Dish Network isn't carrying Univision, including on its Sling over-the-top video service, due to a programming blackout involving carriage fees. Univision has been keeping the FCC informed about the blackout, and hasn't sought its intervention, a spokesman for that company told us. The Media Bureau declined to comment, and Dish didn't comment. The showdown, which began affecting Dish's customers Saturday, continued Monday, both sides said. It was an "effort to drastically raise rates," Dish said of the dispute involving Galavisión, Univision and UniMás programming: "Despite ratings for these channels decreasing by approximately 30 percent over the past five years among DISH customers, Univision is demanding rate increases of roughly 75 percent." Dish said it, DishLatino and Sling are giving customers "in eligible areas" free antennas to get such broadcast programming. Dish rejected Univision's offer to extend the contract during renewal talks to avoid losing access, the broadcaster said. The MVPD wants to pay "only a fraction of what it pays our English-language peers," said Univision Executive Vice President-Government and Corporate Affairs Jessica Herrera-Flanigan. Each side said the other has a history of such carriage cutoffs.

Advanced communication service accessibility in videogames “still presents substantial technical challenges,” the Entertainment Software Association reported to the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, released Monday. The industry has created an updated accessibility plug-in for a widely used videogame engine; an alternative input device for those with limited mobility; and is implementing real-time speech-to-text translation and text-to-speech audio game chat, ESA said.

A fiber cut at one of Comcast's backbone network providers led to video, broadband and voice outages, Comcast tweeted Friday. It believes the cut also affected other providers. The cable ISP didn't comment on questions seeking more details. CenturyLink's Level3 tweeted its network was "operating normally." Online outage tracker Outage Report showed widespread Comcast outages Friday afternoon across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic.

Foxconn CEO Terry Gou “has not made a final statement” about whether he will keep his 2017 pledge to keynote this year’s IFA, spokeswoman Nicole von der Ropp emailed us Tuesday. Gou withdrew as an IFA keynoter two weeks before last year’s show, citing Foxconn’s focus on a “global investment project" that strained “the company's strategic management resources” -- in apparent reference to the $10 billion display fab it agreed to build in southeastern Wisconsin (see 1708160025). “We have decided that 2018 will be the ideal time for the previously announced IFA keynote,” Gou said then. Foxconn will break ground on the Wisconsin display fab in a Thursday ceremony at which President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak. IFA “so far” has four keynotes “confirmed” for the 2018 show, of which LG Electronics and Huawei have been announced, said von der Ropp.

A Vault Consulting audit found 182,198 people from 160 countries, including 6,645 media, attended January CES, said CTA Thursday. It was the second straight CES to attract more than 182,000 “as the show expands to represent every major and emerging industry,” said CTA. The January show also had a record 63,784 international attendees, it said.

There's often a political urge to try to use antitrust authority to tackle social and economic ills, but the market "is the most effective regulator," wrote International Center for Law and Economics Executive Director Geoffrey Manne and Nebraska College of Law assistant professor Gus Hurwitz in a Cato Institute paper Tuesday. They said activist antitrust proponents' calls for either restraining big tech firms or mandating more smaller firms goes against decades' worth of experience and learning. They said it would mean dumping "the crown jewel of modern antitrust law -- the consumer welfare standard" and returning to days when inefficient firms were protected from competition. The structure-conduct-performance and the Justice Louis Brandeis views of antitrust favor smaller firms, but years of economic research showed large firms are often good routes for maximized consumer welfare. "It's not unusual for efficient, competitive markets to comprise only a few big, innovative firms," they said. Thus modern antitrust law is "fundamentally agnostic" about a company's size or the extent of market concentration, they said.

Next LED Signs agreed to pay $21,000 and implement a compliance plan to end an investigation of RF violations, the FCC Enforcement Bureau said. The bureau proposed fines against several billboard companies alleging similar violations (see 1805180068). “To settle this matter, Next LED admits that it marketed LED signs without the required equipment authorization, labeling, and user manual disclosures,” the bureau said. The company didn’t comment.

The T-Mobile board ratified the appointment of Mike Sievert as president, as previously announced (see 1804290001) as part of the company’s proposed buy of Sprint, T-Mobile said in a Thursday SEC filing. Sievert retains the title of chief operating officer and former President John Legere remains CEO.

NPD will combine its point-of-sale data with Market Track’s price and promotion product information services, under a new partnership agreement, said the companies Wednesday. The partnership will help “brands, retailers and manufacturers across industries create winning product and channel strategies,” they said.

Alphabet shareholders rejected a proposal the company report more details about lobbying, said the Google parent in an SEC filing Friday. The proposal -- voted on last week at the company's annual meeting -- would have directed Alphabet to prepare an annual report laying out its direct and indirect lobbying efforts, including spending. The proposal was brought by shareholder groups including Walden Asset Management, the Oblate International Pastoral Investment Trust and the Benedictine Sisters of Baltimore, said the company. Similar unsuccessful shareholder proposals were up for shareholder votes this spring at AT&T and Charter Communications (see 1805010015).