As my colleague, Mike Farrell, noted, the collapse of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal carried a human toll for those who were poised to take on roles at GreatLand Connections, the would be MSO spin-off.

Although it’s all moot now, there was also a technology piece woven in there. It turns out that Charter Communications, which was to own 33% of the GreatLand, had some big plans underway for the cable operator formerly known as “SpinCo.”

Some of those plans factored in the use of Charter’s Spectrum brand and other elements that would essentially make GreatLand look like Charter Jr.

According to a memo from Charter CEO Tom Rutledge distributed to Charter VPs on April 10, 2015 to provide some “high-level strategies” tied to the transactions, which all hinged on the  Comcast/TWC deal, here are three results Charter was preparing for:

-GreatLand was to take on the Spectrum brand, “and change their market-facing name to Spectrum as they increasingly utilize the Charter product, pricing and packaging concepts.”

-GreatLand wouldn’t own any call centers at the proposed closing, but Charter would handle that, too, via a plan to purchase some call centers from Comcast to provide inbound and outbound calling and call answering for GreatLand under a services agreement.

-Charter’s service agreement was to last three years, during which the operator would provide a range of services to GreatLand “in substantially the same manner that these services are provided to Charter’s own systems.”

The dream of GreatLand Connections died when the Comcast/TWC deal was scuttled, but remnants of the MSO-that-never-was still live on (at least at the time of this writing) on Facebook (15 "likes" at last check), at LinkedIn (740 followers), and in this trademark database. 

T-Mobile CEO John Legere believes further consolidation of the mobile industry is a foregone conclusion, but also views the cable industry as a potential partner to the mobile carrier.

“It’s not a matter of if, it’s when,” the exec said Tuesday during the company’s first quarter earnings call, when asked by MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett to weigh on the general benefits of consolidation.  "I still reiterate that in five years, we will think it comical that we thought about the industry structure as the four major wireless carriers."

Legere was also asked to reflect on the recent scuttling of the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger and how that alters his view on the feasibility of more consolidation of the wireless industry.  The question came up as speculation swirls about what Comcast might do next, and whether the MSO might try to make a business connection with T-Mobile.

"I think you need to think about the cable industry and players like us as not competitors but potential partners and alternatives for each other in the future," Legere said, acknowledging that cable has had interest in WiFi/cellular integrations. 

Last year, Sprint scrapped its $32 billion attempt to tie the knot with T-Mobile after determining that the regulatory hurdles were too high.

Comcast’s decision to walk away from its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable could reignite Comcast’s interest in licensing its X1 platform to other cable operators and multichannel video programming distributors.

Comcast has talked about plans to license X1 to other operators, but those conversations appeared to quiet down significantly after Comcast and Time Warner Cable announced their merger agreement about fourteen months ago.

If that deal went through, it was expected that all of the TWC systems that were to stay with Comcast would eventually migrate to X1, enabling Comcast to drive further scale of its IP-capable, cloud-based video platform and the boxes that power it.

Instead, Comcast will have to pursue other ways to expand the reach of X1 beyond its own footprint and recoup some of the investments it has made in creating the platform. Time Warner Cable is a backer of the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software stack that’s present in Comcast’s X1 boxes, but TWC has also been developing its own cloud-based interface for its RDK implementation.

Cox Communications is the only operator to acknowledge publicly that it is considering X1 as it looks at a variety of paths for its ongoing next-generation “future-state” video project.

Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Cox, said in an interview last week (more of the discussion with Hart will be featured in the May 5 issue of Multichannel News) that the MSO has completed a successful technical lab trial with X1. A Cox spokesman said the next step will be X1 testing with Cox employees.

“We've also made very good progress from the technical trial [with X1] and have the platform up and working properly, so that has great promise,” Hart said. “We're also looking at two or three other platforms with some other providers in the industry.”

According to the New York Post, the Federal Communications Commission wanted Comcast to drop NBCUniversal or its X1 pursuits in order to win approval of the TWC deal.

Comcast, though, is heavily invested in X1, and has been eager to accelerate deployment of the platform as it rolls out enhancements and new features on a regular basis. Last week, for example, Comcast introduced a version of the Xfinity TV app for the X1 service that runs on the new Apple Watch.

On the deployment end, Comcast has begun to lower the “upgrade fee” for X1 in markets such as Philadelphia, Jersey and Connecticut. Depending on the area, the original upgrade fee for X1 has been in the range of $49.99 to $99, but has recently been seen as low as $19.99. Lowering those fees would reduce some of the financial friction as Comcast looks to more rapidly migrate Comcast subs from its legacy video platform to X1.

Comcast has not  announced how many of its 22.38 million video customers are on X1, but did say in October  2014 that it had deployed more than 5 million boxes, and, before that, indicated that it is shipping about 20,000 X1 boxes per day. Based on that rate, Comcast should now have about 9 million X1 boxes deployed. 

Democratic senators who don't like the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger reminded the FCC of that fact in advance of a planned meeting on Wednesday between Justice Department officials and the companies.

The senators were buoyed by reports that Justice was leaning against approving the deal.

Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent letters to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and the Justice Department saying the deal would give the combined companies too much market power and the public fewer choices.

Read more at Broadcastingcable.com.

Charter Communications started the cable consolidation wave a little early, agreeing to buy Bright House Networks in a deal valued at about $10.4 billion.

News of the deal comes a few weeks after speculation that the two were talking about a deal first surfaced. By agreeing to buy Bright House, which has about 2 million customers in Florida, California, Alabama, Indiana and Michigan, Charter removed the cloud surrounding the Advance-Newhouse owned cable company after its partner, Time Warner Cable, is acquired by Comcast. Bright House buys its programming under the same deals as TWC. There was some doubt as to whether that agreement would continue after the Comcast deal is closed.

The agreement, which will take place after Comcast completes its $67 billion TWC acquisition, also is a signal that the parties are confident a transaction will be consummated. Analysts had lowered the odds that the deal would receive Federal Communications Commission approval to about 50-50 after consumer groups and regulators blasted the deal.

The business will be conducted through a partnership (the "Partnership") of which Charter will own 73.7%, and of which Advance/Newhouse will own 26.3%. The consideration to be paid to Advance/Newhouse by New Charter will include common and convertible preferred units in the Partnership, in addition to $2 billion in cash. The partnership units owned by Advance/Newhouse will be exchangeable for common shares of New Charter. The deal is subject to several conditions, including Charter shareholder approval, the expiration of Time Warner Cable's right of first offer for Bright House, the close of Charter's previously-announced transactions with Comcast and regulatory approval.

"Bright House Networks provides Charter with important operating, financial and tax benefits, as well as strategic flexibility," said Charter CEO Tom Rutledge In a statement. "Bright House has built outstanding cable systems in attractive markets that are either complete, or contiguous with the New Charter footprint. This acquisition enhances our scale, and solidifies New Charter as the second largest cable operator in the US. I look forward to working with the Bright House team, whom we have known for years, in delivering great products and services to grow our market share."

Steven Miron, Chief Executive Officer of Bright House Networks added, "We are excited about our transaction with Charter. At Bright House Networks, we are very proud of what we have achieved - from the quality of our infrastructure to the level of service our employees provide to customers every day. We share the same vision for the future of our business as Tom and the Charter leadership team, which is to gain market share by offering customers competitive products and excellent service at a tremendous value. Also, our family has known and worked with Tom Rutledge for more than 20 years. Tom managed cable systems that were part of our partnership with Time Warner Cable prior to the formation of Bright House Networks. We think the combination with Charter gives our employees, our customers and Advance/Newhouse the strongest prospects for the future."

Liberty Broadband, which owns about 27% of Charter stock, has agreed to purchase, upon closing of the Bright House transaction, $700 million of newly issued New Charter shares at the Reference Price. On an as-converted basis of its exchangeable partnership units, and including the impact of both the issuance of shares to acquire 33% of GreatLand Connections Inc. and Liberty Broadband's purchase of new shares, Advance/Newhouse is expected to own 26.3% of New Charter's outstanding common shares, and it is expected that Liberty Broadband's equity ownership will represent 19.4% of New Charter's outstanding common shares.

In connection with the transaction, Advance/Newhouse has agreed to grant Liberty Broadband a voting proxy on its shares, capped at 6%, for the five years following the close of the transaction, such that Liberty Broadband would have total voting power of an anticipated 25.01% at closing. The proxy excludes votes on certain matters.

At the close of the transaction, New Charter's Board of Directors will consist of 13 directors, including three directors designated by Advance/Newhouse and three directors designated by Liberty Broadband.

Goldman Sachs and LionTree Advisors are serving as financial advisors to Charter in connection with this transaction. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is acting as counsel to Charter and Kirkland & Ellis LLP is advising Charter on financing.

UBS Investment Bank is serving as exclusive financial advisor to Advance/Newhouse Partnership and Bright House Networks LLC, and Sabin, Bermant & Gould LLP and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP are acting as legal advisors.

"We're never fans of cable consolidation, and today's acquisition would change the provider for millions of people, but this deal on its own wouldn’t raise too many concerns," said Free Press policy director Matt Wood on news of the planned meld. But the Charter/Bright House deal is contingent on Comcast/TWC getting approved, and that should not happen, says Wood, whose group has been pushing back hard on that deal.

"[I]n conjunction with the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal, and with the resulting spin-off from that previously announced merger of the new company jointly controlled by Comcast and Charter, this all does raise concerns about the national market power held by the shrinking number of large cable operators and broadband providers. That's why the FCC and the antitrust authorities need to deny disastrous mega-mergers like Comcast-Time Warner Cable first and foremost."

John Eggerton contributed to this report

Comcast said Tuesday that it has struck an agreement with vice chairman and chief financial officer Michael Angelakis to form a new, strategic company that will focus on investing in and operating growth-oriented companies, both domestically and internationally.

Angelakis will serve as CEO of the new company, “with a mandate and the resources to pursue new areas of growth and diversification for Comcast,” the company said.

The new company will have total capital commitments of up to $4.1 billion, of which $4.0 billion will be invested by Comcast, at least $40 million will be invested personally by Mr. Angelakis, with the remainder coming from other senior members of the new company’s management team. This new company will have an exclusive, 10-year partnership with Comcast as sole outside investor.

Comcast said it will immediately start a search for a successor CFO. Once a new CFO is hired, Angelakis will serve as a senior advisor to Comcast, and will assist with the transition to the new CFO and begin the integration process for the proposed merger with Time Warner Cable and related transactions.

“This is a time of tremendous change and opportunity in our core technology and media industries, as well as in adjacent business areas,” Brian Roberts, Comcast’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement “We believe the ability to establish entrepreneurial ventures that partner with and participate in the growth of innovative companies can be an important driver of strategic and financial value creation for our company.

“As Comcast approaches the completion of the Time Warner Cable merger and related transactions, and the integration plans are well advanced, Michael is ready and excited to turn his attention to the next phase of his career and relationship with Comcast,” Roberts added.

“As we enter the final phase of the Time Warner Cable transaction, this is a great time to begin a transition and I am excited to start this new, entrepreneurial company,” Angelakis said, in a statement. “Our industry is dynamic and I am very excited and optimistic about the many opportunities available to Comcast. Comcast is a remarkably well-positioned company and it has been an honor to serve as the Company's Vice Chairman and CFO. I look forward to closing the Time Warner Cable and related transactions and commencing the integration process. As part of our new company, I am very pleased to continue the partnership with my current colleagues and to contribute to Comcast’s future growth and success." 

Angelakis is also the Deputy Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and is a Trustee of Babson College. Before joining Comcast, he was a managing director and member of the Investment and Management Committees at Providence Equity Partners. Before that, Angelakis was president and  CEO of State Cable TV Corporation and Aurora Telecommunications.

WASHINGTON — Comcast may yet get to buy Time Warner Cable.

Various Wall Street analysts have lowered the odds that No. 1 U.S. MSO Comcast’s purchase of No. 2 TWC will be consummated, but they’re still arguing that the $69 billion deal has a better-than-even chance of getting past the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC’s decision to apply phone company-style Title II common-carrier regulations to broadband Internet-service providers could be a plus for the deal, though opponents last week were trying to make sure that decision did not provide any momentum.

Comcast faces a dual vetting challenge. The FCC and Justice Department are looking at the combination’s traditional cable- TV subscribers, though Comcast is spinning off systems to Charter Communications and the newly created GreatLand Connections to keep that tally below 30% of the national pay TV customer count.

As of year-end 2014, Comcast counted some 22.4 million video customers, while Time Warner Cable had 10.8 million pay TV subscribers. After the merger and the system swaps are done, the post-deal Comcast would have just under 30 million subscribers.

FOCUS ON BROADBAND

But likely even more important to an FCC focused on broadband and the power of ISPs over the Internet is the combined company’s share of the high-speed data market.

The FCC plans to change its statutory definition of what constitutes advanced telecommunications deployment, in terms of broadband speed, to a minimum of 25 Megabits per second downstream. This could penalize Comcast and Time Warner Cable for providing that high-speed service, as the companies would have a greater share of those subscribers than they did under the prior 4 Mbps benchmark.

But that might be a miscalculation, said Bernstein Research senior analyst Paul de Sa. While reducing the size of the high-speed market would increase the combined company’s share, de Sa said, it also means that Comcast-TWC would control fewer high-speed households.

“Comcast has a higher share of a smaller number of subscribers, reducing anticompetitive concerns,” de Sa said in a note to investors two weeks ago.

“While the FCC recently set a new number as an aspiration for advanced broadband (a number which over 90% of Comcast customers are already receiving), they’ve set different thresholds for different proceedings,” Comcast executive vice president David Cohen told Multichannel News in an email. “The market for broadband is local, not national, and that’s the way the FCC and the DOJ have looked at it in past transactions.

“Even if taken it as a national market, because TWC has so many fewer customers on higher speeds than we do, the percentage increase when the companies combine increases only 1%,” Cohen added.

Analyst Craig Moffett, who had laid the odds at 80-20 in favor of approval as recently as January, was down to 70-30 last month and now has deal approval at 60-40. That was partly due to the FCC’s decision to redefine high-speed Internet service at 25 Mbps, which he called “emblematic of a relatively anti-cable zeitgeist in Washington.”

Wheeler has singled out ISPs as the potential blocking and degrading link in the Internet chain, with the incentive and opportunity to discriminate against both consumers and edge providers.

The FCC could approve the Comcast-TWC deal with conditions that assured that its new Title II regulations would apply to the largest ISP regardless of whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit might throw them out again.

In addition, as part of the proposed Title II regime, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has proposed creating a new complaint regime for interconnection issues, such as over-the-top video provider Netflix’s longstanding complaint about having to pay for peering.

That regime could make the FCC more comfortable with allowing a Comcast-TWC combination, particularly given the aggressive stance assumed by Enforcement Bureau chief Travis LeBlanc, who would investigate those interconnection complaints.

TITLE II BOOST?

Bernstein’s de Sa said he sees Title II as a slightly net positive for the deal.

“[T]he new rules provide a basic framework for preventing discrimination by broadband providers against internet content,” he told clients. “In principle, therefore, if the rules work, post-merger Comcast will not be able to exploit the market power that opponents of the deal are concerned about.”

Whichever, Comcast’s Cohen suggests he hopes the Title II decision means the FCC can get moving on the deal.

“Now that the FCC has put in place industry wide rules on the Open Internet — which we’ll evaluate when we see the order — we expect they’ll turn to the pending transaction reviews, both ours and AT&TDirecTV,” Cohen said. “We continue to hope for regulatory approvals early this year.”

Not so fast said the Stop Mega Comcast Coalition, which last week circulated a white paper, “Net Neutrality Rules Are No Cure for Mega-Comcast.”

Comcast last month exercised an option to extend the deal’s breakup date to August.

Influential media analyst Craig Moffett, principal and senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, lowered his ratings on three top cable distribution stocks (Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter) to ‘neutral’ on Tuesday, citing the threat of price regulation tied to Title II reclassification of broadband and the increased possibility that regulators reject the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger as hurdles that are too big to ignore.

Moffett has warned about the looming threat of pricing regulation with Title II for months, and though the stocks have stayed stable, perhaps in the thought that a Republican Congress will tamp down any pricing strictures, Moffett is not convinced.

“It would be naïve to suggest that the implication of Title II, particularly when viewed in the context of the FCC’s repeated findings that the broadband market is non-competitive, doesn’t introduce a real risk of price regulation,” Moffett wrote. “Not tomorrow, of course, so yes, near term numbers won’t change. But terminal growth rate assumptions need to be lowered. Multiples will have to come down.”

Moffett, who in the past gave the Comcast-TWC deal a 70-30 chance of winning approval, dropped those odds to 60-40 on Tuesday, citing increasingly negative sentiment in the press and federal moves to raise the minimum speed classification for broadband to 25 Megabits per second.

“Mostly, however, our downgrade is simply a matter of a sector that has priced in a awful lot of good news and very little bad,” Moffett wrote. “After a strong rally in the face of mounting headwinds, Comcast is now just 1% below our target prices, and Charter just 11%. We believe it is time to reduce exposure.”

Removing broadband pricing flexibility also could exacerbate other factors that are weighing on the indstry, he added.

"Worsening viewership and advertising trends are driving programmers to break ranks both with each other and with their legacy distributors," Moffett wrote. "In the past, changes to broadband pricing would have been the natural remedy. That avenue may be no longer open."

The stocks reacted tepidly to the downgrade, with Comcast closing at $58.80, down about 1.1% (67 cents each). Charter finished Feb. 17 down 0.8% ($1.43) to $176.45 and Time Warner Cable fell 1,4% ($2.06) to $147.68 each.

In a series of moves that expands its product and strategy team, Charter Communications said it has hired three executives and promoted a fourth.

-Jason Wyrick has come on board as vice president, application development, where he will head up user experience development for all Charter's products. Wyrick joins Charter following ten years with Starz, where he most recently led the premium programmer’s digital platforms team.

-Justin Colwell has been named VP, wireless products, responsible for the MSO’s wireless strategy, including residential and public WiFi. Colwell most recently was VP, access network technologies at CableLabs’ Network Technology Department, and, before that, was part of Cricket’s national RF engineering team. Colwell is also late of AT&T/Cingular and USWest/QWEST Wireless.

-Basil Badawiyeh has been named senior director, media products and will be responsible for the media roadmap, product management and delivery of Charter’s advertising product suites. Badawiyeh most recently served as VP of product for multiscreen advertising at RGB Networks (recently sold to Imagine Communications), and has previously been with mediaNext Labs, Technicolor, Arris Group, and Adelphia Communications.

-Peter Brown has been promoted to VP, user experience and design, where he’ll head up development of consistent, state-of-the-art user experiences for Charter’s customer-facing products. He joined Charter in 2012 as director, user experience.

Wyrick and Brown will both report to Jodi Robinson, the former Starz exec who recently joined Charter as SVP, user experience design and development; Badawiyeh will report to Gary Schanman, SVP, video products; and Colwell will report to Carl Leuschner, VP, Internet/phone products.

Charter is expanding that segment of the company nearly a year after it agreed to a series of transactions related to the pending Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger that will increase Charter’s footprint and make it the second largest U.S. cable operator.

“We are thrilled to welcome these new leaders to our product and strategy team,” Rich DiGeronimo, Charter’s EVP, product and strategy, said in a statement. “Each brings valuable experience and a skill set that will be instrumental to Charter as we continue the design, development and deployment of innovative products that redefine the customer experience.”

Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey, the Democrat and Republican, respectively, representing Comcast's home state of Pennsylvania, have written the FCC asking it to approve the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal, and do so ASAP.

Frequently legislators are couched in their support, saying a deal has benefits and urging the FCC to move swiftly on a decision, one way or the other. But the pair made it clear they wanted the FCC to sign off on this deal, and soon.

"We believe the merger between Comcast and Time Warner will produce extensive benefits to the public in terms of jobs and services for low-income households," they wrote. "Also, Comcast has informed us that the merger will provide improved Internet access with no corresponding decrease in competition. The public should not have to wait for these benefits. Accordingly, we urge you to approve the merger as soon as possible."

The legislators said they had seen firsthand Comcast's good corporate citizenship, including assisting nonprofits and investing in worker training.

Comcast also got a shout-out for its Internet Essentials low-cost broadband subsidy for low-income kids.

The FCC has recently restarted its informal clock on vetting the deal, but legal action continues over its decision, since stayed by a court, to allow third parties to see program contracts related to that and the AT&T/DirecTV deal, which the FCC has signaled could delay a decision.

Looking to give its customer experience a boost, Comcast has struck up a deal with the UPS Store that lets customers return equipment such as set-tops and cable modems to Comcast for free from more than 4,400 UPS Store locations.

Comcast said customers can drop off their equipment “as-is,” noting that agreement, which aims to ease the process, covers processing, packaging and shipping. Customers who use the option will receive a confirmation or receipt and tracking information from UPS. Comcast customers can also to return equipment to  more than 500 Xfinity Stores.

“This is all about convenience for our customers,” Tom Karinshak, Comcast Cable’s SVP, customer service, said. “The process is super simple and will streamline equipment returns. Customers can walk into any The UPS Store location, drop off their equipment and take their receipt.  And this is all free for our customers.  The UPS Store is known for its efficiency and customer service so we’re excited to be working with them.”

Comcast said the agreement with the UPS Store is one example of how the MSO is trying to “rethink every aspect of the customer service.” The agreement comes soon after Comcast named Charlie Herrin to the new post of SVP of customer service.

Comcast’s customer service has come under scrutiny as it tries to gain regulatory approvel for its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable and as the operator faces a lawsuit form a former Comcast customer, Conal O'Rourke, who claims his complaints about the cable company's poor customer service led to him being fired from his accounting job at PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Jose, Calif. Herrin issued an apology to O’Rourke about the MSO’s customer service performance, but Comcast has denied playing a role in O’Rourke’s termination.

Arris posted solid third quarter results Wednesday, but paired that with weaker-than-expected guidance for the fourth quarter as the supplier braces for slower spending among some telco and cable customers and potential challenges linked to ongoing operator consolidation.

Arris posted earnings of 81 cents per share on revenues of $1.4 billion, up 32% year-over-year, beating Wall Street’s expected earnings of 72 cents per share on revenues of $1.39 billion. Looking ahead, Arris said it expects fourth quarter sales in the range of $1.23 billion to $1.27 billion, with earnings in the range of 58 cents to 63 cents per share, versus an expected $1.33 billion and 62 cents.

Analysts took that in stride, as Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold maintained his “Strong Buy” rating, and National Alliance Securities analyst Bryan Coyne reiterated his “Buy” ranking on the stock.

Despite the weaker guidance, “[w]e argue that this presents an opportunity for investors waiting for an entry point because a favorable mix shift enables it to deliver good earnings in 2015,” Leopold wrote.

“As surprising and deep as the Q4 guidance miss was, we believe its release lifts a major overhang on the stock, allowing investors to turn their focus on growth catalyst following carrier M&A,” Coyne wrote.

Arris announced that four customers represented greater than 10% of revenues in the third quarter, but no longer identifies them. Along with Comcast and Time Warner Cable, other operators that have historically been in this 10%-or-greater group include Charter Communications, AT&T and Verizon Communications.

While weak spending by AT&T, which is in the process of merging with DirecTV, “should not come as a surprise,” progress by Pace in the U.S. market “is an issue in the near term,” Leopold noted. “We are not as concerned about a pause when Comcast, Time Warner, and Charter eventually complete their transaction.”

Banking On DOCSIS 3.1

Despite the expected Q4 hiccup, Arris said it remains bullish about the future.

“Once we get through the upcoming industry M&A activities, I believe we'll see a robust increase in capital spending,” Arris chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione said on Wednesday’s earnings call, adding later: “There's still considerable investment going on in the network. But I believe that spending will accelerate once all these things settle down.”

One area the company is banking on is DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging platform that will enable operators to deliver multi-gigabit speeds on their HFC networks. Arris, which demonstrated D3.1-based capabilities at the recent SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, expects product trials to be underway by next summer.

“But we think that 2016 is really where we start to see the volume,” Bruce McClelland, president of Arris’s Network & Cloud and Global Services unit, said.

“It's important to note that we believe DOCSIS 3.1 will result in another wave of upgrades across both the network and the homes,” Stanzione said.

During the third quarter, Arris said cable modem termination system (CMTS) shipments hit record levels, aided by a 33% increase in downstream channels versus the second quarter.

Set-top box unit volumes were up 27% year-over-year, with Arris recently eclipsing a shipment milestone of 1 million video gateways, which includes the DCX3600 device that TWC is starting to offer in New York City and Los Angeles.

In a note to investors, BernsteinResearch says it still expects the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger to be approved by the FCC--with conditions--and close by the end of first quarter 2015 or the beginning of the second quarter.

While it notes that sentiment has become more negative on the deal following the FCC's stopping of the shot clock on the transaction, it suggests that and other concerns of investors are overstated.

The BernsteinResearch team, led by senior analyst Paul de Sa, points out that procedural disputes like those that stopped the clock--access to contracts, incomplete filings--are typical in large and controversial mergers. They point out that the clock was stopped once for the Comcast/NBCU merger and twice for the Verizon/SpectrumCo deal (both of which were approved).

They also downplay the concerns that the FCC may establish a speed threshold for the Internet access marketplace, arguing that the competitive marketplace is local, not national, and offered speeds are not relevant. They also proving market power in interconnection would be tough.

As for the network neutrality proceeding having an adverse impact on the deal's outcome or timing, they say they see little interaction between the two, with the exception that rules with some for a Title II hybrid approach could make the merger approval less controversial, which "backlash" against weaker rules could make it "incrementally" harder.

The researchers suggest that, as with the Comcast/NBCU merger, the FCC will likely make adherence to whatever new rules it comes up with a condition of the deal, just in case those rules don't pass court muster, as the last ones did not. Comcast is still subject to the 2010 Open Internet rules thrown out by the court per that deal condition.

As to inside-the-Beltway analysts expressing doubts about the deal, "we suggest they should be treated with skepticism by investors."

The FCC's Media Bureau has stopped the clock on both the AT&T/DirecTV and the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger reviews, citing a series of objections filed by content companies who don't want their contracts accessed by third parties.

The FCC modified the joint protective orders in the deals earlier to try and accommodate those content companies, which included CBS, Scripps Networks Interactive, Disney, Time Warner, Twenty First Century Fox, Univision and Viacom.

They had asked that contracts be reviewed at Justice, not the FCC, but the Commission denied that request and modified the order to add what it said were a unique combination of protections to exclude "competitive decisionmakers" from accessing the information.

On October 15, the companies, joined by Discovery and TV One, began challenging individually all those who sought to review highly confidential info, including those video programming contracts, under the FCC's modified order.

The bureau says most of those objections were not specific to the individual requests--more than 100 of them--but were instead a blanket effort to prevent any access to carriage deals.

Some commenters have accused the companies of trying to nullify the protective order by filing the multiple objections and say not having access to the contracts would hamper their evaluations of the applications.

The bureau said it agreed, and has stopped the informal 180-day shot clock on the review of both deals and suspended the pleading cycle until it rules on the programmer objections.

After that it will issue a new pleading cycle. The bureau took the action on delegated authority, which means the commissioners did not vote.

The FCC stopped the clock on Comcast/TWC earlier this month to get more info from the company.

"As we noted previously, it is routine for the FCC to pause the review of significant transactions as it works to create a full record," said Sena Fitzmaurice, Comcast VP, government communications, in a statement. "The Commission is working to hear the concerns of various parties. In the meantime, review of information and evidence already in the docket will continue.  We are confident that the Commission will quickly resolve these issues while continuing its work so that review will be completed in early 2015."

"The FCC’s decision to stop the clock has nothing to do with the merits of our deal or the information we’ve provided them on the significant public interest benefits," said an AT&T spokesman. "As the FCC’s order makes clear, this relates to content companies’ concerns about the confidentiality of the information they provide the FCC.

"We’re confident in the FCC’s rigorous procedures for keeping information confidential and we’re ready to provide them with the information they have requested.

"The FCC stopping the clock on merger reviews is fairly common and today’s decision does not change our expectation to close our deal in the first half of 2015."

Comcast EVP David Cohen Friday answered critics suggesting the FCC's focus on broadband speed and competition added fuel to their arguments against the proposed Time Warner cable deal.

In a blog posting, Cohen referenced FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's speech this week, in which he signaled that speed was an inextricable element of the definition of advanced telecommunications deployment and competitive high-speed broadband the FCC's North Star.

Cohen said the deal would do nothing to reduce that competition.

"Much of the reporting since the Chairman’s remarks has linked his comments to our proposed transaction with Time Warner Cable. The facts are simple. Our transaction will have no negative impact on the competitiveness of the broadband consumer market," Cohen wrote, echoing a point he has made in Hill hearings on the deal and the public interest statement filed with the FCC.

"To be clear, whether you are satisfied with the robust state of broadband competition today or deeply troubled by an absence of broadband competition, our transaction will simply not have a negative impact on the current competitive state of the broadband market in America today. In fact, the increased scale created by this transaction will accelerate and encourage even more investments in R&D, innovation, and infrastructure – all of which will be good for broadband investment and competition, and ultimately benefits consumers."

Wheeler said in his speech that mobile broadband is not yet a competitive substitute for wired, but Cohen took issue with that, suggesting it was more nuanced.

"We are seeing wireless 4G technology deliver speeds well over 50 Mbps and averaging in the double digits," he said. "Such broadband access may not be fully competitive with the fastest speeds that wireline broadband are capable of delivering today [100 Mbps to 85% of potential subs by some estimates], but the technology is a viable substitute for many uses of the Internet today and will indisputably provide even more competition in the future."