Matt Daneman

Federal regulatory approval of Charter/TWC/BHN coming before the California Public Utilities Commission decision expected by May 12 (see 1602120055) is "a possibility," Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge said Tuesday at a Morgan Stanley conference. The FCC's unofficial 180-day shot clock for review of the Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks deals was at 158 days Wednesday, with the agency "working ... to be consistent with their shot clock," Rutledge said. While upward of 95 percent of Charter video customers take an expanded video package, affordability "is a real issue," Rutledge said, saying video expenses are driven by programmers and programming bundles. He said optimally Charter would sell smaller, tailored programming packages but "I don't have the right to buy programming that way." Pricing is seeing "some moderation," Rutledge said, saying New Charter's bigger scale should help with video pricing. He said Charter's cloud-based Spectrum Guide user interface was rolled out in Missouri and Nevada, and is being introduced in other parts of the company's current footprint. He also said the company sees it as a means to increasing its customer base: "There's a tremendous amount of entertainment in that [video] package; it's hard to represent because of the user interfaces." Asked about future mergers and acquisitions opportunities for Charter, Rutledge said, "At the moment, M&A isn't really attractive to me. Just out of sheer exhaustion. But there's opportunity out there and we'll take advantage as those things come to us." In a separate presentation at the Morgan Stanley conference, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said that the day after it called off its attempt to buy TWC, Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit "said we're going to make customer service our best product." Referring to Smit's being a former Navy SEAL, Roberts said, "I thought to myself he's had some worse missions than a merger that failed. It is early innings but were seeing the beginning of a turnaround and results" with video customer growth in 2015 -- the first such growth in years. Roberts said he sees Comcast moving toward providing a variety of broadband-related services, such as remote diagnostics of connected devices in homes: "We are looking at smart Internet as an opportunity not any other company has -- even if all those aren't our devices." A Comcast goal this year is to move to a system where all customer transactions can be done on mobile devices, Roberts said.

From the looming death of many cable companies to ESPN's going directly to consumers, the growing popularity of over-the-top video -- particularly among millennial viewers -- will mean radical changes in the pay-TV universe in coming years, panelists said Monday at a Practicing Law Institute event. "We're in the midst of pretty cataclysmic change," said Jonathan Carson, former Vevo chief revenue officer and Nielsen digital CEO, during a panel on video market issues: "It's pretty remarkable how long that [subscription and advertising] model has held together.”

Globalstar, while maintaining its proposed broadband terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) won't pose Wi-Fi interference problems, also is talking to the FCC about safeguard requirements for its proposed network operating system. "Think about the [operating system] as providing an extra measure of protection to both licensed and unlicensed services that totally ensures that no detrimental impact can ever occur without being quickly eliminated," CEO Jay Monroe said during a conference call Thursday evening as the company announced Q4 financial results. Globalstar "expressed our support for safeguards to minimize any risk of disruption" in a meeting with FCC staff, including International Bureau Chief Mindel De La Torre, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 13-213. Along with the network operating system, such safeguards also include "an effective equipment certification process," Monroe said Thursday.

The cost savings and greater efficiencies that will come with its purchase by Altice will let Cablevision "maintain and improve its network and customer service quality and at the same time insulate the company from risk," the two companies said in a filing Friday in docket 15-257 in response to an FCC information request as it reviews the $17.7 billion transaction (see 1602050013). Customers will see "an all-in-one home center" that lets subscribers mesh cable TV, over-the-top video, online storage services, home media, and Wi-Fi and ethernet connected devices, making for easier access to non-cable services on TVs, tablets and game consoles, the two said.

Signals from Ligado Networks' proposed LTE network at the power and out-of-band emission (OOBE) levels that the company has worked out with GPS companies don't appear to interfere with GPS navigation devices, according to Roberson and Associates testing commissioned by Ligado. The coexistence plan that Ligado has proposed has "sufficient limits in those adjacent band signals to ensure GPS receiver performance," Roberson Chief Technology Officer Ken Zdunek said Thursday on a news conference call discussing those test results and in a related filing posted in FCC docket 12-340.

Iridium's launch plans for its Next constellation hit a hiccup. The first satellites are now due to be launched in June by SpaceX instead of in April by Kosmotras, CEO Matt Desch said in a conference call Thursday as the company announced Q4 financial results. That delay won't affect the constellation overall, Desch said, and it still will be up and operational by the end of 2017. Desch said Iridium found out days ago Kosmotras had yet to receive the approvals it needs from the Russian Ministry of Defense for the launch. "We just didn't want that kind of uncertainty in our program," he said, so while the Russian launch company works on approvals, the SpaceX launch that was to take place in July has been moved up to June. The rest of the Next launches will follow the current SpaceX schedule, with the next one to be in October, while the Kosmotras launch will be worked in when it's ready, Desch said: "This isn't that big a change from our overall plan." The amended launch schedule won't have major effects on customers and it doesn't significantly change the costs of Next, he said. Desch said a Spanish satellite launch is facing similar Kosmotras issues. Kosmotras didn't comment. Meanwhile, Desch said, production for its 66-satellite global broadband constellation is ramping up, with 12 in various stages of manufacture and Orbital ATK expecting to be producing six a month by July. For the quarter, Iridium said it had revenue of $106.4 million, up 6 percent, and ended the year with 782,000 subscribers, up from 739,000 at the end of 2014, with government business driving that growth. For 2016, Iridium said it expected service revenue growth of 4 to 6 percent, compared with 2.5 percent growth in 2015, with government work expected to offset sluggishness in commercial work. Long range, once Next is operational, service revenue is expected to be $420 million to $465 million in 2018, compared with roughly $242 million in 2015, the company said. Desch said its investment in Aireon, which plans to deploy a global satellite-based aircraft tracking and monitoring system in 2018, also is showing momentum as the company signs up new customers even before its launch. The FAA also is looking to test and validate space-based Aireon data, he said. "We believe the FAA use of Aireon data is a matter of when, not if." Iridium closed Thursday at $6.97, down 7 percent.

Ligado's plans for commercial access to the 1675-1680 MHz band for its terrestrial broadband network could face a hurdle in the form of downlinks from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Geostationary Operational Environmental Series satellite-R (GOES-R) set to launch in October. The company previously named LightSquared is pushing the FCC to open up that NOAA-used band for commercial sharing and auction (see 1512310016), and hopes to see that auction in federal FY 2017 (see 1602090067). But NOAA said a variety of issues -- chief among them interference with its downlinks -- need to be addressed first.

Network services price competition is proving to be a major hurdle for Intelsat, though the satellite company hopes its Epic high-throughput satellite constellation starts offsetting those declines, company officials said Monday as they announced Q4 results. The company said preliminary revenue for 2015 was $2.35 billion, while 2016 is expected to bring revenue of $2.14 billion-$2.2 billion, with the declines coming from a number of network services contract renewals, CEO Stephen Spengler said on a conference call. The company's first high-throughput Epic satellite -- Intelsat 29e -- launched in January, with three more set to launch later this year, he said. The company signed nine Epic agreements in Q4, most of them with current customers transitioning from current satellites to the Epic constellation, Spengler said. But, he said that "we do see Epic as not just a transitionary platform but a growth platform." Spengler said the company is developing new platforms to take advantage of the high-throughput capabilities, pointing to Intelsat's sponsorship of a cross-country drive of a Kymeta-connected car (see 1512160011) that will be on display at Satellite 2016 in March at the Gaylord National Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Applications like automotive connectivity and IoT are "where we can create value for our customers," Spengler said. Intelsat stock closed Monday at $2.72, down 9.6 percent.

Charter Communications is talking buildout plans with the FCC, apparently as part of discussions about conditions on its plans to buy Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. Meanwhile, an FCC decision on the deals seems close, experts said in interviews last week. Opponents are redoubling lobbying efforts against the deal. The FCC and Charter didn't comment.

A year after launching its Sling TV over-the-top service, Dish Network continues to look for additional channels, and plans a user interface upgrade. "Twenty channels was pretty easy," CEO Charlie Ergen said in a conference call on Q4 results replayed Thursday. "When you're looking through 80 or 90, you need something better." Ergen said Dish "would still like to have two to three other content providers participating" on Sling and is "working closely" to find them -- the pitch being incremental customer and advertising growth.