The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology signed off on Altice USA plans for a variety of both indoor and outdoor wireless citizens broadband radio service product trials in the 3.5 GHz band in anticipation of a planned mobile service to rollout in 2019. In applications for special temporary authority, approved last month, last week and Tuesday (see here, here and here), Altice said it plans testing for six months in the 3650-3700 MHz band in two sections of Long Island, New York, and in the 3550-3700 MHz band in Arkansas. CEO Dexter Goei, in an earnings call with analysts this month, said the CBRS testing "may be a good complementary capacity" to its own WiFi network and MVNO partner Sprint's network, as Altice remains on track to launch a mobile service in 2019. The company didn't comment Tuesday.

Cable and leased programming access interests remain at odds and with very different views of the video distribution market, according to FCC docket 07-42 reply comments that were due Monday in response to a Further NPRM on a leased access rules update that includes rescinding a 2008 order that never took effect (see Notebook section 1806070021). None of the reasons Congress mandated a set-aside of channels for leasing by programmers unable otherwise to secure a spot on a cable system’s channel lineup still exist 34 years later, NCTA said, saying leased access advocates are ignoring "seismic shifts." It opposed any new leased access rules and said the agency should eliminate requirements on cable system operators. The American Cable Association backs NCTA's call for revisiting the rules on part-time leased access programming and said the FCC should vacate altogether the 2008 leased access order. Charter Communicators also opposed additional leased access requirements. Leased Access Programmers Association (LAPA) President Charlie Stogner said there's no good reason not to institute the 2008 order and said cable arguments about the difficulty dealing with part-time leased access run contrary to the fact, and ad inserts pose the same challenges. LAPA Vice President Duane Polich said the issues that spawned the 2008 order "remain true today," with barriers thrown up by cable operators the reason leased access use by video programmers dwindled. He said despite cable arguments alternative distribution routes are available to such programmers, "the internet is not cable" given the robustness and viewing ease of cable. Citing changed competitive dynamics, the George Mason University Technology Policy Program said the leased access rules "are likely no longer constitutional" because cable no longer has "bottleneck monopoly power" over TV content.

DirecTV and Dish services lost more subscribers (478,000) in Q2 than in any previous quarter, and the top six cable companies lost about 276,000 video subscribers vs. a loss of about 190,000 subscribers in Q2 2017, Leichtman Research Group reported Monday. Top phone providers’ video subscriber deficit narrowed to about 45,000 vs. a loss of 270,000, for the fewest net losses for telcos since Q3 2015, said LRG. AT&T U-verse had its first net video additions, 23,000, since Q1 2015. Though the largest pay-TV providers in the U.S., with 95 percent of the market, lost about 415,000 net video subscribers in Q2, the number was “the fewest net losses in the traditionally weak second quarter since 2014,” said analyst Bruce Leichtman, comparing it to a pro forma loss of about 660,000 in Q2 2017. DirecTV and Sling TV added about 383,000 subscribers in Q2, up from 270,000 net adds in the prior-year quarter, for a total of 4.2 million subscribers, helping to offset overall pay-TV losses as consumers opt for less expensive services and providers change strategies. Of the top pay-TV providers’ 91.3 million subscribers, the top six cable companies have about 47.4 million, 30.6 million are satellite-TV customers, phone companies have 9.1 million and top internet-delivered pay-TV services have 4.2 million subscribers, said LRG.

A third of U.S. broadband households feel online video services are “poor protectors of their data” compared with pay-TV providers, said a Wednesday Parks Associates report. “While traditional companies in the pay-TV marketplace use data in all of their decisions, new companies in the entertainment ecosystem such as Google take data use to the next level," said Parks analyst Brett Sappington. Companies built in the age of big data “iterate their services, software, user experiences, and content investment decisions much more quickly than traditional players,” but traditional pay-TV players have the advantage of consumer trust, Sappington said. Roughly a fifth of U.S. broadband households are “highly sensitive” to collection and use of information about themselves and their activities, said the report. Parks recommends pay-TV providers and cable networks continue to gain data-oriented expertise and integrate data-centric features into their offerings that are “transparent to consumers" about data being gathered while offering subscribers incentives for data collection. Among other findings: 42 percent of U.S. broadband households would have more confidence in sharing data if they could access a website or app that shows what data is being collected; 40 percent of households strongly believe it’s impossible to keep data private from companies whose products they use; and more than half of consumers don’t believe they get much in return for sharing data. Parks projects the North American pay-TV market will shrink to 73 percent market penetration by the end of 2023 vs. 79 percent this year.

A lower court denial of Comcast's motion to compel arbitration of subscriber claims it fails to properly disclose the true pricing of cable packages was correct since the subscriber agreement terms "indisputably" violate California's McGill rule, said a docket 18-15288 appellees' brief (in Pacer) filed Wednesday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The McGill rule makes void contracts that deny consumers their non-waivable rights to pursue claims for public injunctive relief, appellees Charles Tillage and Joseph Loomis said. They said the lower court also correctly rejected Comcast’s argument that the McGill rule is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) since every other court that has considered the issue has done likewise. Comcast's appeal said (in Pacer) the Supreme Court has been clear the FAA mandates enforcement of arbitration agreements and can't be contravened by state laws that disfavor or discourage arbitration. It said McGill "disproportionately invalidates" arbitration agreements, upending the purpose of the FAA.

BeIN Sports hasn't shown its sports programming properties are similarly situated to Comcast-affiliated NBC Sports Network and Universo, the FCC Media Bureau said in Friday's Daily Digest, dismissing beIN's carriage discrimination complaint (see 1803160069) against Comcast. The bureau said term sheets that beIN and Comcast exchanged before the complaint "show significant uncertainty" about what programming beIN Sports would provide. BeIN outside counsel didn't comment Friday.

Consolidated Communications is the first ISP to add virtual MVPD Philo, the telco said Wednesday.

Though most U.S. consumers continue to view video content in a “variety” of physical and digital formats, more use only subscription VOD services, said NPD Tuesday. It estimates 17 percent relied solely on SVOD services to view video content in the 12 months ending in March, up six points from 2017. Twenty-four percent rely only on “transactional methods,” renting and buying videos on physical discs or in digital formats, and 32 percent use a “combination of transactional and subscription video,” it said. Among SVOD consumers, 40 percent subscribe to one service, 37 percent to two, and 24 percent to three-plus.

Charter Communications rolled out a Wi-Fi router with 802.11ax and said it's the first U.S. ISP to introduce the wireless standard. It's working on a converged wireless router for 2019 to use licensed spectrum and several IoT radio technologies, facilitating adoption of IoT applications. The cable operator said the routers will get Wi-Fi resource management capability for easier setup.

The cable industry could be facing an "explosive" drop in customers, given apparently huge pent-up demand for escaping the cable bundle, CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson blogged Wednesday. He said the smaller percentage of new cable customers that new fiber networks are getting in recent years seems to point to those new customers using the opportunity to change providers as an opportunity to drop cable. He said 5G could be particularly attractive as a broadband offering if it offers good speeds and subscribers aren't forced by bundling to take cable TV.