There will be a significant uptick of IPTV providers’ adoption of 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology in IP set-top boxes in 2015, Infonetics Research said Thursday. The 802.11n dual-mode and 2X2 MIMO technologies are currently the most prevalent Wi-Fi technologies in IP set-top boxes, but 67 percent of providers who participated in the Infonetics survey indicated they would begin using 802.11ac next year. About 6 percent of surveyed providers said they were already using the technology, Infonetics said. Survey respondents rated remote programming via tablet or mobile devices highest among all set-top box applications, with 67 percent of respondents rating it highly, Infonetics said (http://bit.ly/1kEi92T).

Cablevision and Game Show Network asked an FCC administrative law judge to let them continue to proceed with discovery and provide an update on the status of GSN’s program carriage complaint against the operator June 13, said a status report posted Wednesday in docket 12-222 (http://bit.ly/ScaRGT). GSN v. Cablevision has been on hold while the two sides adjust their arguments and evidence based on the Comcast v. FCC decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which, like GSN v. Cablevision, also concerned a dispute between a cable provider and a programmer over which tier that channel should be carried on.

Bright House Networks added EPIX channels to its lineup, and online access is coming soon. Four channels, including EPIX 1 and EPIX Drive-In, are available to subscribers via TV and on demand, Bright House said in a news release Monday. Bright House will give its digital TV customers an introductory offer that includes three months of EPIX and its multiplex services, at no additional charge, it said.

Comcast representatives met with staff from the FCC Media Bureau and the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to discuss emergency information and video description for video transmitted over IP, said an ex parte filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1nCIDl5). Comcast has invested in infrastructure and collaborated with vendors to offer that information on a secondary audio stream over IP cable services and the company’s Xfinity platform, the ex parte said. Comcast customers can access the second stream through the Xfinity user interface on “a number of third-party devices,” depending on the devices’ “native audio capability,” the filing said.

The FCC should not adopt a 3-million subscriber “safe harbor” for membership in a buying group, said Cox Communications representatives in meetings with staff for Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and Chairman Tom Wheeler, according to an ex parte filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jYljyb). The commission should “ensure that all small and mid-sized [multichannel video programming distributors] can gain the protections of reformed buying group rules,” said the filing. A safe harbor of any size is “unnecessary,” said Cox.

Cox said it plans to offer gigabit Internet speeds starting with new residential construction projects and new and existing neighborhoods in Las Vegas, Omaha and Phoenix. The company will begin marketwide deployment of gigabit speeds by the end of 2016 in all Cox locations, Cox said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1jHy0gB). Cox also will double the speeds on its most popular tiers of Internet service for all customers this year, it said.

The FCC’s annual Report on Cable Industry Prices issued last week is “misleading, outdated and irrelevant as a measure of the health of the TV marketplace,” said an NCTA blog post Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1oT0CFz). Instead of measuring only cable providers, the report (CD May 19 p13) should also include other pay TV providers, NCTA said. “Today cable video barely comprises 53 percent of pay TV households,” said the blog post. The report also doesn’t account for cable packages that are ordered alongside other services such as broadband and digital telephone, NCTA said. Eighty percent of cable video customers buy other services with their cable, and generally receive a price drop, NCTA said. “This report only considers the standalone price of a single cable TV package that is rarely bought on its own,” said the post. The report should also have mentioned the cost to customers per viewing hour, which is 23 cents, NCTA said: “This is just about the lowest cost-per-hour form of entertainment available."

The FCC freed from local video rate regulation four cable operators in about 30 municipalities in six states. The Media Bureau granted unopposed effective competition requests from Bright House Networks, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable in areas including Santa Barbara, California, for Cox, and Galax, Virginia, for Comcast. The six effective competition petitions each have “sufficient and reliable evidence to establish that both elements of the competing provider test” for effective comp are met, said a bureau order released Monday (http://bit.ly/TmI2t0). The bureau recently said it changed how it approves such unopposed requests, granting them in batches a few times a year instead of doing so one at a time (CD March 27 p21).

Basic cable service prices increased 6.5 percent for the 12 months ended Jan. 1, 2013, the FCC annual cable programming and equipment survey found. The report was released Friday. Expanded basic cable prices increased by 5.1 percent, and equipment prices for basic and expanded basic services grew by 4.4 percent and 4.2 percent respectively, the report said (http://bit.ly/1mBmOld). Prices were 19.4 percent lower in communities with rival operators and 12.5 percent lower for incumbent operators in communities with at least two cable operators as compared with the average basic price that cable system operators charged in communities that don’t have effective competition, it said. For expanded basic cable, prices were less than 1 percent lower for rival operators, and 4.1 percent higher for incumbent operators in communities with at least two cable operators, it said. For expanded basic service, rivals and incumbents had a lower price per channel at 5.4 percent and 13.5 percent respectively, the report said. “Most equipment prices increased on an annual basis.” As of Jan. 1, 2013, the average equipment price was $7.55 with basic service, $7.70 with expanded basic service and $8.40 “with the next most popular service package,” it said. The bureau directed cable operators to respond to a price survey questionnaire no later than June 30 for the next report. The survey includes questions about an operator’s monthly charge for basic service and expanded service as of Jan. 1, 2013, and Jan. 1, 2014, it said (http://bit.ly/1hRJLeR).

The FCC should reinstate the CableCARD rules vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers and General Counsel Matthew Zinn told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his staff in a meeting Thursday, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1nKkzM4). Comcast has been “particularly cooperative” in making CableCARD work for TiVo, Rogers told Wheeler. TiVo has not yet stated a position on Comcast’s plan to buy Time Warner Cable, Rogers told Wheeler, the filing said. A successor solution to CableCARD needs to be developed, but CableCARD should remain in place in the meantime, said the filing posted Tuesday to docket 97-80.