Comcast failed to make a “plausible” claim that its free speech right was violated when the Vermont Public Utility Commission required the company to expand cable TV services, a judge said last week in an order (in Pacer) issued at U.S. District Court in Rutland. The court allowed Comcast’s federal pre-emption claims under the Cable Act and didn’t let the VPUC claim sovereign immunity to other counts. Comcast said the VPUC exceeded authority by requiring the company in a cable franchise agreement to build 550 miles of new cable and enhance support for public, educational and government channels (see 1712190036). The company argued that violated the First Amendment. Chief Judge Geoffrey Crawford disagreed: “Even giving Comcast the benefit of all reasonable doubts and inferences ... Comcast has failed to plausibly allege that the line extension conditions are a means of exercising a content preference." Requiring Comcast to extend cable deployment doesn’t “favor or disfavor any particular message or view,” Crawford said. Vermont has an important interest -- expanding cable TV services -- unrelated to speech suppression, he wrote. Even if right that the expansion requirements impose bigger burdens on its speech than on other operators, “none of Comcast's allegations plausibly suggest that the burdens are substantially greater than necessary to further Vermont's important interests.” He allowed Comcast federal pre-emption claims, saying it may have statutory cause of action under the judicial review provision of the Cable Act. "Vermont has waived any sovereign immunity that the VPUC might enjoy when acting as the franchising authority for cable television,” Crawford wrote. “Judicial review in state or federal court is an essential part of the package of state regulation conducted pursuant to federal legislation. Vermont voluntarily accepted the offer by electing to regulate under the Cable Act.” A Comcast spokesperson praised “the thoroughness of the Court’s ruling, which only dismisses a single count and allows Comcast to proceed on its challenges to all of the disputed franchise conditions under the remaining eight counts.” The VPUC didn’t comment.
Cable interests continue lobbying the FCC's eighth floor to push for changes to local franchise authorities' authority. NCTA, Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox representatives met with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly, Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendan Carr about the Further NPRM on this week's agenda, according to a docket 05-311 ex parte posting Friday, and to ask that the NPRM seek further comment on the applicable scope of the proposed rules. Those cable interests have made repeat visits regarding the LFA NPRM (see 1809200010). NCTA in a separate docket posting recapped calls with aides to Pai and O'Rielly and with Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey at which cable urged that the NPRM seek further comment on the applicability of the proposed rules to state franchising authorities as well as local ones. NCTA also said regulation of non-cable services over franchise cable systems and of facilities and equipment that offer those services is pre-empted by law. It said the NPRM should point to those actions when discussing pre-emption. Thursday, Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Seth Cooper said the draft NPRM correctly recognizes LFA regulation of broadband would run contrary to the "light-touch information service framework" the FCC pointed to in its Communications Act Title II regulatory rollback.
The U.S. District Court that permitted AT&T buying Time Warner "well understood" the flawed economics behind DOJ's bargaining theory that was the basis for its opposing the deal, the now-combined companies said in a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit appellee brief (in Pacer, docket 18-5214) Thursday. It was empirical evidence, such as analyses of prior comparable transactions, not a misunderstanding of business principles, that caused the lower court to reject DOJ's argument, the companies said. They said it was "fatal" to DOJ's case that U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of Washington accepted Justice's bargaining model but found the agency hadn't shown the model actually predicts a net increase in retail prices. The merged parties said among the model's flaws is that it relied on "highly disputed real-world facts" like how many customers would go to a different MVPD if certain programming were dropped and that the agency sometimes relied on flawed figures. DOJ didn't comment. Justice's appeal -- based largely on the argument Leon's decision was flawed in its handling of the economics of bargaining and its application of the idea of corporatewide profit maximization -- is seen facing dicey odds (see 1808070025).
Reporting burdens imposed by FCC Form 325 outweigh benefits of the data it collects, the American Cable Association said in a docket 17-105 posting Thursday. Manually filling it out "is surprisingly onerous," and collecting the data requires going to different business segments that typically don't interact, ACA said. It backs the draft order on next week's commissioners' meeting agenda that would eliminate the form (see 1809040058).
When determining if a community has effective cable competition, it's not necessary that census household data and direct broadcast satellite subscriber data be contemporaneous with one another, said an FCC order Wednesday denying a New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel (DRC) application for review of a previous Media Bureau order. DRC appealed a bureau order granting a Time Warner Cable petition seeking determination that five New Jersey communities were subject to effective competition. FCC members said the bureau order satisfied the agency's competing provider test and dismissed DRC arguments against using five-digit ZIP code household data instead of ZIP code+4 household data. Charter Communications now owns TWC. The state didn't comment Thursday.
NCTA, Comcast, Charter and Cox -- meeting an aide to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr -- complained that franchising authorities at the state and local levels keep demanding multiple franchises for services offered over the same cable system and for fees exceeding 5 percent of gross cable revenue, said a docket 05-311 posting Wednesday. They said franchising authorities keep demanding "substantial" noncash contributions that run contrary to the limits instituted by Congress. FreedomWorks Foundation, backing the local franchise authority Further NPRM on September's agenda (see 1809050056), said LFAs are susceptible to and often guilty of regulatory capture and rent-seeking through their controls of rights of way. It said the NPRM would help ensure LFAs don't abuse their authority by excluding non-cable TV services provided by cable companies from oversight.
The pace at which cable ISPs are upgrading to offer 1 GB speeds is accelerating, and history indicates they could start offering 10 GB speeds by 2024, CableLabs Director-Technology Policy Mark Walker blogged Thursday. Only 4 percent of U.S. households had access to 1 GB by the end of 2016, and by March 58 percent of such households -- or 66 percent of the cable broadband footprint -- had access to 1 GB or better from their local cable operator, CableLabs said. It said deployment of DOCSIS 3.1 across cable networks will accelerate that trend. So will full duplex DOCSIS 3.1, which will let cable operators provide symmetric gigabit service; coherent optic technologies that can increase the per-strand capacity in cable networks by orders of magnitude; and protocols for Wi-Fi proactive network maintenance that will address connectivity problems and increase wireless bandwidth, it said.
Liberty Global's Horizon 4 TV platform includes a set-top box that supports 4K resolution, a voice remote and an upgraded version of the Go app that ties to the set-top, the company said Wednesday as it unveiled the platform. It said Horizon 4 will debut in coming months in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium with a wider rollout to follow. It said the Horizon 4 set-top already is available in the U.K. as the V6 box, and close to two million customers are using it in combination with TiVo software, but the Horizon 4 platform combines the set-top with the Horizon 4 user interface.
Comcast and Ticketmaster launched an integration Tuesday, enabling Xfinity X1 customers to find performers' tour dates and request concert tickets from their TV through Ticketmaster’s open ticketing platform. The companies announced the launch with singer Kelly Clarkson’s 28-city Meaning of Life tour, to begin Jan. 24 in Oakland. Xfinity customers can speak the name of the tour into the X1 voice remote to call up a presale window on the TV screen. Customers are taken to a dedicated Clarkson destination, powered by Ticketmaster’s platform, with a promotional tile enabling them to review performances and dates at nearby venues. They can initiate the online ticket-buying process and opt to receive a text message with a unique code to complete the purchase online. Dan Armstrong, Ticketmaster general manager-distributed commerce, called it “groundbreaking” and said the company will expand functionality to more live events soon. At the Clarkson destination, viewers can stream her music on TV via Pandora and watch her music videos, appearances on The Voice, and clips from previous tours.
Saying AT&T's DirecTV Now virtual MVPD service operates like cable TV, Charter Communications wants 32 Massachusetts franchise areas and Kauai, Hawaii, to be declared effectively competitive, said an FCC docket 12-1 petition Monday. Charter said DirecTV Now satisfies the LEC test by offering comparable video programming service in areas substantially overlapping with Charter's franchise area. Charter said the Massachusetts and Hawaii markets remain subject to regulation even after the 2015 effective competition order because of revised certifications filed by those states after the order. NAB, NATOA and the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities didn't comment.