The Media Bureau dismissed an application for review of FCC rules on mobile TV devices after the application’s source, Elgato Systems, agreed to withdraw it “due to the passage of time,” said an order of dismissal issued Friday. Elgato filed the application in 2010, the order said.

All nine FCC and FTC commissioners will speak at CES, the Consumer Technology Association said in a Wednesday announcement. All are expected to give “insight into top policy and regulatory issues” on IoT, spectrum allocation, privacy and “disruptive innovation,” CTA said. A Jan. 6 “SuperSession” will feature FTC Chairman Edith Ramirez and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in separate 30-minute interviews with CTA President Gary Shapiro, it said. CES opens Jan. 6 in Las Vegas for a four-day run.

Large cable companies added 790,000 broadband subscribers and wireline telcos lost 140,000 in Q3, Leichtman Research Group said Tuesday in a release. The cable gain was 34 percent higher than in Q3 2014, while the telco loss was a reversal from a 110,000-subscriber gain in the year-ago quarter, said LRG. It said cable companies added 2.3 million subscribers in 2015, while telcos lost 130,000. Cable now has almost 54.3 million subscribers, compared with the telcos’ 35.2 million, a split of 60.6 percent and 39.4 percent of the 89.5 million total, the research firm said. The net gain of 645,000 landline broadband subscribers by the 17 largest cable and telco providers was higher than the 360,000 added in Q2 (see 1508180028), said LRG, which cited the companies' and its own research. Comcast led cable in Q3 with a 320,000 subscriber gain, followed by Time Warner Cable with 246,000 adds, Charter Communications with 147,000, Suddenlink with 21,600, Mediacom with 16,000 and Cablevision with 3,000, while WideOpenWest lost 800 and Cable One lost 171, said LRG. The group estimated Bright House Networks and Cox Communications added 35,000 subscribers between them. On the telco side, Frontier Communications gained 27,000 subscribers, Cincinnati Bell gained 6,200 and Verizon gained 2,000, while AT&T lost 129,000, CenturyLink lost 37,000, Windstream lost 11,200 and FairPoint lost 1,338, LRG said. AT&T and Verizon added a combined 305,000 fiber-based subscribers, but lost a combined 432,000 copper-based DSL subscribers, it said. Among the largest landline providers, Comcast now has 22.87 million broadband subscribers, followed by AT&T's 15.83 million, TWC's 13.02 million, Verizon's 9.22 million, CenturyLink's 6.07 million, Charter's 5.44 million Cablevision's 2.78 million and Frontier's 2.42 million, while BHN and Cox have an estimated 6.68 million between them, the group said. Charter is buying BHN and TWC.

The FCC and the FTC released a memorandum of understanding on their respective roles in protecting consumers in the communications sector. Both agencies posted the MOU on their websites Monday. “The memorandum is designed to formalize the existing cooperation between the agencies, outlining how the FTC and FCC will coordinate consumer protection efforts,” the FTC said in a statement. The agencies said they have had a similar MOU in place on telemarketing enforcement issues since 2003. “The FCC and the FTC will continue to work together to protect consumers from acts and practices that are deceptive, unfair, unjust and/or unreasonable,” the MOU said. They agreed to regular meetings to review current marketplace practices and their observations on the “evolution of communications markets.” The agencies committed to “coordination on agency initiatives where one agency’s action will have a significant effect on the other agency’s authority or programs” and “consultation on investigations or actions that implicate the jurisdiction of the other agency.”

CEA paid the $275 application filing fee Aug. 25 to request that "Consumer Technology Association" and its CTA acronym be granted a registered service mark, Patent and Trademark Office records show. PTO stamped the application “accepted” Aug. 28 and scheduled it for assignment to an examining attorney for late November under customary procedures that take three months, the records show. CEA's executive board approved the name change in August, and it became official when it cleared a voice vote at CEA's annual membership meeting Monday in New York (see 1511100012). The “international class” of service mark being applied for “consists of standard characters, without claim to any particular font, style, size, or color,” says the PTO application (serial number 86736040), which was filed on CEA’s behalf by Wiley Rein partner Christopher Kelly, the records show. The service mark will be used for “organizing and conducting trade shows in the field of electronics/technology and computers and associated products and services and related hardware, software and systems,” but also “lobbying services, namely, promoting the interests of the computer, technology, digital and electronics industry before federal and state legislators,” says a 300-word description accompanying the application. PTO records show the trade group has no plans to retire the CEA service mark (registration number 3448503) anytime soon. CEA filed a “combined declaration of use and incontestability” Dec. 9 to keep the service mark. PTO agreed in a Dec. 30 notice of acceptance and acknowledgment that the CEA service mark will remain in force at least through June 2018, unless withdrawn by CEA or nullified by a federal court.

Azione Unlimited added a vendor exhibition for the first time to its conference schedule, with the next event scheduled for April 15-17 at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa in Chandler, Arizona. The conference schedule includes open discussions, small meeting presentations and guest speakers tailored to CE integrators, said Richard Glikes, Azione president. Dealers will have nine one-on-one meetings with vendors of their choice, said Glikes. Available vendor exhibit space is 14,000 square feet, Glikes said.

The FCC will make it easier for the blind and visually impaired to access video programming on multiple devices, at its Nov. 19 meeting, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a blog post Thursday. Speaking of a second report and order, on reconsideration, and second Further NPRM on accessibility of user interfaces (see 1510290071), Wheeler said the commission's “new rules would require covered manufacturers and [multichannel video programming distributors] to inform consumers about which accessible devices and features are available and how to use them.” The FCC will also “take additional steps to ensure that consumers who are deaf and hard of hearing can more easily activate closed captioning features,” he said.

The Trustworthy Accountability Group announced an industrywide anti-fraud program, Verified by TAG, to “fight digital ad fraud and bring new transparency across the digital ad ecosystem,” a TAG news release said Thursday. Companies can apply to be verified by TAG as a trusted advertising party, it said. Registered companies will receive a TAG-issued identifier they can share with partners and pass with every ad they buy, process, place or run, it said. TAG is also developing a Payment ID system to create a record of who gets paid for every impression, to prevent criminals from receiving ad spend, it said. “The TAG Registry and upcoming Payment ID system will act like a ‘two-factor authentication’ for the digital ad supply chain,” said TAG CEO Mike Zaneis. “Through the TAG Registry, buyers will be able to ensure that they are working with trusted parties at every step of their campaigns, while the Payment ID system will ensure that payments only go to legitimate players, choking off the cash to criminals.” Registration is open, and "it’s time for every company in digital advertising to get TAG’ed,” Zaneis said. TAG’s registration program has been endorsed by the “big five” ad agency holding companies, plus AOL, Google and other major programmatic ad players, the release said.

Klipsch extended its partnership with the Authorized Integrators Network (AiN) buying group, it said Monday. The 3-1/2-year extension covers all of Klipsch’s speaker and headphone lines, including custom and reference series products, said Klipsch.

Industry has nothing to fear from the FCC, despite concerns raised by Google and others that the agency’s new device certification rules would prohibit third-party firmware installation on devices, including Wi-Fi routers, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday during a news conference. The FCC has received numerous comments raising that concern (see 1509300063). “I think that everybody ought to calm down and take a deep breath,” Wheeler said. “What we were doing was putting out a notice talking about the responsibility of Wi-Fi routers not to interfere with other pieces of spectrum, which is important, of course, for their own operation.” The FCC only wanted to “flush out” concerns, he said. “There is no way, shape or form” that it was intended to do the “nefarious” things some fear, Wheeler said.