Matt Daneman

Some Charter Communications new product rollouts backburnered in 2016 and 2017 by the Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks integration will happen this year, CEO Tom Rutledge said during a Q4 earnings call Friday. They include broader distribution of its WorldBox set-top, of which 2 million have been deployed, and adding volumes of HD titles to its VOD service, he said. By year's end, its cloud-based Spectrum Guide will be available to almost all new customers, and 1 GB speeds using DOCSIS 3.1 will be available to almost the entire Charter footprint, he said. Rutledge said 30 percent of the legacy TWC and 60 percent of the legacy BHN footprints remain analog but will be digital by year's end. Rutledge said most of the integration is complete. Regarding the mobile service the cable provider plans to launch mid year using the Verizon mobile virtual network operator platform, Rutledge said there's no decision on pricing. He said Charter has been experimenting with licensed and unlicensed spectrum that potentially could become "licensable" alongside Wi-Fi. He said the company may want to bundle licensed spectrum with Wi-Fi spectrum for a broad mobile and in-home platform, though that's not a goal for this year. The ISP said 2017 revenue was $41.6 billion, up 3.9 percent pro forma. It ended 2017 with 16.5 million residential video customers, down 292,000 from a year earlier; 22.5 million residential Internet customers, up nearly 1.2 million; and 10.4 million residential voice customers, up 100,000. Charter stock closed up 4.4 percent Friday at $387.50. Citing federal tax changes and the FCC Communications Act Title II net neutrality rule rollback, Charter blogged it's setting its minimum wage at $15 an hour over the next year. It said most Charter workers are call center representatives, field technicians and Spectrum store workers. The company didn't say how many workers currently make less than $15 an hour. It said the tax changes and rollback also reinforce its plans for a $25 billion broadband network buildout by 2020.

Two former deputy assistant attorneys general for economic analysis at DOJ's Antitrust Division will be lead economics expert witnesses, on opposing sides, for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia trial on the agency's attempt to block AT&T buying Time Warner. DOJ counsel Craig Conrath told U.S. District Judge Richard Leon Friday during a biweekly status hearing on the impending trial that University of California, Berkeley economics professor Carl Shapiro will be lead economics expert witness for DOJ. Conrath said Justice potentially had two other expert witnesses to testify about regulatory issues. AT&T outside counsel Daniel Petrocelli of O'Melveny said the lead economics expert for the defense will be University of Chicago economics professor Dennis Carlton, and it has potentially three other expert witnesses to discuss advertising, media and entertainment and business efficiency issues. Petrocelli said there's a cap of 30 fact witnesses each for the two sides, but it's unlikely either side will call more than half that. Leon urged the two sides to give him a heads up about potential conflicts over evidence admissibility, so as to avoid numerous or protracted objections that could make the trial disjointed or delay a final ruling. The trial -- expected to run two to three weeks -- is to start March 19 (see 1712070067).

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday largely upholding a finding that Cox Communications was liable for willful contributory copyright infringement by ISP subscribers left unanswered questions about Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor issues, experts told us. The lower court and appellate rulings give some guidance on issues like what constitutes repeat infringement, though not as much as many hoped, said IP lawyer Rick Sanders of Aaron Sanders. About the only thing clear for ISPs is to make sure they follow their policies -- something Cox was blasted for not doing, said Public Knowledge Senior Counsel John Bergmayer.

Troubling online speech, from Russian political bots to hate speech, is a problem, said speakers at a Future Tense event Tuesday, but there was no consensus about what regulatory or tech company policy fixes would work best. "It's hard," said former White House technology and policy adviser Dipayan Ghosh, saying algorithms to take down problematic speech raise technological constraint and free speech red flags.

Cord cutting, declining cable-TV subscribership and consumers using DVRs to skip commercials are "a triple threat" leading to cost cutting at cable networks trickling down to production companies, said John Ford, general manager of nonfiction video content trade group Npact, Monday at the Realscreen Summit. Ford said series, when renewed, often see budget cuts not bumps, while contending with pushes for smaller casts and shorter editing times.

The odds of the Supreme Court taking up the complaint by Dish Network designated entities (DE) SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless about the handling of the AWS-3 auction bidding credits aren't clear, experts and interested parties told us. The DEs filed a petition Friday with the Supreme Court for writ of certiorari appealing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's August ruling that upheld the FCC withholding AWS-3 auction bidding credits due to their too-close connections to Dish (see 1708290012). The FCC didn't comment Monday.

DOJ's seeming doubling down on its presumption against behavioral remedies in antitrust consent decrees reinforces the idea settlement of its lawsuit to block AT&T's buy of Time Warner could be remote, experts said. Justice wouldn't be going to court on AT&T/TW if it thought a behavioral remedy could restore the competition lost by the deal, said American Antitrust Institute President Diana Moss. The odds of a settlement have been hazy (see 1801050010). DOJ and AT&T didn't comment.

After “a strange” 2017 for broadcaster mergers and acquisitions, with pent-up demand leading to a burst of activity after the incentive auction was done, that pace looks to continue this year, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast lawyer Howard Liberman in a Digital Policy Institute webinar Thursday. He said small and mid-sized telecommunications company transactions, meanwhile, haven't been nearly as active, perhaps because of regulatory uncertainty under the Trump administration. Liberman said the ATSC 3.0 standard's rollout among broadcasters will likely come over the next two to three years. He said for viewers, it will mean more robust signals in a mobile environment as well as more enhanced features like better audio and multi-camera choices. Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner said the FCC's Title II rollback will likely lead to congressional action that brings back net neutrality rules that aren't "encumbered by heavy Title II regulations." Conversely, privacy rules are "in a holding pattern," though there's broad consensus on the need for "stronger and better" privacy rules. Consumer Policy Solutions President Debra Berlyn said it's a benefit to consumers that privacy rules are back before the FTC, where protections will be universal instead of limited by industries. "We don't want a patchwork of protections," she said. Entner said a key need for 5G implementation is more spectrum, and that, while the FCC is looking at 28, 39 and 60 GHz bands, more also needs to be freed up in the lower bands. The agency also needs work toward standardized rules to help with siting of new cell sites and acceleration of how quickly sites can be made operational, Entner said. He said consumers will be inundated with 5G marketing and messaging this year, with the first implementations coming by year’s end. He said consumer confusion will be inevitable because of the varied applications of 5G.

Comcast's mobile service, Xfinity Mobile, ended 2017 with more than 380,000 subscribers signed up in its first seven months, 187,000 alone in Q4, executives said on an earnings call Wednesday. Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said the company is about to start packaging Xfinity Mobile with other offerings, such as broadband. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke said virtual MVPDs remain niche areas for NBCU: "We're talking about tenths of a percentage point." Burke said Google and Facebook dominate the growing digital ad sphere, but TV advertising "is roughly flat." He said Comcast's goal is more targetable TV ads, which accounts for the company's investments in BuzzFeed, Snap and Vox. Asked about deal prospects, company CEO Brian Roberts said there's "nothing we feel we have to acquire." Comcast said Q4 revenue rose 4.2 percent to $21.9 billion. It finished 2017 with 21.3 million residential video customers, down 185,000 year over year; 23.9 residential broadband customers, up 1 million; and 10.3 million residential voice customers, down 230,000.

With streaming video piracy booming, content companies and allies are continuing a legal assault against pirate services, and some see the number of allies growing to potentially include other parts of the legitimate video streaming ecosystem. The MPAA said it's seeing some preliminary signs the content company litigation strategy is bearing fruit. However, that legal strategy also faces unique challenges compared with past video piracy fights, experts say.