Jeff Baumgartner

Shoring up the notion that home internet service penetration is plateauing, about 84% of US homes now get that service, up 1% from 2012’s levels, and up from 74% in 2007, Leichtman Research Group found in a new broadband-focused study.

With most results now in, the US pay TV industry lost about 762,000 video subscribers in the first quarter of 2017, a worst-ever result for the period, according to a new report from MoffettNathanson. “For the better part of fifteen years, pundits have predicted that cord-cutting was the future. Well, the future has arrived,” MoffetNathanson’s Craig Moffett declared in his Q1 2017 Cord-Cutting Monitor.

He noted that video losses from Q1 was more than five times as large as last year’s loss of 141,000. “It leaves the Pay TV subscriber universe shrinking at its worst ever annual rate of decline (-2.4%). And it was the worst ever accelerate in the rate of decline (60 bps),” Moffett explained, adding later that the incremental number of cord-cutter and cord-never homes has grown to more than 6.5 million since 2013.

AT&T Fiber, the new brand for an fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) effort previously called AT&T GigaPower, said it has expanded its footprint to parts of 17 more metros. The latest cities to get access include Birmingham (AL), Charleston and Colombia (SC), Chicago (IL), Greensboro (NC), Huntsville and Mobile (AL), Houston (TX), Indianapolis (IN), Kansas City (MO), Little Rock (AR), Los Angeles (Jurupa, Los Angeles and Orange County) (CA), San Diego and Sacramento (CA), Memphis (TN), New Orleans (LA), and St. Louis (MO). In markets such as San Diego and New Orleans, AT&T Fiber is selling a symmetirical 1 Gbps service starting at $80 per month, with a 12-month commitment, rising to $119 per month after that introductory period. AT&T is also pitching TV bundles with DirecTV and U-verse TV.

The nation’s largest cable operators again took the lion’s share of broadband subscriber adds in 2016, according to a new analysis from Leichtman Research Group. The top cable companies added 3.3 million broadband subscribers in 2016, the most net adds in any year since 2007, while the top telecommunication companies lost about 600,000 high-speed Internet customers in 2016, widened from a loss of 185,000 in 2015, LRG said. Cable’s dominance continues to deepen, as the top cable companies netted 122% of broadband adds in 2016, versus 106% in 2015, and 89% in 2014. From a broader view, the top 14 cable and telecommunication providers in the US, representing 95% of the market, added 2.7 million net additional high-speed Internet subs in 2016, down from 3.1 million net adds in 2015, LRG said.

Comcast said it plans to launch a DOCSIS 3.1-based 1-Gig broadband service to residences and businesses in Huntsville (AL) later in 2017, paving the way for a big broadband showdown with AT&T and an expected municipal service offering. Comcast is already selling DOCSIS 3.1 services in Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago and Detroit, and has set plans to introduce D3.1-based offerings in several markets this year, including Denver, San Francisco, and Kansas City, among others. Comcast didn’t announce expected pricing of the 1-Gig service in Huntsville, but, in other markets, it’s been offering it for a base price of $139.95 per month alongside the testing of a promotional price of $70 per month when customers agree to a three-year service contract.

Verizon said it has reached a technical milestone for NG-PON2, a next-gen fiber-to-the-premises platform capable of supporting up to 40 Gbps of capacity, after wrapping up an interoperability lab trial. Verizon, which announced the lab trial initiative last year and tests of NG-PON2 that started in 2015, said Adtran, Broadcom, Cortina Access and Ericsson (in partnership with Calix) participated in the interop trial, which is aligned with the telco’s Open OMCI (ONT Management and Control Interface) specs, which define the OLT-to-ONT interface. Verizon said it will share the results in the next few months. Verizon called the interop a “breakthrough” because it represents a significant step in creating a platform that will enabling the mixing and matching of vendors for various components for NG-PON2, an emerging standard (the ITU-T approved the NG-PON2 specs in 2015) that enables up to 40 Gbps of capacity and symmetrical speeds of up 10 Gbps per customer.

AT&T Fiber said it has introduced 1-Gig broadband service to parts of three more markets – Greenville (SC), Little Rock (AR), and Sacramento (CA). There, AT&T Fiber’s standalone 1-Gig service starts at $90 per month.

Comcast has said time and time again that offering a Over-the-Top-TV service outside its own footprint doesn’t make economic sense, and that it is content, for now, to focus on bumping video sub numbers in-footprint with X1, its next-gen platform. Did Comcast suddenly change its mind? Did the dim economics of a virtual multichannel video programming distributor service brighten overnight? One might wonder, given some headlines circulating today claiming that Comcast is developing its own online TV service that's akin to a DirecTV Now or Sling TV. The apparent confusion about what Comcast is planning, or isn’t planning, stems from an interview with Mike Cavanagh, Comcast’s SVP and CFO, conducted Wednesday at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference. The quote in question: “It’s coming.” And some took that to mean that what was "coming" was a new online TV service from Comcast. But when I looked back at that part of the conversation, the quote seems to be out of context. It wasn’t about a service from Comcast that is coming, but about the OTT competition that Comcast is facing, and will continue to face.

The Federal Communications Commission has cleared EchoStar to import, market and sell the AirTV, a new device seemingly targeted to cord-cutters that will support over-the-air digital TV signals as well as over-the-top content.

The FCC’s opinion and order, released Dec. 1, found that the AirTV, as well as a new USB-based tuner product from Hauppauge, are “capable of adequately receiving all channels allocated by the Commission to the television broadcast service.” Though TV broadcast receivers must be capable of receiving both analog and digital broadcast signals until August 31, 2017, the FCC said a waiver of this rule was in order for the EchoStar AirTV and Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD products because they are in the public interest. Neither EchoStar’s or Hauppauge’s waiver request faced opposition. “As EchoStar and Hauppauge point out, a digital-only device has several advantages over equipment using both analog and digital tuners: the digital-only models involve less design complexity, avoid substantial operating costs that are generally associated with additional hardware and software, and consume less energy,” the FCC noted in the order. “These advantages should result in lower costs, which can be passed on to consumers and also promote a strong, competitive marketplace.”

Altice USA took the wraps off of Economy Internet, a low-cost broadband service for eligible families and seniors in the operator’s Optimum systems covering portions of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. Altice USA is offering the new, cap-free tier, which delivers up to 30 Mbps downstream, for $14.99 per month, plus in-home Wi-Fi via a free “smart router,” access to the operator’s Optimum Wi-Fi network of more than 1.5 million hotspots, and up to three email accounts.

The rollout comes a more than five months after Altice closed its acquisition of Cablevision Systems in June. Tied in, Altice had committed to introduce the low income broadband option throughout the Cablevision service territory. That commitment is referenced in the Federal Communications Commission order allowing the deal, and, in June, the New York State Public Service Commission approved the agreement with conditions that included a pledge that included the low-cost broadband option.