadcasters’ court challenge of the FCC incentive auction order is an “unfortunate reaction to an expansive and progressive undertaking,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a speech Tuesday to the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, according to a copy of his remarks on the FCC website. Wheeler also said a lack of access to broadcaster and cable company controlled content was responsible for causing online video services to falter, which he intends to address with a draft NPRM on broadening what the FCC defines as a multichannel video programming distributor (see 1410290064). “Competitors should be able to negotiate in good faith for video content, even if it is owned by cable companies and broadcasters,” Wheeler said. “The old rules of the FCC” let broadcasters stop Aereo in court, said the chairman. “Aereo wasn’t the reason for the new rules, but the idea that entrepreneurs should be able to assemble programs to offer consumers choices is something that shouldn’t be hindered by the FCC.”

Rovi acquired Fanhattan, provider of cloud-based, content programming products. Rovi said Monday. Fanhattan's Fan TV integrates linear TV, over-the-top capability and other sources of programming through one device with a touch remote, Rovi said Monday in a . With Fanhattan's capabilities, Rovi will offer customers faster "time-to-market" and improved flexibility deploying next-generation discovery and media experiences across multiple screens, it said. The combined solution supports IP and hybrid set-top boxes, DVR functionality and "personalized interactive user-interfaces through reference design hardware and a software development kit," it said.

National Religious Broadcasters cautioned against increased government control over speech on the Internet. The U.S. “rightly has made Internet freedom a foreign policy anchor,” NRB President Jerry Johnson said Tuesday in a news release. This follows a statement by Ann Ravel, Federal Election Commission vice chair, who announced last week her intent to re-evaluate FEC policies on political Web ads. The commission specifically exempted certain types of Internet communications from campaign finance regulations, Ravel said in a written statement. In doing so, the FEC “turned a blind eye to the Internet’s growing force in the political arena,” she said. The effort to protect individual bloggers and online commentators “has been stretched to cover slickly-produced ads aired solely on the Internet but paid for by the same organizations and the same large contributors as the actual ads aired on TV,” she said. The Obama administration must be careful “to avoid any action that could, purposefully or not, undermine free speech online,” NRB said.

U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan’s ruling slapping a nationwide preliminary injunction on Aereo (see 1410230060) could lead to more litigation for the streaming service, said Fletcher Heald First Amendment attorney Kevin Goldberg in a blog post Wednesday. Aereo could appeal the portion of the injunction limiting it to broadcasting time-delayed content, or broadcasters could appeal that the injunction allows Aereo to provide some form of streaming service. “A time-delayed Aereo is still a competitor in many ways,” said Goldberg. Either side of the case could also choose to let the matter be decided on the merits. “This obviously suits the broadcasters to some extent, since Aereo may not be as attractive to potential subscribers without the live viewing function,” Goldberg said. NAB and Aereo did not comment.

Hulu and Viacom extended their partnership by bringing more Viacom content to the streaming service. Hulu will add top titles from Nickelodeon to Hulu’s kids’ offering, like Drake & Josh and Hey Arnold!, Hulu said Tuesday on its blog. Hulu also will expand its Latino programming for kids by adding some Nickelodeon shows, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Spanish, it said.

The number of home broadband subscriptions is expected to surpass the number of home pay-TV subscriptions over the next few months, said a report by The Diffusion Group. While residential broadband penetration will soon top 100 million U.S. households, "legacy pay-TV subscription services have peaked and are in decline," TDG said Tuesday. The report, "Pay-TV Refugees," said 14 percent of adult broadband users don't use a legacy pay-TV service. That's 9 percent higher than the amount in 2011, said TDG. The consumers "provide an excellent opportunity for new video purveyors," like Netflix and direct-to-consumer TV networks, it said.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce backs AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV. Enhanced Internet connectivity "helps to create more opportunities for businesses and families through jobs and economic growth," it said in a letter posted Tuesday in FCC docket 14-90. Too many people don't have access to the speeds and bandwidth needed for today's competitive economy, it said. AT&T is committed to offering new, competitive choices for consumer options upon approval of this deal, it said.

An open Internet lessens musicians’ dependence on big corporations, said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in a speech at the Future of Music Coalition Summit Monday. The FCC should determine its net neutrality policy before it focuses on the “the appropriate legal framework to achieve that result,” Clyburn said. “My focus will primarily be on the impact to consumers -- something that I fear has gotten lost in this debate.” Policies that incentivize creative work to be sold digitally are as important to the music industry as copyright laws, Clyburn said. “Without the proper regulatory environment in place, these works may never even get produced, let alone have need for the protection of copyright laws.” Musicians depend on a “level online playing field,” that “does not favor different types of content over another,” Clyburn said.