The FCC should look at a C-band clearing process that includes an incentive payment ladder for incumbents, including earth station operators, to relocate as soon as possible and that allows direct payments from auction winners to those incumbents, Cox Communications said in a docket 18-122 posting Tuesday. It urged a reimbursement regime giving earth station operators funds for both relocated C-band operations and fiber deployment, and affirmation that video delivery will be allowed in the upper 200 MHz of the repacked band. It said the FCC could use either the estimated costs framework used in the broadcast incentive auction for reimbursing, or MVPD earth station operators could get reimbursement via a fixed sum for relocating each individual channel field. The FCC may vote Feb. 28 on such rules (see 2002030061).

The $1 billion copyright infringement jury verdict against Cox Communications (see 1912300025) is "wholly divorced from any possible injury to Plaintiffs ... or any conceivable deterrent purpose" and should be "substantially reduced" or Cox should get a new trial on damages, the cable ISP said in a docket 18-cv-00950 motion (in Pacer). It sought Friday a new trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. Music-label plaintiffs didn't comment Monday.

Charter Communications will offer 5G mobile service this quarter, said CEO Tom Rutledge on a Q4 call Friday. It's "likely to participate" in the upcoming citizens band radio service spectrum auction, he said. Asked whether Charter would ever move to its own wireless network instead of relying at least partly on a mobile virtual network operator, Rutledge said it depends on pricing. He said it has no immediate plans to change its Verizon MVNO relationship, and anticipates it existing "for years to come." Rutledge said 10G investments will be done incrementally over time, and won't require an immediate network overhaul, saying Charter surpassed 10G capabilities in lab testing. Q4 revenue of $11.8 billion rose 4.7 percent year over year. It ended 2019 with 24.9 million residential broadband customers, up 5.4 percent, 15.6 million video customers, down 3 percent, and 9.4 million voice customers, down 6.8 percent. It has 1.08 million mobile lines, compared with 134,000. The stock closed up 5 percent to $517.46.

At year's end, 155,029 CableCARDs were in service, with 20,873 in inventory, NCTA said Wednesday in FCC docket 97-80. It said the average monthly CableCARD lease was $2, and average installation cost $50. The deployments were down slightly from the year-ago quarter.

New Jersey Board of Public Utilities commissioners are preliminarily restrained and enjoined from taking further action to enforce a Nov. 13 cease and desist order against Altice until litigation concludes at U.S. District Court in Newark, said Judge Brian Martinotti in a Wednesday order (in Pacer). “Or until the Court issues an order determining that circumstances render the injunction unnecessary (a) because Altice is no longer subject to effective competition or (b) if Congress repeals or a court invalidates any of the relevant provisions of the Cable Act.” Altice sued BPU for seeking to force the cable company to use pro-rated billing. The company argues that violates the Cable Act, the Constitution’s supremacy clause and New Jersey law.

The FCC should institute a "program carriage statute of limitations" that starts ticking when the program carriage offense allegedly occurs, bringing such rules in line with the time limits the agency puts on related matters like good faith requirements in the retransmission consent context and program access complaints, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly blogged Tuesday. He also urged an automatic stay of an administrative law judge's program carriage complaint initial decision to give the cable operator that loses a chance to appeal the decision to the full commission. O'Rielly recommended axing the requirement cable operators keep records of their attributable interests in video programming services and carriage of those vertically integrated video programming services on their cable systems.

NCTA backs USTelecom recommendations to reduce proposed letter of credit burdens for participants in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, posted Friday in docket 19-126. NCTA opposes USTelecom's request the FCC provide continued noncompetitively bid Connect America Fund support to price cap carriers. "As the Commission correctly states in the draft order, the support was always intended to be limited in duration," the telco group said. USTelecom didn't comment beyond its request.

The number of Americans who say they would consider subscribing to Disney Plus grew 23 points in January vs. the month before the streaming service’s November launch, Morning Consult reported Thursday. Over 2019, just DoorDash registered double-digit growth (14 percent). Most of the purchasing consideration growth came from consumers who said they're “absolutely certain” they will subscribe to Disney Plus, said Morning Consult, rising from 9 to 22 over the four-month period. Its data suggests Disney Plus’ rise hasn’t directly hurt Netflix and Hulu, but “their metrics have stalled in its wake.” Over the four months, Hulu’s trend line remained flat, while Netflix’ stepped up 1 point, said the research/media firm. Netflix attributed slowing Q4 subscriber additions to competitive launches in the U.S. in its latest earnings report (see 2001210061).

Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Margaret McKeown, William Fletcher and Mary Murguia approved Comcast's ask to stay issuance of a mandate in a cable TV pricing lawsuit pending the MVPD's seeking of a Supreme Court petition for writ of certiorari (see 2001220020). That's according to a docket 18-15288 order (in Pacer) Thursday. It said the mandate, on Comcast's efforts to get the litigation handled via arbitration, will remain stayed until final SCOTUS disposition.

Comcast plans a Supreme Court appeal in a legal fight over arbitration provisions, and asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay issuance of a mandate. A motion posted Wednesday (in Pacer, docket 18-15288) said it will ask SCOTUS to look at whether the Federal Arbitration Act pre-empts California's McGill rule, but absent a stay it will litigate rather than arbitrate a subscriber lawsuit over whether it falsely advertised cable TV pricing. Comcast said the district court handling the litigation stayed proceedings pending the 9th Circuit appeal but says it will lift the stay on denial of a petition for rehearing. The 9th Circuit last year rejected Comcast's appeal of a U.S. district court denying the operator's motion to compel arbitration (see 1908120009), and earlier this month rejected Comcast's ask for rehearing en banc. The company said the stay motion is opposed by the plaintiff-appellees. Their counsel didn't comment.