Altice, which had been looking at possibly selling its Suddenlink business (see 2208040037), will keep it after all. Altice's board unanimously decided continuing to operate Suddenlink "represents the best path forward for Altice USA and its stockholders," it said Thursday. "They obviously didn’t get an offer at a price they considered adequate," New Street Research's Jonathan Chaplin wrote investors, noting the move was "widely anticipated."
Cox Communications advertisements claiming it can provide "gig speeds everywhere" and implying AT&T can't have a reasonable basis, though other Cox ad claims should be modified, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division (NAD) said Wednesday. It said AT&T challenged the Cox ad claims. NAD recommended Cox make clear its claims about gig speeds are available only for downloads and that Cox avoid conveying the "unsupported implied message" AT&T doesn't offer comparable speeds to 5G providers in markets where Cox and AT&T compete. NAD said Cox indicated it will comply with the recommendations.
Cable operators' online inspection files will move in mid-November from using a cable operation and licensing system (COALS) ID for login to commission registration system (CORES) logins, FCC Media Bureau Chief Engineer Jeff Neumann said Wednesday. In a bureau webinar about the agency's updated COALS system, Neumann said incentive auction reimbursement program logins that use COALS ID won't transition to CORES because that program is near completion and should wrap up within a couple of months. The retirement of COALS ID log-ins for CORES is probably the biggest of the various key changes in the COALS update, he said. The system dates back about 20 years and was in need of update, bureau Deputy Chief Hillary DeNigro said. The move to the updated system, made earlier this month, should mean better security and reliability and also brings cable antenna relay service filings online, she said. Neumann said the updated COALS improves its public search capabilities and makes most external filings easily printable. He said users now will get emailed updates after acceptance of filings and payment of fees, improving communication. He said a user guide and an FAQ section are being prepared.
About 66% of U.S. TV households have some form of live pay-TV service, with the percentage of TV households with cable, satellite, telco or virtual MVPD service down from 79% in 2017, said a Friday Leichtman Research Group report. Some 73% of adults 45 and older have a pay-TV service vs. 57% of ages 18-44, said LRG, and 46% of households that moved in the past year don’t currently have one. “The decline in pay-TV subscribers is not solely a function of those disconnecting services, but is also related to a slowdown in those entering or reentering the category,” said LRG President Bruce Leichtman. “Overall, about 10.5% of TV households last subscribed to a pay-TV service in the past three years, 12% last subscribed over three years ago, and 11.5% never subscribed,” he said. Households with more TVs have more pay-TV services: 73% with three or more TVs have pay TV vs. 65% with two TVs and 52% with one, said the report.
Comcast is boosting the speeds for a variety of its broadband tiers by anywhere from 25 Mbps to 200 Mbps starting this week, it said Monday.
About 93% of U.S. households will have a broadband subscription by the end of 2025, either fixed or mobile, as the market enters a “time of renewed competition and innovation,” Parks Associates said Tuesday. Adoption of the original broadband bundle, with pay-TV and voice services, is declining, but “new value-added services are providing new opportunities for increasing customer satisfaction and growing revenue,” said analyst Kristen Hanich. Optimized Wi-Fi and gateway-based cybersecurity are becoming increasingly popular in the residential market, and bulk internet and managed Wi-Fi deployments in the multi-dwelling unit space are making broadband a “competitive, but potentially lucrative, market,” Hanich said. Parks plans the virtual Connections connected home conference Thursday at noon EST.
Cable One and Stephens Capital Partners, which together own a majority of Wisper, are seeking FCC OK to sell their holdings to Wisper founder Nathan Stooke, who has a minority interest. In a Section 214 transfer application posted Monday, Cable One and Stephens said some financing for the purchase of their holdings would also go to Wisper to allow it to accelerate buildout to its Connect America Fund and Rural Digital Opportunity Fund locations. Wisper provided fixed wireless and fiber-based broadband and voice services in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.
ACA Connects is backing NCTA's request that the FCC delete the fair market value language from its in-kind contribution rules to align with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on the agency's cable local franchise authority order (see 2205100051). In a docket 05-311 filing Tuesday, ACA said arguments that the agency instead begin a rulemaking to revisit that language haven't shown why that approach is necessary, nor have they challenged NCTA's position that the agency can make the change ministerially.
The FCC's cable operations and licensing system (COALS) won't accept filings between 5 p.m. Oct. 11 and 8 a.m. Oct. 18 as the agency moves to an updated version, the Media Bureau said Tuesday. The updated version, here, should bring more security, reliability and performance, the bureau said. It also makes cable antenna relay service filings completely online and will host cable equal employment opportunity annual filings, it said. Draft filings stored in the current COALS version and filings with unpaid fees won't be processed or migrated to the new system, it said. Filings to transfer community units that haven't been accepted by the recipient will also be canceled, it said. Legacy COALS ID logins will be canceled with the transition, it said. A webinar here and on the agency's YouTube channel at 1 p.m. EDT Oct. 26 will give more information on the features, capabilities and login of the updated COALS, it said.
The Q2 2022 inflation adjustment figure for cable operators using Form 1240 is 9%, said the FCC Media Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics Tuesday. In the year-ago quarter, it was 6.07%.