Matt Daneman

Charter Communications will continue in the cable TV business, though its video offerings will go beyond that, CEO Tom Rutledge said at a Morgan Stanley investor conference Tuesday. He said live TV being sold in a linear package will continue "for a significant period," though it's becoming less affordable and streaming products are gaining market traction. He said Charter will sell streaming packages alongside its existing video products. Though TV “is becoming a broadband product,” Charter will have cable TV service “for years," he said. Asked about competition from 5G fixed wireless as that service comes to market, he said 5G "would take an enormous amount of capital" to serve as a substitute for cable broadband and it's "not likely to be deployed rapidly." He said Charter's internet-only customers use around 700 GB monthly, while wireless-only averages around 10-12 GB, so 5G "is not a full replacement for where we're going."

Most broadband subscribers picked up by cable ISPs during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to remain, even without Keep America Connected (KAC) pledge conditions and after people return in bigger numbers to workplaces and schools, experts told us. It's less clear whether a subset of those, brought in by KAC, will stay. Comcast and Charter Communications expect a return to growth like they had pre-pandemic.

Charter Communications ended 2020 with 19,000 more video customers than it had a year earlier, and it expects to do better in its video trends this year than the MVPD industry overall, CEO Tom Rutledge said during an analyst call Friday as the company announced Q4 results. Rutledge said the growth was driven in part by its broadband connectivity growth. He said industry growth will continue to decline "at a moderate pace," while Charter "won't have quite the internet growth … we had in 2020." Charter ended 2020 with 15.6 million residential video subscribers. It also ended the year with 27 million residential broadband subs, up 2.1 million year over year; 9.2 million residential voice subs, down 228,000; and 2.3 million residential mobile subscriptions, up 1.2 million. Rutledge said this year should have a return to pre-pandemic trends in internet subscriber additions, plus a full recovery of the advertising business as the economy also fully rebounds. He said that during Q4, Charter's minimum broadband speed offering of 200 Mbps went from being available in about 60% of its footprint to 75%. Rutledge said the 210 citizens broadband radio service priority access licenses that Charter bought for $465 million will be used on targeted 5G small cells. He said that over the next four to five years, up to a third of Charter's traffic might end up on the CBRS spectrum. The stock closed down 7.2% at $607.56.

Dish Network and SpaceX disagreed about the 12 GHz NPRM on circulation, in RM-11768 ex parte postings Wednesday. Dish representatives told aides to FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington that terrestrial flexible use in the band, coordinated with DBS providers and terrestrial broadband operators, "is readily manageable." It said an NPRM would let the FCC determine means of coexistence between satellite and terrestrial services in the band. It said approval of SpaceX's request for lower orbits for 2,824 planned satellites operating in the 12 GHz band can't come until SpaceX shows how it will satisfy the equivalent power flux density limits that protect DBS from interference. SpaceX told a Simington aide multichannel video and data distribution service licensees' own technical studies show the mobile rights they want in the band can't coexist with incumbent operators. SpaceX allies also opposed the NPRM. Connected Nation said it could hurt investment in low earth orbit satellite broadband, "artificially limiting what could otherwise be a true game changer for rural America." North Carolina State University's Friday Institute for Educational Innovation said it "would hate to see a last minute change in spectrum policy that hinders the nascent LEO technology."

Antitrust experts expect somewhat more stringent enforcement and merger and acquisition reviews under a Joe Biden administration than under the Donald Trump presidency, but not significantly more so, several told us. It's also unlikely a Biden DOJ will veer noticeably far from the Facebook and Google antitrust litigation underway, they said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau is cracking down on what it calls overly broad confidentiality requests that ask for redacted treatment of material that need not be secret, said Bureau Chief Rosemary Harold said at a Federal Communications Bar Association event Friday. She said the bureau started addressing confidentiality requests in an earlier stage of investigations than in the past.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated digital divide issues, and more focus needs to be put on items such as better pedagogy for remote education and the lack of broadband affordability for many, speakers said Thursday at an Axios broadband event. NCTA President Michael Powell said the number of Americans without broadband availability could dramatically decline over the next five to 10 years with proper government support. But economics is also a hindrance, and low-income access efforts like NCTA's K-12 Bridge to Broadband program need to be a higher societal imperative, he said. Beyond connectivity, more work is needed on adapting educational curricula to remote learning and teaching students digital skills, he said. Without such efforts, even with more universal connectivity, "you're still going to get suboptimal results," Powell said. FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said lack of granular data about who has broadband is "frustrating," but it's already well established that 77 million people in the U.S. lack adequate home fixed broadband connections, large numbers of people in urban areas are unconnected, and communities of color are persistently "on the wrong side of the digital divide," with particularly high rates of adults lacking broadband connections. Starks said "help is on the way" in tackling rural access issues, but broadband affordability and digital literacy -- particularly with seniors often not realizing the must-have nature of broadband -- are also key problems. Expand the E-rate program, he said. Plinio Ayala, CEO of IT career training nonprofit Per Scholas, said artificial intelligence will disrupt industries such as hospitality, retail and transportation, and the pandemic accelerated that. He said workforce development programs like his and others need more private and public sector investment. Comcast said Thursday it was giving Per Scholas $1 million to scale its operations. Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of online educational software firm DreamBox, said 15 million U.S. students are falling behind educationally because they lack "persistent, consistent" broadband access. Treat broadband like a utility, with sustained funding for access and devices in schools, she said.

SpaceX's focus in coming months is expanding its consumer footprint in the U.S. and its service into new countries, said Vice President-Starlink and Commercial Sales Jonathan Hofeller in a Euroconsult discussion Tuesday. Canada's Innovation, Science and Economic Development Department approved SpaceX providing service last week. Hofeller said SpaceX also aims to broaden its customer base into government, educational and enterprise. Telesat Senior Vice President-Corporate and Business Development Michael Schwartz said its low earth orbit constellation is being designed to emulate fiber as much as possible, with launches to start in early 2023. He said it anticipates announcing a manufacturer of its LEO satellites later this year. Stewart Sanders, head of the SES/O3b mPower Program, said first launch of SES' mPower constellation will be in less than a year, with service commencing in 2022. Asked about the state of Iridium's 2019 memorandum of understanding with OneWeb for a combined L- and Ku-band service offering, Iridium CEO Matt Desch said he doesn't know where it stands, with OneWeb emerging from bankruptcy. "They're still resetting themselves as a company," he said.

Wireless and satellite critics of AST's planned 243-satelltie non-geostationary orbit constellation to provide mobile broadband connectivity (see 2011040003) "don't know our system," CEO Abel Avellan said in an interview Thursday. He said concerns about lack of proof of interference protections and about spectrum use incompatible with FCC rules "are simply not factual," and the company will respond. The plans for satellite-based connectivity to mobile devices "is revolutionary, [and] when you bring something completely new, people don't understand it," he said. The company is seeking regulatory approvals other than the U.S. and plans to begin putting up its constellation in late 2021, he said.

AST's request for U.S. market access for a 243-satelltie non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) constellation to provide mobile satellite service (see 2004140001) is getting pushback from some satellite operators and wireless providers. In a petition to deny this week with the FCC International Bureau, Hughes/EchoStar said none of the 617-960 MHz or 17110-2200 MHz spectrum AST wants to use is allocated for such use or otherwise available for licensing. They urged dismissal or deferred consideration of AST’s proposed V-band operations until a new processing round. Verizon said providing satellite-based connectivity to smartphones and tablets using terrestrial wireless spectrum would be incompatible with rules, and AST didn't explain how it could do so without interfering with U.S. terrestrial operations. The telco said AST didn't provide enough technical information to assess whether its SpaceMobile satellite network would interfere with wireless networks. It's "of such magnitude that [it] must be addressed via rulemaking before the full Commission," T-Mobile asked. The carrier said AST isn't seeking authority now to use terrestrial mobile spectrum and instead plans to lease terrestrial mobile spectrum, but rules for long-term de facto transfer leases say if the underlying spectrum is only for certain services, those restrictions also apply to the spectrum lessee. CTIA said AST's request lacks any demonstration of how terrestrial mobile operations will be protected. The group said high-band spectrum use that's inconsistent with the table of allocations should be subject to rulemaking. Telesat Canada said AST's petition came well after the deadline for the last V-band processing round, so it's unclear why the petition was accepted: It should be considered if a new processing round is opened, alongside other V-band asks. The company said any AST approval should be conditioned on protecting systems authorized in that initial processing round, like Telesat's. Boeing didn't object to AST OK and seeks first a processing round for V-band NGSO systems. AT&T said AST's technology "is promising," but its petition raises technical issues deserving study, and the requester should provide technical evidence to confirm that coexistence with terrestrial mobile systems is feasible. Rakuten Mobile, an AST investor, said the satellite operator's technology "could significantly improve 4G and 5G availability." AST didn't comment Wednesday.