Months after obtaining several franchise agreements in New Hampshire and West Virginia that allowed it to overbuild Comcast markets in those states, Atlantic Broadband said Tuesday that it will invest $82 million to extend its fiber network into communities and businesses in those areas it doesn’t currently serve.

The effort will affect about 70,000 homes and businesses in several communities  throughout New Hampshire and West Virginia already served by Comcast. In a press release, ABB said it has obtained or is in the process of obtaining franchise agreements in Concord, Dover, Somersworth, Durham and Madbury, New Hampshire; and in Westover, Morgantown, Granville and Star City, West Virginia.   

Overbuilding cable systems is nothing new, and several small operators have obtained franchises to compete with large and medium-sized cable  companies over the years. Comcast obtained a franchise to provide service in nearby Rochester, New Hampshire in 2017, a market that was already served by ABB’s MetroCast Cable, and both companies have appeared to flourish. 

Also: Greener Pastures

“We are grateful to the communities that have received our franchise applications with such enthusiasm, as consumers in these locations will soon have a new choice in providers,” ABB president Frank van der Post said in a press release.  “We look forward to serving these communities by delivering superfast internet, cloud-based TV, and a phenomenal customer experience as we pursue our high-growth plans.”

ABB said the first customer activations are expected in early 2022 and that it will notify local residents as construction is completed throughout the year in each area. The company said once the fiber builds are complete, residential and business customers will receive ultra-high speed internet service, a “WiFi Your Way” managed WiFi service that expands coverage throughout the home; an IPTV video service; unlimited wireline phone service, and business class communications with internet speeds of up to 10 Gigabits per second, hosted voice, 4G Backup, and advanced fiber services.

In the city of Somersworth, which approved ABB’s franchise in June, city economic development manager Robin Comstock said the “community benefits when there are good choices of providers and services. The state-of-the-art fiber infrastructure will provide a new option for residential and business members of our community, help drive economic vitality and keep us ahead of the technological curve.”

Atlantic Broadband is part of Canadian telecom service provider Cogeco Communications, and in September snapped up WideOpenWest properties in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio that added about 690,000 homes-passed to its footprint for about $1.125 billion. ■

The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau says ViacomCBS's Pluto TV has agreed to pay a $3.5 million civil penalty over claims that Pluto TV streamed off-TV video on some platforms without the availability of the requisite captions, in violation of FCC rules. The company has also admitted to liability for its actions.

ViacomCBS conceded as part of the settlement that Pluto had violated the FCC's internet protocol TV (IPTV) rules and will adopt a compliance plan to make sure that does not happen again. Also as part of the settlement, and absent any future violation, the regulator said it would not hold a hearing on ViacomCBS's basic qualifications to hold “any” FCC license, which would have put the CBS-owned TV station licenses in play.

The FCC adopted closed-captioning rules for IPTV but said this is the first enforcement action against an online video streamer related to the rules.

Also Read: Tom Ryan on ViacomCBS's Streaming 'Super Funnel'

Pluto TV had sought a waiver of the rules for some platforms, but according to the FCC, continued to deliver its video programming to those platforms even though it did not pass through the requisite captions.

The FCC rules implementing the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA) “require the closed captioning of IP-delivered video programming and impose requirements on certain apparatus that receive or play back video programming (including certain recording devices). All non-exempt, full-length video programming delivered using Internet Protocol must be provided with closed captions if the programming was previously shown on television in the United States with captions or is live programming being shown on television in the United States with captions.”

Also Read: FCC Asked to Consider Extending Accessibility to Streaming Video

The Enforcement Bureau said it had confirmed that Pluto did not comply with those rules on “numerous platforms,” and did not provide contact information for any complaints about captioning. The upshot, said the FCC, was that hearing disabled viewers were not able to access the captioning when viewing Pluto TV over some platforms.

Rich Fickle joined the National Cable Television Cooperative in 2011 amid what was a trying time for the small cable operator buying collective.  After its former CEO left, there was a growing sentiment among smaller operators in the membership that their needs weren’t being met, and that larger players were dominating what had been started in 1984 as a way for small companies to band together, share ideas and buy equipment and programming with a single voice. It took some time, but Fickle and his team managed to turn the NCTC around and refocus the operation toward its original mission. Now after 10 years, Fickle told the NCTC board that he will step down before the end of the year, ending one chapter in his 40-year cable career, and perhaps opening a door to the next. Fickle spoke with senior content producer -- finance Mike Farrell about his legacy and plans for the future. An edited transcript follows. 

MCN: What brought this decision about?

Rich Fickle: It’s the longest job I think I’ve had, ever. I’ve worked for affiliated companies doing different things every three or four years, but I think this has been the same job  for 10 years. I guess maybe part of the answer is I always enjoyed tackling new things and changing the scenery a little bit to keep growing myself. But the other side of it is I think it’s healthy for this organization to also bring in a fresh perspective. As you get a little bit older you want to give a little bit of a different allocation of time for work versus other things. I felt like I was less willing to put in the 60-70 hours a week for certain things than probably should be in this role. So I said, ‘I need more flexibility and time.’ 

I’m still hoping to stay engaged in some way with the industry, but that’s a marketplace kind of opportunity. If it doesn’t happen, I’m OK with that too. 

Is this a retirement for you?

RF: I don't think it will be. It could be? It’s kind of like you’re going through a door and you really have very little idea of what’s on the other side of it. I committed to staying engaged through the end of the year. The reality is I think they’ll find a replacement within a few months. And then I’ll be helpful to that person for some period of time -- maybe a couple of months -- and then just kind of be available for the rest of the year.

It’s sound like this is something you’ve been thinking about for awhile.

RF: There wasn’t any disruptive, conflicting or change-of-life condition. I think it’s just my DNA. I kind of want to not do the same thing in one place forever. I value the learning and challenges of new environments and various things to put effort into. I think I’m happier doing that. Some people are happier knowing what they are going to do every day, and it’s very predictable. I’m just not one of the ones to do that. 

When you joined 10 years ago, NCTC was in a little bit of turmoil and there were questions concerning which direction it would take. But you seemed to bring a sense of stability pretty quickly to the organization. 

RF: I don’t know if I can opine on what I did as opposed to what a lot of others contributed. Let me answer it this way: I would say, yes, 10 years ago there were some distinctive challenges. There was a board that wasn’t as unified as it is today. You had members on the board that contained representations from some very large MSOs and some very small MSOs. And there seemed to be a lack of unity because they have some different views, are from different worlds that are pretty dramatic. You want some of that, but you have to have a balance there. That was one issue. I think the other part of it was there were certain parts of engagements with the other parts of the industry -- CableLabs or SCTE or even the other associations like those that represent the telco or fiber based providers -- that felt alienated in their relationship with the NCTC. I can't go into the story of why that happened, but one of the things we tried to do was change that, because the industry has always been  stronger when people are working together.  

The other notable shift that we tried to incorporate fairly quickly, is that the members [and] organizations had to feel like they were not disenfranchised. Small ops felt like the NCTC may have changed allegiance to focus just on the large companies. We worked hard to try to rectify that. Some of that is just the perception, because there’s a void in communication that creates those impressions sometimes of not being important anymore. But there was some reality to it as well.

The membership was a little bit unsatisfied, or feeling like this is no longer the co-op they remember. There's those things that were almost immediate challenges. Financially, there was probably a different mindset around how to manage the balance sheet. A long time ago I was a CFO and it’s just kind of ingrained in me that if you have an organization, you’ve got to  have to have a bit of staying power for opportunities and rainy days. So we had to do some work-throughs.

The plus is that the co-op was founded on a very solid foundation of a true cooperative spirit with entrepreneurial  independent companies wanting to collaborate and an employee base that had a really clear mission about trying to help small and medium sized operators really be successful. And that mission is very well ingrained and people love getting up in the morning feeling like they contributed something meaningful. Those types of things, the member mission, the spirit of the co-op, the entrepreneurial mindset, was so strong that it helped us make changes relatively quickly because there was that common ground. It’s been a good team that contributed that. We’ve had fantastic board members. We have 14-to-15 of them at any given time, so it’s a large board. But after that first year, we had a board that was much more unified. That creates a whole different dynamic because you can become so distracted by governance that is in conflict that it ripples through everything you do. I feel for the last nine years we’ve had a really, really good, supportive board. 

And we’ve had a lot of fun too. We decided to step up our game on the shows and open it up more; it was very limited attendance. We opened up the checkbook to bring in more talent, more events, because having people being able to enjoy each other's company and collaborate and build relationships is hard to measure but it’s foundational. I think it paid off. We all enjoyed that capability. COVID has kind of iced a lot of that for the more recent events, but we do want to go back to it. 

Let’s talk about the Independent Show. It seemed you were stepping things up when everyone else was stepping back.

RF: If you look at it from the larger cable operator perspective, their support of shows [and] things like that was huge dollars. They had to question themselves, the rationale for that investment, as they consolidated and grew bigger. But the NCTC group of companies hasn’t really changed that much. I think when I first joined there were roughly 700 companies, today we’re just north of that. Given the change of the last 10 years and we’re dealing with roughly 700 companies, that’s pretty amazing. We’ve had consolidation, we just keep adding new companies into the mix. There’s always been this fragmentation problem that we help solve by providing venues to help suppliers and other interested parties to work together.

The other change is the programming world has changed dramatically. The large programmers have consolidated, they have less of a need to attend shows, they’ve cut back on their affiliate staffs, but they still see value in attending, participating and supporting, which is great. The other thing we did is we expanded the scope of our supplier community to include a lot more technology partners. The size of that group of companies and the size of dollars flowing through the NCTC, I’m pretty sure, has doubled. We emphasized more of that in the last few years, and it’s growing at a very fast rate. 

As we shift more and more resources into broadband, we are not abandoning video and programming, in fact we’re growing there, but we made an intentional effort several years ago to be more tech friendly. Because a lot of the solutions that the large guys were getting behind from an R&D perspective were great for them, but it doesn’t work well for smaller markets. 

There's a divergence too. A lot of our companies come from different backgrounds. They  may be telco-centric, they may be municipalities, they may be new entrants coming from a whole different world based on fiber. But all of them have kind of taken a fresher perspective. They are early adopters of next generation network technology like fiber to the home, much more than some of the large guys that have had such huge investments in coax and DOCSIS technology. Fiber growth has fueled a lot of companies entering the business, because fiber is so powerful with broadband. Broadband seems to be a natural companion with video. Broadband is kind of the lead horse, but programming with video content is essential to customer relationships, especially in Tier 2 or Tier 3 markets. They kind of go hand in hand. We expanded and will continue to expand heavily in supporting the broadband side of that.

In the last few years, there has been an effort by the NCTC to help smaller operators that wanted to make the transition to broadband-only or at least broadband-mostly, more smoothly.

RF: You’re right, there are operators that want to transition to fiber. That’s interesting and a problem for a lot of these guys. A lot of the major fibercom providers didn’t know how to talk to cable operators, they were used to dealing with telcos maybe more than cable operators. We merged those worlds, or at least tried to help do that. So today we have five large providers of fiber technology and materials that we have done fairly good sized stocking deals with, because we know that area is exploding. We have a lot of capacity to serve members with that supply chain. We have three com deals with major providers of that technology, maybe have a fourth soon. And then we’ve done a lot on the DOCSIS modem side as well. That’s been there for a long time, but we also shifted more toward IP video support, we launched a key partnership with Plume around managed WiFi for the home, we’re going to do more of those types of things for the home network. We’ve got a circuit program now where we have multiple national carriers that supply circuits to our members. It’s a natural point of help for  members because we can aggregate those opportunities across the entire U.S. for them to have connectivity with different carriers and hopefully better terms. That program kicked off about a year and a half ago and it’s going well too. 

There’s more to come. Who knows what a successor will do, but we’ve got a road map of probably a half a dozen items that if we could do them today, we’d do them. There’s only so much time we have to work on things. But there’s a rich set of additional things we can do to help members, especially on broadband.

You’re also helping members with retransmission consent negotiations.

RF: I’m glad you brought that up, because programming and video is still pretty darn important. And if you look at the numbers we’ve actually been growing every year. How much programming we transact, on the retrans side specifically, we started with retrans deals that were tied to large cable network agreements. I think it was either ESPN or NBC that was the first because they had O&O retrans capabilities, that was probably five years ago. Just over three years ago, we did a handful of station group deals. We jumped into that pool. Then in this last round, we more than doubled that. Now retrans is a significant part of our portfolio of programming deals that we work on. These are tough. It probably is one of the biggest pain points for our membership base because of the cost of retrans and a lot of changes with programming content and station group consolidation. But it’s been very successful over the last two major renewal cycles to increase our presence on the retrans side. I suspect we will continue to do that. And I hope the station groups will see value in that too because we’re able to hopefully make it more sufficient for them to reach a large number of operators across the country.  

Even on the general programming side, last year we did 36 deals, some are renewals some are brand new, we still support entirely new networks. When I first joined the NCTC, we were lucky to get four deals a year done.  And we haven’t changed the size of the team that manages the programming side. [EVP of Programming] Judy Meyka came on a year or so after I came on. She’s done an incredible job of doing a lot of those transactions, she’s very effective, she’s built a good team. It’s really quite rewarding to see how much productivity we have on that side of the business.

One of the criticisms of the NCTC before you got there was that larger members could pick and choose which deals they did on their own and with the co-op, which some members saw as limiting your negotiating leverage. How did you change that dynamic?

RF: The way that structure worked created several problems, where larger members could almost sit at the table and see where the NCTC was going with certain deals and make decisions on whether they would pursue their own deal at the eleventh hour and even before that. That creates this uncertainty, not only for our membership and our negotiations, but think about it from the programmers’ side. The programmers were upset because they felt like ‘I have to negotiate twice with this large company, give them the benefit of seeing things coming through the NCTC and then that allows them to be more informed on their negotiation strategy.’ They felt like it was unfair. I actually agreed with them. 

It’s an imperfect world because you always have to provide choice to any member to do their own thing, and we still do that today. But we now have  structures in place that say, ‘If you want us to negotiate on your behalf, we can be effective if you commit to us today that that’s what you want to do.’ If you don’t want to commit to do that, that ‘s fine. Do your own thing, no hard feelings. But we didn’t have that before. 

So now we’re asking on major deals for members to be able to commit that they’re going to allow the NCTC to go through the negotiations. They’ll be a part of it, they’re not going to disrupt it, they’ll be supportive of it. And that has created a much, much more trusted process for both our side of the table as well as the content providers. And, yeah, there was a little bit of resistance or hesitancy to do that for various reasons, but it’s worked out.  

Do we still have large companies that still want to do their own thing for certain types of agreements? Yeah, but that’s OK. We’ve actually had more of our larger members rejoin some of our larger deals than we have the other direction where they exited on renewals. Our net track record is a positive in terms of large operators being involved in major programming deals.

We have to prove ourselves. We have to deliver value. We’ve never taken the approach that if you’re a member, you have to sign this secret oath that you’re going to do everything through the co-op. We feel like we have to earn it. If members don’t see the value in the short term and the long term of supporting that structure, then they probably shouldn’t be members. There are always situations where it does make sense for operators to consider doing a little something different for themselves. And that’s fine. 

With retrans and regular cable networks, you can go as a united front and say you represent however many millions of subscribers you represent -- at one point it was over 25 million.

RF: That depends on how you do the accounting on some of that, but that was when we had some very large MSOs involved. I always look at the level of participation as opposed to the theoretical level, how many subs are actually participating. I don’t think we ever had that number exactly from that definition. You had that number from the aggregate number of companies that signed a membership agreement. 

Can you say how many you represent now?

RF: I would say in general our larger deals probably hover anywhere from six to 10 million, which is still pretty notable in the world of consolidated companies and so forth. It could be a little less on certain deals, but that’s the general idea. 

Is it different when you’re dealing with retrans? Or do you just do national O&O deals?

RF: No, we’re doing the station group stuff. So you can think about large station groups like Sinclair and others. I think we make more sense for both sides if it's a large station group as opposed to one that only has a few stations and only affects a  few members. I think we are very focused on trying to help large station groups and large groups of  members that are part of that.      

We started off with the O&O stuff five years ago, a little bit over three years ago we did our first set of station group deals. This last round at the end of 2020, we essentially doubled the size of the station group deals.

Are you expecting that to grow?

RF: Yes. I think it’s been successful. It’s painful because they are hard deals. I think that most members see value in us helping them with that. And I think the stations see value in that efficiency as well. 

In 2017, you reached a deal for members with Mobi TV, which is going through a Chapter 11 restructuring, but it looks for now that the relationship will continue.

RF: Mobi has done a fabulous job for a lot of our member companies and it’s been embraced in a fairly quick way. Yes, Mobi is dealing with some financial issues. There are a lot of reasons for why that happened, but one of the most easily understandable ones is that they were counting on fairly high growth on their platform last year. They had been in the market long enough that a number of cable operators had been launched and the pattern for  operators to step on the gas and convert legacy video systems to Mobi seemed to be in alignment. So 2020 was supposed to be the growth year. 

COVID hit and cable operators found it very challenging to do anything that involved getting into the consumer home to switch out video systems. You combine that with the fact that the demand for broadband went through the roof in most of these markets, so operators had to reshift the resources to focus on that broadband growth and network reliability. Mobi, unfortunately, became impacted by that negatively. The growth just didn't happen. 

The good news is I think these operators are back in the saddle, trying to move forward to reignite their growth on Mobi deployments. But Mobi first has got to get through this financial restructuring and/or sales process. Chapter 11 activities are somewhat opaque. They’ve got a relatively short time to work through this and we’re very supportive of them and glad to help Mobi and/or other companies that are willing to help Mobi through investment. We’re super-supportive of them. I think our members have felt like they’ve done an excellent job. So we’re engaged, there are some areas I can’t talk about because of NDA stuff, but I can say that Mobi has been a super service and it’s been great for small operators and some of our large members as well.

Looking forward to the rest of this year, is there anything you want to do or accomplish before you hang it up?

RF: There are probably a lot of things I want to do but I probably will not get to do. Time seems to be slipping away faster than I thought. I guess it comes down to do the best I can to help the new CEO. If there are projects or things I can do to help them with after that, somewhere in that ecosystem, I’m glad to do it, but I feel like I’m probably more limited in terms of the impact I can have for the rest of the year, other than just making sure that we’ve got a really good direction set with the new person being there at the NCTC. 

Will you help with the search?

RF: We retained a search firm, Carlsen Resources, one of the best in the business. [They’ve] been working on it for a while now and I think have surfaced some good candidates.

Do you think you’ll have a candidate soon?

RF: I think so. I think the plan is to have somebody hired and in place maybe within the next six-to-eight weeks. Maybe it takes longer. Maybe it might be June before they actually can take all of the reins, but it is in that time frame. 

Is there anything you're most proud of during your time at NCTC, and is there anything you wish you could have done while you were there, but couldn’t? 

RF: Proud, in my book, it’s a team thing. I guess the pride is from the standpoint that member companies, in many cases suppliers, and our staff rallied to address challenges and also to seize opportunities. When I first started in the cable industry a long time ago, that was the norm. But as the industry evolved and large companies emerged, the cooperation with the industry was diluted. Larger companies had a mindset of their own R&D, their own capabilities, less willing to share. The experience at the NCTC, which I think we helped contribute more to in terms of building up that level of cooperation, is wonderful to see. Because it’s kind of the way I started my career in the industry and probably the way I'll be ending my career in the industry, which is seeing an uncommonly high level of cooperation for the common good of building a better business. How many times can you see opportunities like that? I feel very grateful.

On the wishful side, we have 700 companies and there are all types of ownership structures. Some are public but a lot of these companies are also third- or fourth-generation family-owned companies. The richness of the ownership and the people who lead those companies is amazing. My biggest regret is somehow I never seemed to make enough time to have developed more of those relationships in depth, because these people are amazing, 

If I had somehow a chance to do it over, I would try to figure out ways to shift time to be more with those folks. Just a personal thing, they’re just amazing people.  To hear the stories of all the challenges they had and running these companies successfully for years and years and years. 

Is that your advice for the next person that comes in?

RF: Yes. I regret not doing more of it. I think I did OK at it, but regret not doing more. I think it’s a foundational element of trust that is essential for a cooperative to be successful. People have to get to know you. And I think it's enriching in both directions.    

Cable One made good on its promise to begin the launch of a new IPTV service, Sparklight TV, lighting up Longview, Texas, in March, with five more markets to come soon.

Cable One first said in January it would launch an IPTV offering early this year in conjunction with MobiTV. Although MobiTV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 3 -- T-Mobile agreed to loan the company $15.5 million in debtor-in-possession financing to keep the doors open -- those plans apparently are going ahead.

“We continue to believe that Mobi has a good solution in the market and are closely monitoring their Chapter 11 process,” Cable One senior director of corporate communications Patricia Niemann said in an email message. 

News of the launches was first reported by Light Reading.

According to its customer support website, Cable One launched Sparklight TV this month and five other markets are “coming soon,” likely in April: Bisbee, Arizona; Altus, Oklahoma; Duncan, Oklahoma; and Dyersburg, Tennessee.

On the website, Cable One reiterated plans to expand Sparklight TV to all its markets by the end of the year. It estimated that Sparklight TV would eventually take the place of its traditional set-top based video service.

Cable One, which rebranded as Sparklight in 2019, has long de-emphasized traditional video service in favor of broadband. In Q4, Cable One’s broadband customers outnumbered its video subscribers by a more than 3:1 margin, and the company said that more than 97% of its homes passed have access to 1 Gigabit per second speeds

The Sparklight TV app will run on streaming services like Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Apple TV. Features like video on demand, program restart and DVR capabilities are delivered via the MobiTV Connect platform. But so far, Roku support is not yet available. 

Cable One said it will launch a new IPTV offering early this year, dubbed Sparklight TV, which will provide cloud-based video programming to customers and eventually eliminate the need for set-top boxes while freeing up more bandwidth for faster high-speed internet services. 

Phoenix, Arizona-based Cable One will use technology provided by Silicon Valley video company MobiTV to deploy its new service. MobiTV's IPTV solution, called Connect, was recently deployed by Ohio's MCTV and is now used by more than 120 cable operators. 

Also Read: MobiTV Connect Selected by Ohio Cable Operator MCTV

The move from linear video to IPTV has been a long time coming. Cable One, which rebranded to Sparklight in 2019, has focused mainly on growing its broadband customers over the years. In Q3, it had 263,000 traditional video subscribers and 784,000 high-speed data customers. The switch to IPTV will allow the company to reclaim enough spectrum to expand its current Gigabit broadband offerings, paving the way, it said, to a 10G technology platform.  

“Our transition to IP-based TV service will enable us to reclaim spectrum in our network needed to continue to expand the capabilities and speeds of our core high speed data product and provide the communities we serve with the fastest and most reliable internet service,” Sparklight senior VP of technology services Ken Johnson said in a press release. “This is even more critical now, with the tremendous increase in customers working and learning from home.”

Sparklight TV will deliver advanced cable TV features in an app designed to run on streaming devices like Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Apple TV. Running on the Mobi TV Connect platform, Sparklight TV will include video on demand, program restart, and DVR capabilities.

The company expects to launch Sparklight TV in select markets in early 2021 and plans to make it available across its footprint by the end of the year. Cable One said that the IPTV service will eventually replace its traditional set top box-based video service. 

According to the company, more than 97% of the homes passed by Sparklight’ s network currently have access to Gigabit broadband speeds. Over the past three years it has spent more than $600 million on infrastructure upgrades and began installing modems capable of 10 Gigabit per second speeds, which Sparklight expects to deploy broadly in the coming years.

“We continue to make significant investments in deploying fiber deeper and closer to our customers to not only enhance reliability, speed and performance, but lay the groundwork for the increased speeds of the future,” Johnson said in the release. “The digital needs of our residential and business customers are advancing rapidly, and we are actively working to not only meet but exceed those needs by creating a fast and reliable network that will support next generation technology.”

In the evolving media landscape, full-time channel distribution over IP requires satellite-beating capabilities. When Gray Television and Ryman Hospitality Properties launched Circle, an American country music lifestyle network that multicasts from the Grand Ole Opry, they seized the opportunity to deploy a novel transport, monitoring, and control workflow. David Burke and Rick Young discuss the new requirements to consider for a network launch, meeting your channel objectives in the face of any challenge, and how broadcasters and service providers can collaborate to win the future of video.

SPEAKERS:

Wes Simpson, Moderator and Contributing Editor

Wes Simpson has always been interested in delivering media signals over networks. After starting his career in mobile telephony and then moving into fiber optics, he has focused on high performance video transport for the past 25 years. Wes has developed and delivered well-received training seminars covering IP video and media networking technology for a wide range of private clients and organizations such as the VSF, the IEEE BTS, and SMPTE. He is a contributing editor for TV Technology and frequently speaks at events including VidTrans, SMPTE, NAB, and IBC. He has written two books which have both been released as second editions: “IPTV and Internet Video” and Video Over IP.”

Rick Young, SVP & Head of Global Products, LTN Global

A media technology and services executive, Rick Young directs global product strategy for the LTN Ecosystem. Rick has held senior leadership roles at news organizations, content owners, and technology providers ranging from startups to global brands. Throughout his career, Rick has focused on the intersection of media and technology, from content creation and delivery to consumer experience perspectives.

David Burke, SVP, CTO, Gray TV

Mr. David Burke was appointed SVP, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), for Gray TV on January 1, 2019. Prior to that position, David served as the VP, CTO, for Raycom Media since January 2015. Mr. Burke held various IT and technology related positions since his employment began with Raycom Media in September 1997. Prior to Raycom Media, Mr. Burke served as an officer in the United States Air Force and then held various technology related positions in private industry. Mr. Burke has been involved in several Industry and professional associations over his career. Mr. Burke graduated from The Citadel in 1983 with a degree in Mathematics and earned an M.B.A. from the University of West Florida in 1986.

To register and view this webcast, click here. 

The Digital Citizens Alliance said it wants the U.S. government to investigate how illegal IPTV services are helping Al-Manar, a channel designated a global terrorist entity, to "skirt" a U.S. ban on the service and get into millions of U.S. homes. 

That is one of the offshoots of a report DCA released last week with NAGRA, a company that provides legal online video distribution platform services. 

DCA said that in the course of putting together the report NAGRA monitored hundreds of pirate IPTV services and found that almost half of them included Al-Manar in their channel lists. Al-Manar was labeled a terrorist organization in 2004 and banned from the U.S. and several European countries.

The report, "Money for Nothing," asserts that illegal piracy in IP subscription services is a billion-dollar business, with an estimated 9 million fixed "subs" using pirated IPTV service from some 3,500 storefront websites, social media pates and online marketplaces. The figure grows even more when the sale of pirate streaming devices is included. 

Then there is the extra money pirates get by teaming up with hackers to install malware in the free pirate video apps, the report points out, malware that can lead to  theft of personal data, cryptocurrency mining, adware, ransomware, and botnets launching denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

Emeryville, Calif.-based pay TV tech vendor MobiTV has raised another $50 million.

The money comes from longtime lead investor Oak Investment Partners, with Ally Financial and Cedar Grove Partners also contributing. Founded in 2001, MobiTV has raised $213.8 million to date.

After launching its MobiTV Connect IPTV product about 18 months ago, MobiTV has around 90 U.S. pay TV partners, about half of which have fully deployed its end-to-end IP-based solution. Windstream and Fidelity Communications are its biggest clients to date.

According to Charlie Nooney, chairman and CEO of the technology company, the funding will be used to bolster MobiTV’s “leadership” position in an increasingly competitive market for turnkey, internet-based TV tech products for telecom companies stepping away from the traditional constraints of QAM video.

For example, Centennial, Colo.-based Evolution Digital announced last week that Missouri operator Vast Broadband will roll out the eVue-TV IP content delivery platform and eMerge user interface by the end of the year.

“We clearly see the competition coming,” Nooney said. “We want to keep our leadership position in this space.”

MobiTV, he added, wants to bolster its adverting, marketing and data collection wherewithal here in the U.S. It also wants to expand into markets like Europe.

“Operators are at an inflection point,” Nooney said, explaining that competition from OTT services and innovations including 4K are forcing MSOs into tough decisions on whether to double down on TV or bail on video altogether.

“They worry that if they lose a video customer, they’ll lose a broadband customer, as well,” he noted.

MobiTV’s multi-tenant solution can be deployed through either a managed service or in-network offering. MobiTV Connect offers more than 350 popular networks, including A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Crown Media Family Networks, C-SPAN Networks, Disney and ESPN Media Networks, and Viacom.

MobiTV uses a hosted methodology, transporting national programming feeds from its centralized platform in Sacramento to its MVPD partners. MobiTV also ingests local broadcast feeds and distributes them for its cable and telco service provider partners.

“We believe in MobiTV’s superior consumer experience and know that being the only true TVaaS commercially deployed solution in North America has differentiated their positioning in the marketplace,” said Bandel Carano, managing partner of Oak Investment Partners, in a statement. “They have reinvented pay TV by providing operators a platform that allows consumers to use their streaming devices or smart TV, while eliminating the requirement of a set-top box.”

IPTV surpassed direct-to-home distribution as the second largest multichannel platform in the world in 2018 after cable TV, helping to boost overall multichannel subscribers by 3.1% globally, according to Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

According to Kagan, IPTV accounted for 23.4% of the total market of 1.07 billion homes globally. In addition, Kagan predicts that IPTV will report a 7% compound annual growth rate over the next five years, second only to pay digital terrestrial television, which will grow at an 8.5% CAGR over the same period.

While cable TV is expected to remain the largest multichannel platform over the next five years, Kagan estimates its subscribers will decline at an 0.3% rate by 2023, largely because of customer migration to IPTV in Asia Pacific and Western Europe.

Kagan added that the global multichannel market grew by 3.1% year-over-year in 2018, with China, India and the U.S. remaining the largest regions. Those three countries collectively accounted for 57% of the global subscriber total in 2018. China and India alone are expected to account for 50% of the global market by 2023, Kagan said.

Global multichannel household growth will continue to slow with most markets across Europe, North America and advanced multichannel markets in Asia reaching saturation, but Kagan also predicted that the number of multichannel subscribers worldwide will rise 2.4% annually over the next five years, reaching 1.21 billion. Other highlights from the Kagan report include:

• The global multichannel economy generated $230.06 billion in video service revenues in 2018, projected to increase to $245.41 by 2023;

• Multichannel penetration crossed 60% in 2018 and should rise to 61.2% over the next five years;

• The effects of cord cutting are only observed in North America where multichannel subscribers, revenue and penetration are projected to decline in the foreseeable future;

• Cord cutting also impacted a handful of oversaturated markets, including Singapore and Hong Kong, which led to subscriber losses and household penetration declines;

• In Europe, the biggest threat to traditional multichannel posed by DTT platforms lies in the integration of OTT and catch-up TV services, as well as the ability to stream channel packages via hybrid boxes.

Little Rock, Ark.-based telecom Windstream has partnered with OTT vendor MobiTV to launch a new technology backbone for its Kinetic TV service.

The new app-based MobiTV Connect-based platform will be a “direct replacement” for the legacy Kinetic TV underpinnings, Geoff Levy, senior VP of marketing for Windstream, told Telecompetitor.

Levy described MobiTV as a “much better platform” compared to the previous Ericsson solution, noting that it “allows for a cloud DVR.” UHD/4K and voice control will also be enabled.

Related: MobiTV Lines Up Programmers for New Video Streaming Platform

The service, Levy noted, “will have the same channel lineup and the prices will be the same.”

The MobiTV Connect service is IP-based and delivered over the operator client’s managed network. 

Users will be able to access the service via Android- and iOS-powered mobile devices, as well as Amazon Fire TV OTT hardware and Android TV-powered smart TVs. Users will also have the option of leasing for $6 a month a set-top from Windstream based on the Android TV operator tier platform.

The new service will launch in Windstream’s North Georgia footprint, followed by Lincoln, Nebraska. Kinetic TV is expected to be available across eight additional markets this year, the company said. Windstream offers Kinetic-branded internet services in 18 states.

Windstream said it will continue to support customers who want to keep using Mediaroom services delivered over IPTV or cable TV network infrastructure, but those offerings will no longer be available to new customers.

Canadian tier 2 operator Cogeco Connexion announced the rollout of Ericsson’s recently rebranded MediaFirst IPTV platform.

The Montreal-based cable operator will deploy the MediaFirst TV platform with Android Google mobile services, encoding on-demand, video storage and processing Platform (VSPP), content management system (CMS) and professional services,

“Once integrated, Cogeco Connexion's new MediaFirst Video Experience will be entirely IPTV-based, voice activated, and will rely entirely on a media-optimized cloud-based TV platform," said Michel Blais, VP, engineering and operations, Cogeco Connexion, in a statement. ”We expect to make the service available to customers throughout our footprint by mid-year 2019 and it will then become the standard video experience offered to new customers."

Related: Ericsson Rebrands Media Solutions Unit as MediaKind

It was only in July when Ericsson announced that its Media Solutions unit, which includes the MediaFirst IPTV platform, has been rebranded as MediaKind. The unit includes technology Ericsson has acquired from such companies as Aspex, Azuki Systems, Envivio, Fabrix, HyCGroup and Tandberg Television. The division currently serves more than 900 cable, satellite and telecom service providers and broadcasters around the world with video delivery technology.

In January, One Equity Partners agreed to buy 51% of the Media Solutions business. MediaKind also named its senior executive team, led by CEO Angel Ruiz.

In its press release, Cogeco said, “Customers currently enjoying our existing video services, including the advanced TiVo solution, will continue to be offered their current services in the future as MediaFirst will coexist with these video platforms.”

In January 2017, Congeco announced the deployment of a TiVo-powered 4K DVR, along with the introduction of TSN 4K, a channel that provides Ultra HD coverage of live sporting events and games featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Raptors, and Toronto FC.

Related: Bell Canada Rings Up Ericsson for Upgraded TV Platform

As for MediaFirst, other Canadian operators have deployed the IPTV platform, as well. In January, for example, Bell announced an expanded deal with Ericsson to make the platform part of the technology offering that serves more than 1.5 million Fibe TV and Alt TV subs in Canada.

Telus, another Canadian service provider that has previously used Ericsson’s MediaRoom, is announced in December of last year that it’s also upgrading to MediaFirst to augment Optik TV, its full-freight, managed IPTV service. Telus is also using Ericson’s MediaFirst platform to power Pik TV, an IP-delivered skinny bundle service that was introduced last year.

"Trends in TV viewing clearly show that operators must always innovate in order to offer a rich and customized customer experience,” said Ken Smithard, president of Cogeco Connexion. “After careful consideration, we are confident that the MediaFirst IPTV platform is the best vehicle to fulfill our promise to Canadian viewers by offering a cutting-edge technology with personalization features and greater ease of use for the kind of viewing experience our customers want and deserve."

Ericsson’s Media Solutions unit, which includes the Mediaroom IPTV platform, has been rebranded as MediaKind, the company said. 

The unit includes technology Ericsson has acquired from such companies as Aspex, Azuki Systems, Envivio, Fabrix, HyCGroup and Tandberg Television, and currently serves more than 900 cable, satellite and telecom service providers and broadcasters around the world with video delivery technology.

RELATED: Cisco Attacks Ericsson's Mediaroom Market

In January, One Equity Partners agreed to buy 51% of the Media Solutions business. The new brand will carry through after that deal closes later this year, the company said.

MediaKind also named its senior executive team, led by CEO Angel Ruiz. 

Ericsson previously separated Media Solutions from its Broadcast and Media Services business unit, dubbed Red Bee Media.

IPTV is radically changing the way that content gets consumed by giving TV viewers greater control over the entertainment they want to watch.

This rate of disruption is driven by the emergence of new consumer experiences, new distribution options for content, new devices, new competitors, new sectors in the ecosystem and new content sources and creators. Here are the top five challenges that pay TV operators need to surmount to thrive in the rapidly evolving IPTV landscape.

Streaming services are raising user expectations

Over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix have changed the game. Consumers today have far different—and far more diverse—expectations when it comes to entertainment content.

Consumers have greater exposure to a range of OTT/web-based content, and that is influencing their perception of innovation and raising the bar for every player in the industry. They don’t only expect their pay TV service to provide a channel guide and the ability to search for their favorite shows. They also expect greater personalization and discovery. They expect their pay TV service to learn their tastes and continuously provide innovative new features and next-generation discovery options that allow them to connect quickly to content they like.

Traditional pay TV operators need to respond if they want to hold onto existing customers, minimize churn and attract new ones. The good news is that pay TV operators are uniquely positioned to solve an increasingly chaotic entertainment experience for consumers by leveraging their strengths in live and recorded/VOD content availability, bringing OTT and pay-TV offerings together and upgrading to next-gen, cloud-based solutions that up the pace of innovation.

Conversational voice interfaces are going mainstream

Voice interaction is entering the mainstream as tech giants like Google, Amazon and Apple heavily promote voice-based features and drive consumer adoption. Consumers can now speak to their devices and actually be understood with accuracy and reliability. This is driving pay TV operators to look very closely at their own voice-based interfaces and how they can extend them to consumers.

If done right, voice offers the optimal user experience for not only command and control but content discovery and navigation. It not only helps users get to their content faster but also enables operators to expose users to a much greater breadth of content. For example, voice enables operators to offer a highly personalized, highly conversational interface capable of addressing complex queries such as, “Show me popular sitcoms from the ’90s, available on Netflix.” The ideal offering for operators is one that combines a deeply media vertical content solution with the broader voice ecosystems of Google, Alexa, Siri, etc.

Operators are embracing Android TV and unmanaged devices

Not long ago, Android TV was a controversial topic among pay-TV operators. But not anymore, now that Google has been continuously listening to operators and addressing the majority of their concerns.

Today, Android TV is highly attractive to operators for a number of reasons. In addition to being able to address a wide range of devices that consumers can access content on, the OTT ecosystem available through Google Play brings together thousands of apps that operators can instantly tie into. However, as the content grows, so does the need for a superior, differentiated and consistent user experience flowing across all client platforms and backed by a powerful cloud service that’s flexible, agile and scalable.

RELATED: TiVo Goes Device-Agnostic with New Platform for MVPDs

What’s more, with Android TV’s Operator Tier, Google has addressed concerns around security and control. Specifically, operators now have full control over operator experience and boot screen, as well as the ability to tie into Google Assistant and Google Play. As a result, Android TV offers another viable option for operators who may be looking at ways to integrate its offerings into their overall strategy.

Cable operators are starting the transition to IPTV

As operators look to IPTV, they’re encouraged by new and unique revenue opportunities, such as the ability to provide more OTT-like services to certain market segments.

But many operators wonder how they can they transition from their current infrastructure to IPTV, while controlling costs and minimizing disruption to users. Some operators will manage the transition more seamlessly and cost-effectively than others and that will make a significant competitive difference.

The reality is that the right next-gen solution can provide versatile deployment options—from QAM to hybrid to full IPTV. Such a solution can assist operators in their transition to IPTV by maintaining support for QAM deployments, while still offering a flexible migration path by addressing the capital expenditure, networking and rights constraints of the operator. As a result, operators can address their most strategic concerns while quickly adapting to the evolving needs of customers.

Dynamic features and partnerships are rising in importance

These days, new enterainment features pop up all the time, and pay-TV operators need to be evaluating their services on a daily and weekly basis, rather than quarterly or annually. But, it takes a great deal of agility and flexibility to capture customers in today’s dynamic, hypercompetitive marketplace – how can you stay ahead?

The best way is by leveraging a cloud service that gives operators the flexibility to anticipate market needs or consumer trends, as well as the robust ability to roll out quickly across all device platforms.

They should also form more partnerships. Savvy operators are starting to bundle OTT services like Netflix with their own offerings because such partnerships open up new opportunities for them. In fact, in a market that is increasingly fragmented, there is a window for providers to serve as the starting point for consumers’ entertainment experience and guide them through the maze of content options. It’s no longer a deal-breaker if the operator must hand off the consumer to a partner service. The goal is to own the race track, not the individual horses.

In the days, months and years ahead, IPTV will become an increasingly important part of the broadcast landscape. Operators that look beyond their traditional business model and embrace emerging IPTV opportunities will be the big winners going forward.

-- Michael Hawkey is senior vice president and general manager, user experience, TiVo

In a move that will get TiVo out of the hardware-making business, the company announced that it has signed a “major” device manufacturer to serve as its direct-to-consumer box partner.

Tied in, this partner, yet unnamed, will also take over retail sales of TiVo products outside of TiVo.com, including outlets such as Amazon and Best Buy, Enrique Rodriguez, TiVo’s president and CEO, said Thursday on the company’s Q1 earnings call.

TiVo, he explained, won’t produce or contract directly for the manufacturing of TiVo’s retail devices, but will secure the volumes needed from its new partner for sales made via TiVo.com.

RELATED: TiVo Refreshes Retail Lineup With Voice-Powered 'Vox' Devices

“In that sense, we’re acting as a distribution channel,” Rodriguez said. With respect to sales through other retail channels, “we’d be completely out of that transaction.”

For consumers, there will be no material change, as products will continue to be branded as TiVo and run the TiVo experience, he added.

TiVo has already made a similar move on its MSO partnership business, as its software and experience have been ported to devices made by Arris.

On the MSO front, TiVo has completely transitioned out of the hardware business, as Q1 was the last with MSO hardware revenue, as TiVo has completed fulfillment of orders made last year, Rodriguez said.

On the software front, Rodriguez reiterated that TiVo’s new platform, TiVo Experience 4, was released to the retail market in Q4 2017, and is becoming broadly available to MSO customers this quarter. In the MSO realm, TiVo is using that new platform to help partners embark on IPTV transitions and as a catalyst to migrate MSOs from legacy Rovi guides to the higher-end TiVo experience.

RELATED: TiVo Goes Device-Agnostic with New Platform for MVPDs

Service Electric Cable TV is already on board, as is RCN Corp., which will be the first to roll out an IPTV service using TiVo Experience 4 using an Android TV device. Mediacom Communications recently renewed and extended its deal with TiVo.

TiVo is also preparing to launch a new advertising product that provides sponsored, in-guide recommendation results for relevant programming. A mid-tier MSO with coverage across “multiple, large DMAs” is signed on to deploy this on mobile devices and set-top boxes, Rodriguez said.

That capability will be deployed within TiVo’s personalized content discovery suite, he added, noting that it enables TiVo’s anonymous viewership data to be matched with other anonymous first- and third-party information.

TiVo had no new detail to share about its ongoing exploration of alternatives aimed at driving shareholder value that could include M&A or taking the company private.

RELATED: TiVo ‘Exploring All Alternatives’ to Drive Shareholder Value

That process is ongoing, though TiVo expects to be ready to provide an update when it announced Q2 results, Rodriguez said.

There’s also no significant movement with respect to TiVo’s ongoing litigation with Comcast.

RELATED: Comcast Wants to Speed Up TiVo Case at ITC

“Getting a license [with Comcast] remains one of our top priorities,” Rodriguez said, holding that he’s “confident” that Comcast will eventually come to terms.

TiVo posted Q1 revenues of $189.83 million, down 7.7% year-over-year, driven by drops in its legacy TiVo solutions IP licenses and hardware line items.

TiVo, which merged with Rovi in the fall of 2016, said it reached its goal of realizing $100 million in integration synergies, and expects to complete its extended goal of $110 million by the end of Q2.

Evolution Digital, the Colorado-based video tech company focused on tier 2/3 operators, has rolled out a series of software enhancements and upgrades for eVUE-TV, a platform that enables partners to migrate to IP-based video services.

Updates to the platform’s user interface includes improved trick-play, frame overlay on video playback, operator-managed program categorization, enhanced adult filtering and automatic HD content filtering.

The new enhanced trick play capabilities, for example, let customers rewind and fast-forward through content at customized speeds, as well as screen captures that provide image-based detail about scenes as customers use those trick-play controls. For adult content, the new stronger filtering capability automatically moves adult selections into folders that are password-protected.

Evolution Digital is also rolling out a new backoffice operations console for eVUE-TV for managing linear and VOD billing systems. That console also allows for more monitoring and the reporting of customer viewing consumption patterns, the company said.

eVUE-TV supports IP-based VOD, linear, pay-per-view and network DVR services and applications. Last fall, Evolution Digital said 23 pay TV operators were on board with eVUE-TV following a string of recent deployments with MSOs such as Cablevision of Marion County, BELD, DTC, LHTC Broadband, Tullahoma Utilities Board, Valley Telecom Group and Gold Coast Broadband. GCI, TDS Telecom and WideOpenWest are also on its customer list.

RELATED: Evolution Digital Expands Customer Roster for ‘eVUE-TV’

“These upgraded features now available on our eVUE-TV platform offer consumers an exceptional viewing experience,” Brent Smith, Evolution Digital’s president and chief technology officer, said in a statement. “eVUE-TV provides our operators new opportunities to capture audiences who want to enjoy the best television functionalities available in the industry. In the competitive cable market, Evolution Digital strives to provide operators the tools that consumers want in a TV viewing experience to help retain and attract subscribers.”

eVUE-TV runs on Evolution’s eBOX IP/QAM hybrid device as well as integrated third-party hardware.

Last year, Evolution Digital also introduced eVUE-NOW!, an app-based platform that enables its partners to offer their own skinny TV bundles to OTT-powered, TV-connected devices as well as smartphones and tablets.

In an effort to help its cable operators make the leap to IPTV, TiVo has introduced a next-gen, app-based platform that will enable TiVo to deliver its interface and overall user experience on a variety of retail streaming devices as well a client that will run on an MSO-managed device that runs Android TV.

Read More: Complete coverage of #CES2018

The new, underlying cloud-powered platform, to be demoed at next week’s CES in Las Vegas, is designed to allow TiVo’s cable operator partners to begin their pivot away from QAM-based digital video distribution systems and spark the transition to an IP-based video architecture, with options for VOD, DVR services as well as linear TV.

That migration can be deployed in several different forms, including hybrid QAM/IP approaches as well as IP-only scenarios for all video customers or those tailored to specific market segments, such as broadband-only customers or for services that are delivered on college campuses within the MSO’s traditional service footprint.

TiVo’s next-gen work centers on the backend control plane of the video service and factors in the company’s new UI, search across linear, OTT, VOD and DVR-recorded content, along with upgraded components such as voice search and navigation and a personalized recommendation engine.

For MVPD partners, TiVo will also integrate encoders and other video infrastructure components from third-party suppliers, explained Jim Denney, TiVo’s vice president of product and strategy.

An example of some of that early work is already taking place in Spain with Vodafone, which has combined TiVo’s new platform with network DVR technology from Ericsson, and was the first service provider to deploy TiVo’s new user experience.

RELATED: Ericsson Folds on Fabrix Systems For $95M

In addition to that backend work, TiVo work in the next-gen arena will also focus on streaming clients that will operate as apps on unmanaged retail devices such as the Apple TV box and Amazon Fire TV players. TiVo is also extending its next-gen platform to web browsers and apps for smartphones and tablets.  

TiVo, Denney said, is also developing a client to run on MSO-managed Android TV devices that will auto-boot to the cable operator’s experience when the box is turned on and extend more control to the operator, for those that want that option. This option will also enable cable operators to deliver their pay TV service on a platform that also supports the multitude of OTT apps that are offered on the Google Play store.

In both of those app-based scenarios, TiVo’s new fourth-gen UX (formerly code-named “Hydra”) essentially will be bridged to those retail and MSO-managed devices and support the same “design sensibility” that is delivered by TiVo on its more traditional Linux-based boxes, Denney said, noting that the approach allows TiVo to scale across different clients using a similar baseline code.

This isn’t the first time TiVo has tried to extend a bridge to third-party retail platforms. In 2015, TiVo introduced an app (in beta form) for the Fire TV that enabled users to watch shows and movies recorded to the DVR on the Amazon-made OTT device. AsZatzNotFunny reported Wednesday (January 3), TiVo retired that original Fire TV client app a few weeks ago, presumably to make way for the new app strategy being announced today.

RELATED: TiVo Flips on Fire TV App

TiVo’s fresh apps-based video approach for cable partners may ring familiar, as it shares some important similarities with new products for tier 2/3 MSOs that have been recently introduced by MobiTV and Evolution Digital.

RELATED: MobiTV, NCTC Forge Next-Gen Video Deal

TiVo has yet to announce if any of its current crop of MSO partners have committed to the next-gen platform. In the U.S., possible candidates include existing MVPD partners such as RCN Corp., Mediacom Communications, Armstrong, GCI, Grande Communications, Midco, and Atlantic Broadband, among others. Suddenlink is also a TiVo partner, though Altice USA, which acquired Suddenlink in December 2015, appears to be going in a different direction with its recently launched “Altice One” all-services platform.

RELATED: Altice USA Unveils ‘Altice One’

Layer3 TV, the Denver-based MVPD, has launched Shop by Remote, an interactive TV app from HSN.

They said the new capability lets Layer3 TV customers browse for and buy HSN products with the remote control. Those customers can choose size, color and quantity from more than 40,000 items that’s available on the app.

Layer3 TV customers can pay by remote using the credit card they have on file with their HSN account. Layer3 TV has more detail about that app posted here. 

Per HSN’s web site, several other MVPDs and co-ops support HSN’s Shop by Remote app, including AT&T/U-verse, Blue Ridge Communications, Comcast, Optimum (Altice USA), Hawaiian Telecom, Verizon, and the Palmetto Rural Telephone Cooperative, among others.

Layer3 TV said the Shop by Remote app joins other apps that have been integrated on its set-top box platform, including Xumo, iHeartRadio, Pandora and YouTube.

RELATED: Layer3 TV Expands OTT Slate With Xumo

Layer3 TV is available in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas/Ft. Worth, and Denver (Longmont), and has plans to launch in New York. It has not announced subscriber numbers. 

Canada’s Rogers Communications is planning to start employee trials of a new IPTV platform powered by Comcast’s X1 platform next month, with a “soft” commercial launch expected by the first quarter of 2018, execs confirmed last Thursday (October 19) during the company’s Q3 call.

Joe Natale, Rogers’s CEO, noted that “key elements” of the platform, including linear channels, VOD and cloud DVR functionality, are currently running in a production environment at Rogers, which announced its X1 syndication deal with Comcast in December 2016.

RELATED: Rogers to Tap Comcast’s X1 Platform for IPTV Shift

“We are getting ready now…to do a full-scale employee trial,” he said, noting that it’s slated to start in November and involve more than 1,000 Rogers employees.

Rogers, he added, is shooting for a Q1 “soft commercial launch” that will open it up to a larger set of employees and a portion of the MSO’s customer base. The company expects to follow with a full commercial launch later in 2018.

“At some point in 2019, we'll stop sell our legacy platform [and] continue a focused, thoughtful migration of our entire base overtime to X1,” Natale said.

Natale is optimistic that Rogers can scale quickly on X1, noting that Cox Communications, which is already licensing Comcast’s platform for its new “Contour” service, now has more than 1 million customers on it and is seeing an improvement in churn as a result.

RELATED: Cox: 1M Subs Now on X1-Powered ‘Contour’ TV Product

Rogers will be looking for its new X1-powered multiscreen IPTV service to help it drive improved pay TV numbers. In Q3, Rogers lose 18,000 video subs, ending the period with 1.75 million.

Natale also talked up X1’s ability to integrate traditional pay TV services with OTT offerings and become a key aggregation point for both and win the “battle for HDMI 1” as the TV’s source of content. In the U.S., Comcast has already completed integrations of Netflix and YouTube, with Sling TV and others in the works.

RELATED: OTT Becomes A-OK on the STB (subscription required)

“We view it as a merchandising platform to lay out the best of content from Netflix from other studios, YouTube, etc.,” he explained. “And as we strike the right arrangements, we will be adding more streaming services to the platform. I really want to be Switzerland, when it comes to inviting and integrating streaming platforms into our X1 capability, I think that's the future of video.”

On the broadband front, Natale called Full Duplex DOCSIS as “real and capable” for delivering multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds on HFC, but stressed that the specs were released earlier this month.

RELATED: Full Duplex DOCSIS Plows Ahead

“It will be, I think, 2019-plus before we see it really commercially available in the full sense,” he said.

In Q3, Rogers added 27,000 cable internet subs, extending its total to 2.21 million.

Rogers ended Q3 with 4.28 million cable homes passed, up by 10,000 for the period.

MCTV, the Ohio-based cable operator formerly known as Massillon Cable TV, said it has launched an IPTV service that is powered by Espial’s “Elevate” software-as-a-service platform.

Read More: Complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2017

The companies said the platform will enable MCTV to manage services across its cable RF and fiber IP customers.

The new IPTV service will support traditional live TV and whole-home DVR capabilities as well as OTT apps and an advanced user interface that can be personalized, they said.  

The video deal comes soon after MCTV announced “Excellerate,” a fiber-to-the-premises deployment/initiative that will result in a GPON network that will overlay its existing hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) plant.

RELATED: MCTV Pushes Fiber-to-the-Premises Overlay With ‘Excellerate’ Initiative

"MCTV is a leading-edge provider of home entertainment services for consumers in our markets," Robert Gessner, president of MCTV, said in a statement. "We recognized an opportunity to embrace IPTV and introduce a new platform that will mimic our RF products and bring the latest IP technology to our customer base. Espial's Elevate cloud platform will allow us to improve our customer service and support operations by providing a single cloud-managed platform with a consistent, unified user experience across our RF and IPTV networks, as well as our managed and consumer-owned devices. Espial also allowed us to seize this opportunity quickly by delivering the IPTV solution in under 90 days."

Espial, which acquired Arris’s Whole Home Solution business last year, said it will show its cloud-based video platform at this week’s SCTE•ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver.

Charter Communications has been quietly testing SpectrumU, a managed IPTV service for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, that is delivered via on-campus WiFi networks.

Evidence of SpectrumU, spotted first by Light Reading, appears in these app pages and this user manual that’s hiding out in the open.

SpectrumU, a service that shares some similarities with other on-campus IPTV services from Comcast (Xfinity on Campus), Cox Communications (Campus Connect) and Philo, is apparently a product of Charter’s business services unit.

RELATED: Cox Makes Its Own Campus Connection

Charter has been asked for more detail about SpectrumU and where it’s available, but LR found that several schools, including Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Nazareth College, St. John Fisher College, St. Louis University and the University of Wisconsin, are on board. 

According to SpectrumU’s documentation, the app streams more than 50 live channels (a pared down version of Charter’s clear QAM lineup for the campus) when the smartphone or tablet is connected to the university’s WiFi network. Notably, students don’t need to use log-in credentials, because Charter’s system is designed to auto-authenticate on the partner school’s  WiFi network using “whitelisted” IP addresses that are authorized to tap in.

Charter noted that a fiber internet service is preferred for delivery of SpectrumU to the campus, with 1 Gbps of dedicated capacity – enough for 5,000 students, based on 10% peak simultaneous usage.

Though the pilot version of SpectrumU has some shortcomings (no VOD or DVR support, a lack of premium channels and local channels in some markets, for example), but it does include some other features like Sport Zone (adds in real-time scores), show reminder alerts, and a 30-second buffer for live streams.

Independent Operator of the Year:Northern Exposure|Cable’s Last Frontier

Though legacy QAM-based video platforms will stick around for years to come, cable operators big and small are already migrating to live, on-demand and even cloud DVR services delivered over a more flexible internet-protocol path.

GCI, honored as the 2017 Independent Operator of the Year by Multichannel News, has already begun to blaze that trail in the wilds of Alaska, starting with video-on-demand.

“I don’t think there’s anybody in the operator space that I’m aware of that … doesn’t believe that IP is the future for video,” Duncan Whitney, vice president of product management at GCI, said.

It’s a tricky proposition: GCI will have to push ahead to new platforms while supporting a legacy QAM video architecture that has significant headend, advertising and data management implications.

“You can’t flash-cut from legacy QAM video over to IP for every customer overnight. We have to be able to maintain both products,” Whitney said. “The challenge for us smaller operators is to trying to meet the modern customer need while not stranding our legacy customers who don’t want change. If you force change too quickly, you’re going to upset one side while you’re attempting to please the other.”

Adjusting to Changing Habits
But he also acknowledged that consumer viewing habits are changing as subscribers become more accustomed to options that allow on-demand access on a multitude of mobile and TV-connected devices.

To that end, GCI recently agreed to deploy Evolution Digital’s managed eVUE-TV IPTV platform in “select service regions,” including all markets serviced by GCI where VOD is available.

GCI’s eVUE-TV deployment is expected to begin this fall, and follows one announced last November in which GCI agreed to deploy the eBOX, a hybrid IP/QAM device from Evolution Digital that integrates linear TV, over-the-top apps, pay-per-view service and VOD on a common platform tied together with a TiVo-powered interface.

GCI, which ended Q1 with 106,100 basic video subs, will later expand that IP VOD offering to its more widely deployed base of IP-capable DVRs that also run the TiVo interface/platform.

GCI already offers a robust VOD service using QAM transport, but the move to IP-based VOD is “considered a first step in their [IP video] transition plans,” Marc Cohen, executive vice president of sales at Evolution Digital, said.

GCI’s QAM VOD platform will likely remain in place for as long as there are QAM-only boxes still in the field. But the transition will eventually have GCI move all of its VOD under the IP umbrella and to take more advantage of the capacity that’s fueling its DOCSIS network. That transition will also enable GCI to move on-demand services to a more advanced interface that offers the kind of look and feel and navigational features that consumers are getting with popular OTT services such as Netflix.

As IP video transitions go, VOD offers a great place to start, as it can be offered on a fresh interface and on both DVR and non-DVR boxes with IP capabilities, Chris Egan, Evolution Digital’s CEO and co-founder, said. It also opens new doors to dynamic ad insertion.

And GCI’s rollout of eVUE-TV eventually will extend beyond the set-top box. By leveraging IP transport, GCI will also lay the foundation for future offerings that, for example, will allow it to extend its VOD service to an array of other types of devices, including smartphones, tablets and PCs.

“We’re setting up ourselves architecturally to be able support customers so they can consume the content on whatever device they want as we work out the rights issues,” Whitney said.

eVUE-TV also provides the basis for future phases that could include linear channels as well as network DVR implementations.

On the linear side, GCI could create an IP-powered avenue for TV on authenticated mobile apps or to set-top boxes. And with proper rights secured, the underpinning technology could also become the foundation for operators to develop and deploy slimmed-down, OTT-based video packages that could be tailored to cord-cutters or to broadband customers who have yet to add pay TV to their bundle, while also employing a bring-your-own-device model.

OTT in the Content Mix
At the moment, GCI is embracing different sources of OTT content, starting with its rollout of the TiVo platform, which provides unified access to GCI’s video service alongside services such as Hulu, Netflix and YouTube.

Focusing on cord-cutters and cord-nevers, GCI has also teamed up with Sling TV on a unique promotion whereby GCI’s broadband customers can get a 30-day free trial of Dish Network’s OTT TV service (Sling TV regularly offers a seven-day free trial).

“We want to enable customers to have good experiences and get what they want, whether it’s our video product or somebody else’s,” Whitney said.

That promotion, which is being marketed online and featured at GCI stores that also offer Roku players and Apple TV devices that can run Sling TV, is “part of a recognition that there’s a multitude of ways customers may want to have a video experience,” he said. “We’re trying to modernize the video product offering so that it’s not a one-size-fits-all offering for the differing types of customers that exist today.”

GCI has also been speeding up the pipes that can deliver that OTT content as it now offers service at 1 Gbps across the bulk of its fiber and HFC plant.

C Spire said it has launched its app-based C Spire TV, an IPTV service that the wireless operator has been beta testing with customers of its 1-Gigabit fiber-to-the-premises network in Mississippi. The service works on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Apple TV with Roku availability expected "in the coming days," the company said.

READ MORE: C Spire teams with MobiTV on next-gen IPTV service

C Spire has said previously that the new service will start at $65 per month for a “Standard Pack” of channels (all in HD format), with additional packages and services, including premium networks and expanded sports channels, available for $10 and $20 more. C Spire TV (link to more information) also supports a cloud DVR service, TV Everywhere apps for out-of-home viewing of live and VOD fare, and a Replay TV offering that enable viewers to watch certain shows that aired within the last 72 hours. It has emphasized that the new offering is not an “over-the-top” video service that travels the public Internet, but is instead a managed IPTV service that will be available to homes that have access to its FTTP-delivered 1-Gig broadband service. 

“Consumers get the best of both worlds with robust software platforms from the biggest names in the technology world and our cutting-edge apps and superior service,” Ashley Phillips, general manager of C Spire Home Services, said in a release.  

Charter Communications is taking aim at TV cord-cutters and broadband-only customers via a trial of a slimmed-down, no-contract streaming video package that starts at $19.95 per month.

The in-home IPTV offering, called Spectrum TV Stream, offers more than 25 channels, including the four major local TV broadcast feeds, plus PBS, CNN, Bravo, A&E, Discovery Network, FX, and AMC, History, and E!, among others, according to this promotional flyer about the service posted on Reddit.

Per the promo, that baseline offering also offers access to a library of nearly 5,000 free VOD titles and does authorize a subset of its live TV channels (those with TV Everywhere rights) to be viewed when the customer is out of home.

A premium version of the package, which costs $15 more per month (a price that is good for three years, according to the flyer), subs can get a VOD library with more than 10,000 titles and more than 35 premium channels from HBO, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Starz and Starz Encore. Subs can also subscribe to individual premium channels for $7.50 per month.

The flyer also shows a live sports and news package for an additional $12 per month that includes ESPN, NBC Sports, ESPN2, Bloomberg Television, and HLN, plus others.

Out of the chute, Spectrum TV Stream, which doesn’t use traditional set-top boxes, is supported on iOS, Android and Amazon mobile devices, Roku players, the Xbox One and Samsung smart TVs.

Confirming a report by Fast Company, Charter issued this statement:

“We are testing Spectrum Stream, an IP delivered in-home Cable TV product with traditional TV everywhere out-of-home streaming, to a group of prequalified and current Spectrum Internet customers to see if this smaller package resonates with a certain segment of non-video customers. It includes local broadcast channels, 25 popular cable networks and access to thousands of On Demand choices — along with options for additional news, sports and premium channels — delivered to connected and mobile devices, without requiring a set-top box.”

Charter tested a different iteration of Spectrum TV Stream in the fall of 2015 that started at $12.99 per month, bundled in a Roku 3 streaming player, and offered an add-on package with channels such as A&E, ESPN, Food Network, TBS and TLC for an additional $7 per month.

RELATED: Charter Targets Cord-Cutters With ‘Spectrum TV Stream’

Other pay TV operators are testing or rolling out slimmer bundles, including some without sports programming, as they try to stay on top of a small but growing cord-cutting trend.

Comcast, for example, has been eyeing a Q3 launch of Xfinity Instant TV, an in-footprint, managed IPTV service that will feature a variety of packages, access to a cloud DVR, and initially target broadband subscribers who don’t take a pay TV package from the MSO. Reuters reported that the app-based Xfinity Instant TV offering will be priced starting at about $15 per month and include packages that could sell for up to $40 per month, and allow for add-ons such as ESPN.

RELATED: Comcast Prepping Q3 Launch of ‘Xfinity Instant TV’

CenturyLink is taking a somewhat different approach with CenturyLink Stream, a nationally-available OTT offering that features a baseline $45 per month package that includes ESPN and a cloud DVR, and a handful of add-on programming packages.

CenturyLink Bows Beta of OTT TV Service

Petrichor Networks, a startup that is focused on helping cable operators unify their video networks and gracefully migrate to an all-IP platform, said it has hired industry vet S.V. Vasudevan as head of product.

Vasudevan, who has held exec slots at companies such as TiVo, Cisco Systems and switched digital video pioneer BigBand Networks (acquired by Arris in 2011), will be taking over Petrichor’s product functions as the company continues lab trials, pivots into initial field trials and prepares to launches its product/platform commercially later this year, and ramp up in 2018.

RELATED: Cable Tech Vets Target Video Unification

Vasudevan, who started at Petrichor on June 1, noted that the plan is “reimagine” video solutions using a cloud-based software system that aims to reduce costs and network densities by 50%, and reduce power requirements by about two-thirds, while also helping MSOs open the door to a new class of applications and revenue opportunities.

Petrichor aims to unify the operations of what have become dual video networks for operators -- one leaning on legacy QAM technology, and a newer one that runs over IP.

The premise of the company’s approach is to “provide a graceful runway to get from the traditional legacy QAM architecture to an all-IP architecture,” added John Boland, a former Arris exec who was named CEO of Petrichor earlier this year.  

While going all-IP and managing the quality of experience/service that underpins that move is the longer term end-game, Boland said that Petrichor has some more near-term opportunities to displace current on-demand hardware and reduce an operator’s operational expenses.

Boland, who has been focusing on Petrichor’s business development, noted that the company is in lab trials with two operators since Q3 2016, and expects to next enter a field trial with a yet-unnamed U.S. operator.

Regarding financing, he said Petrichor is about three-quarters of the way through a seed round, and that he’d like to see the company move through the field trials and enter commercial deployment before the company aggressively pursues an A-series round of funding.

“We've got plenty of runway right now,” he said.

Petrichor currently has 11 employees, but is in hiring mode.

Others industry vets tied to the startup include John Carlucci, president and chief strategist, who previously was president and CTO of Alticast U.S and a former exec with Clearleap (now part of IBM), and Time Warner Cable; Bill Helms, chief technologist, who previously was vice president of subscriber networks at Time Warner Cable; and Mike Hayashi, chairman, the former long-time engineering exec at TWC.

Verizon confirmed that it is testing “new advanced TV features” for Fios with a select group of employees and customers.

Citing an offer from Verizon to a small set of customers, DSL Reports said this week that the service provider was beta-testing an IPTV service, and offering those subs a free year of voice, broadband and TV service for joining the trial.

"You’re invited to be part of a select group of consumers to participate in a trial of some of our newest in-home entertainment features," Verizon told those customers in an e-mail, according to DSL Reports.  "This is a unique opportunity to test-drive these exciting new TV features in advance of general availability to the public."

Verizon isn’t detailing the precise nature of the TV trials, but in March Light Reading reported that the company was showing off a next-gen, IP-powered version of Fios TV at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain. Verizon reportedly is looking for the new IP-only platform to succeed its current hybrid QAM/IP system and also enable a new, more personalized  user experience for set-tops and mobile devices.

Light Reading  also reported then that the new platform leans on a revised gateway/client architecture.

RELATED: Verizon Shows Sneak Peek of New Fios TV Platform at MWC

Verizon confirmed that trials are underway, but is not discussing any product details yet, with an official adding that “there is no guarantee that the products, services, features, equipment, or content from the trial will become available.”

RELATED: With Intel Media, Verizon Paves Path To Set-Top Independence

Though the features being tested are tied to Verizon’s primary Fios TV service, company chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam told an investors conference last month that Verizon also plans to kick the tires on a new over-the-top video offering.

“The platform will be in place to do an over-the-top sort of play…and we’ll go out and test it,” McAdam said then, noting that its acquisition of AOL and its pending one for certain assets of Yahoo will fit into the OTT initiative. “But we have not committed to a launch date or anything. We’re going to see how this evolves.”

Cable operators aren’t the only pay TV providers that are grappling with how to pivot to next-gen platforms without the expense of abandoning a large base of legacy set-tops.

Telcos and other IPTV service providers that got into the pay TV game several years ago are facing similar challenges as they look to remain competitive in a world of over-the-top SVOD services, an array of virtual MVPDs, as well as cable operators, such as Comcast, that are rapidly deploying cloud-powered, IP-capable video platforms.

Amino Communications is trying to help its IPTV partners bridge that gap with Enable, software that virtualizes many of the functions of the set-top in the cloud and provides a way for those service providers to deliver fresh interfaces and new services to both old and new devices and, later, to some third-party OTT platforms such as Android TV.

The big challenge for IPTV providers that have invested in infrastructure, middleware and boxes is how to upgrade their platform without having to refresh all of the consumer-side devices, Jamie Mackinlay, an exec who heads up strategic marketing at Amino, said.

This has become a “universal problem” for many IPTV providers that made technology decisions five to ten years ago, and now want to shift gears to a new experience that delivers more intuitive navigation as well as recommendation systems, added Mark Evensen, Amino’s CTO.

Amino said Enable, a technology that it obtained from its 2015 acquisition of Entone, allows IPTV providers to take advantage of new interfaces, including voice-navigation capabilities, that are more media rich and visual, putting those providers on par with the kind of UIs that grace services like Netflix and platforms like Apple TV, Fire TV and Android TV.

RELATED: Amino Splashes Out $73M for Entone

To support that in older IPTV set-tops, many of those functions are offloaded to the network, while the device handles the rendering and user interaction, explained Evensen.

He said the hurdle that this overcomes is not just the cost of the equipment but the disruption that occurs when a service provider has to roll a truck and switch out a device. That latter part would be removed from the equation.

This idea probably sounds familiar. Amino’s approach with Enable shares some traits with the cloud TV of ActiveVideo, now a joint venture of Arris and Charter Communications. Charter is using ActiveVideo’s platform to help it bring its new Spectrum Guide to its base of legacy boxes as well as its new IP-capable devices.

RELATED: Arris, Charter Close $135M ActiveVideo Acquisition

Several Amino IPTV partners are already using Enable, including Cincinnati Bell and Hong Kong-based PCCW.

In the case of Cincinnati Bell, its legacy IPTV platform relied on boxes from ZTE and multiple software stacks. With Enable, Everson said, the telco was able to convert those older boxes to one based on Minerva’s platform while also supporting it on new Amino devices on a going-forward basis. By unifying that experience, Cincinnati Bell can roll new features to all its customers and not have to confine marketing programs to the legacy and next-gen customer base.

PCCW, meanwhile, had its own middleware but the underlying stack used a trio of vendors with nuances in the implementations. Enable’s virtual STB software is helping PCCW to homogenize its user experience, Everson said.

Amino is also developing new features for Enable that will allow IPTV providers to bring their service and experience to certain third-party streaming platforms. More detail will be announced later this year, but Amino views Android TV as key candidate because it is open. Amino believes Enable can be adapted to Android TV and provide a path to network-specific hardware that IPTV partners can use.

Canadian telco Bell has added a set-top-free, apps-driven pay TV option with the debut of Fibe Alt TV, a service that offers up to 500 channels in the home via iOS and Android mobile devices, fourth-gen Apple TV boxes and Web browsers.

Fibe Alt TV, an alternative to Bell’s Fibe TV service, starts at $14.95 per month for a lineup of more than 30 channels in a “Starter” package that includes basic networks such as CTV, CBC, Fox, NBC, CBS and ABC,  though customers must also take an Internet service from the company.

Bell is also selling bulkier Fibe Alt TV tiers that carry a regular price of up to $103 per month. Those customers can also tack on premium such as The Movie Network, CraveTV, and HBO Canada.

Alt TV is initially available to qualified Internet customers in Ontario and Quebec, with plans underway to extend access to Atlantic Canada and Manitoba.

Fibe Alt TV offers up to two simultaneous streams in the home via a managed IP video network, and also supports access to certain content when customers are on the go.

Bell said it expects to extend support for Fibe Alt TV to Android TV-based devices later this year.

Alt TV doesn’t support certain features offered on its flagship Fibe TV product, such as select programming and content in 4K format, DVR recording, the ability to pause and rewind live TV, to restart shows in progress or from the past 30 hours, or movie rentals and purchases. It does, however, support pay-per-view programing and has access to a VOD library.

Bell’s TV unit added 22,402 net new Fibe TV subs in Q1 2017, and ended the period with 2.83 million TV subs, including 108,107 that came way of its acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS), and a loss of 38,065 satellite TV subscribers.

Bell’s new streaming TV option comes on the scene as other service providers launch or make plans for next-gen video services.

Of recent note, Telus recently soft-launched a slimmed-down IPTV service/package called Pik TV that runs on smartphones, tablets and an Android TV-powered box and leans on Ericsson’s MediaFirst platform.

RELATED: Telus Soft-Launches Skinny Bundle IPTV Service

Shaw Communications, meanwhile, has launched “BlueSky TV,” a service that uses Comcast’s X1 platform. Rogers Communications has plans to debut an X1- based IPTV service by early 2018.

RELATED: Rogers to Tap Comcast’s X1 Platform for IPTV Shift

C Spire said an app-powered IPTV service that doesn’t rely on traditional set-top boxes is currently in beta trials and will launch commercially in the “coming weeks.”

C Spire stressed in an FAQ that the new offering, called C Spire TV, is not an “over-the-top” video service that travels the public Internet, but is instead a managed IPTV service that will be available to homes that have access to its FTTP-delivered 1-Gig broadband service in Mississippi.

The new service will support several platforms, including Amazon Fire TV boxes and sticks, Apple TV devices (fourth generation), Android TV devices, Roku players and integrated Roku TVs, iOS and Android mobile devices, and Web browsers.

The new service will start at $65 per month for a “Standard Pack” of channels (all in HD format), with additional packages and services, including premium networks and expanded sports channels, available for $10 and $20 more.

C Spire TV will also support a cloud DVR service, TV Everywhere apps for out-of-home viewing of live and VOD fare, and a Replay TV offering that enable viewers to watch certain shows that aired within the last 72 hours.

Among other bells and whistles, the service will include “skills” for the Amazon Echo voice assistant, and its guide will use machine-learning technology to personalize the experience.

Here’s a short promo video about C Spire TV:

C Spire’s new in-home service, which includes local TV and national cable networks, stems from a partnership with MobiTV, which provides and integrates components such as the content management system, digital rights management, media players, cloud DVR, content policy, billing and authentication.

RELATED: C Spire Teams With MobiTV on Next-Gen TV Service

C Spire’s new offering will succeed a legacy pay TV service, called Super HD TV, that features TVE support, an interactive guide and whole home DVR that was developed in partnership with Innovative Systems.

RELATED: MobiTV Targets a New Opportunity

MobiTV recently landed a new $21 million round of funding  to accelerate and expand MobiTV Connect, a new IP-based, app-powered platform that enables MVPD partners to deliver services on a wide range of smartphones, tablets and TV-connected streaming devices while also sidestepping the need to use traditional set-top boxes.

MobiTV is focusing on that market as cable operators and other MVPD push ahead with IP video migration plans. MobiTV’s competition includes Evolution Digital and Comcast, which has undertaken a licensing strategy that has resulted in deals with Rogers Communications, Cox Communications and Shaw Communications.

RELATED: Rogers to Tap Comcast’s X1 Platform for IPTV Shift

Layer3 TV, the Colorado-based next-gen cable operators, has been offering an IPTV service of its own in select markets and has shown an interest in partnering with municipal providers that lack a pay TV service in their service bundles.

Comcast Cable said it has appointed former Amazon video exec Euan McLeod to the post of vice president, IP video engineering.

McLeod most recently served as global head of video of video at Amazon, where he headed strategy and development for projects and initiatives that included Amazon Video, Amazon Prime and Amazon Music. McLeod reports to Jason Press, SVP, video engineering and operations for Comcast Cable.

In his new role, McLeod will lead Comcast VIPER (Video IP Engineering & Research), the Denver-based engineering team that designs, develops and deploys the software Comcast uses to deliver IP video to TVs, smartphones and connected devices. McLeod will also guide Comcast’s ongoing migration to IP-based video delivery across all devices and platforms, the company said.

RELATED: Comcast Prepping Q3 Launch of ‘Xfinity Instant TV’

VIPER is also part of the Technology and Product Organization led by Tony Werner, who was promoted last year to president, technology and product at Comcast Cable.

RELATED:  Comcast Promotes Werner, Kotay

“Euan is a brilliant technologist with a proven track record of delivering world-class video experiences to customers,” Press said, in a statement. “His unique combination of experience, passion and technological prowess makes him the perfect fit to accomplish Comcast VIPER’s ambitious mission of building and deploying a next-generation IP video platform.”

Prior to Amazon, McLeod was VP of content platforms with Turner, where he oversaw development and operations for digital video content for networks such as CNN and TNT. He also McLeod founded Mobile Platform, a mobile video company that counted  customers such as BBC, Turner and Sky.

RELATED: Comcast to Launch ‘Xfinity Stream’ App on Feb. 28

McLeod earned his bachelor of engineering degree from Edinburgh Napier University and his MBA from Heriot-Watt University. He also studied marketing innovative technologies through Harvard Business School’s executive education program.

Verizon is demonstrating the next-gen, IP-powered version of its Fios TV platform at this week’s Mobile World Congress confab in Barcelona, Spain, reports Light Reading’s Mari Silbey. 

Verizon isn’t offering any official comment on the platform or its current plans to launch it, but people involved with the company’s new Exponent business unit is showing off some of the goods across the pond.

[Image source: Light Reading, used with permission.]

Per the report, the new IP-based video platform and user experience will succeed its current hybrid QAM/IP approach and will eventually underpin the baseline Fios TV service and support other multiscreen devices as well as IoT apps, a strategy that is very similar to the one Comcast is using with X1. The new interface is also being made to support voice navigation, integrate OTT services and bake in other personalization capabilities.

The new platform will also implement a revised gateway/client architecture that relies on smaller devices, including a wireless client that is “about the size of a deck of cards,” Silbey reports.

Verizon hasn’t confirmed deployment timing, but an exec at the show told LR that it’s in beta trials with an expectation that it could be launched by the end of Q1.

But the demo represents the progress Verizon has made with its next-gen IPTV system, which has tied to the company’s acquisition of the OnCue assets acquired from Intel Media in 2014. At the time, people familiar with Verizon’s strategic interest in OnCue said that an important goal was to secure more control of its hardware and software products and technology roadmap that would eventually power a next-gen IP video platform that would put it into better competitive positioning with Comcast’s X1 platform.

RELATED: With Intel Media, Verizon Paves Path To Set-Top Independence

Variety reported earlier that Verizon was developing its next-gen platform under the code-name “Mallard” that was initially expected to launch last year. That followed earlier word from LR that a new IP client box from Verizon has passed through the FCC.

Petrichor Networks, a startup led by a group of cable engineering execs late of Time Warner Cable and Arris, is taking aim at a major challenge faced by MSOs – accelerating the migration to an all-IP video world.

Founded in 2016, Boulder, Colo.-based Petrichor Networks believes that the platform it’s developing can speed this shift without requiring cable operators to toss out millions of older, non-IP set-top boxes.

Petrichor is also taking on a significant operational issue that this migration entails as MSOs continue to tend to and feed their legacy digital video platforms while also support a separate, parallel IP video network that is being used to ship video to tablets, mobile devices, Web browsers and TV-connected devices.

Petrichor aims to converge those silos with a hardware-agnostic, scalable software platform that enables cable operators to unify their video platform in such a way that they can use a single source of video to serve all devices, including those that are IP-connected as well as older set-tops that rely on QAM/MPEG video.

“By bringing our software solution, we knock down those silos,” said John Carlucci, Petrichor’s president and chief strategist, an engineering exec who is late of  Alticast, Clearleap (now part of IBM), Time Warner Cable and PolyCipher, a downloadable conditional access system initiative that was once a J.V. of Comcast, Cox Communications and TWC.

RELATED: CableLabs Takes Over DCAS Project From PolyCipher

That platform presents “an opportunity to accelerate the movement from where the operators are today into the IP space,” added John Boland, Petrichor’s CEO, a former Arris exec who took the helm of Petrichor Networks last month.

Petrichor Networks currently has eight employees and plans to expand on that. Other members of its leadership team include chief technologist Bill Helms, most recently VP of subscriber networks at TWC, and company chairman Mike Hayashi, the industry pioneer who last served as TWC’s EVP of architecture, development and engineering.

RELATED: Mike Hayashi Sets Exit From TWC

The core of Petrichor’s platform is called DROP (Dynamic Rate Optimization Processor), a real-time media processing software engine that can run on non-proprietary, off-the-shelf hardware. DROP is not a new codec, but uses a combination of algorithms that “enhance” existing codecs.

That system is comprised of the DROP Media Server and the DROP Set-Top Box.

The DROP Set-Top Box is designed to create a remote IP port that resides on the network. That, the company explains, enables IP video delivery to legacy video devices by housing some key functions of the set-top box in the cloud. That works in tandem with the DROP Media Server, which is designed to support standard interfaces like HTTP Live Streaming, multiple codecs (MPEG-2, HEVC, etc.) and interoperate with traditional QAM and edge QAM technologies.

Carlucci said the platform requires no changes to the set-top client software or the device’s navigation system, because the certain functions of the STB are virtualized in the cloud and “transparent to the existing software.”

More detail about Petrichor Networks, including how it shares and differs from the philosophies and technologies of other vendors focused on cable’s IP video transition, its trial activity with cable operators and its next steps will be features in the Feb. 6 issue of Multichannel News. The story also explains what inspired the company name, but in the meantime spool up this YouTube clip for a hint: 

Rogers Communications has inked a long term strategic deal with Comcast that will pave the way for the Canadian cable operator to deploy Comcast’s X1 video platform and install a next-gen IPTV service.

The agreement, which will enable Rogers to migrate toward an IP, multiscreen video future using a hosted platform based on Comcast’s technology, follows X1 syndication/licensing deals that Comcast has forged with Cox Communications and Shaw Communications. Those agreements are enabling Comcast to broaden the adoption of its home-grown platform outside its traditional footprint and recoup some of those costs after its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable came up short. 

RELATED: X1 Licensing Not a ‘Big Financial Mover’ for Comcast

With the X1 deal in hand, Rogers said it will cut further investment in an IPTV product it was developing, and expects to take a pre-tax, non-cash asset impairment charge in the range of C$475 million to C$525 million in its fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, 2016.

But it’ll be some time before Rogers puts it all in place, announcing that it expects to launch its X1-based IPTV service in “early 2018.” In the meantime, the MSO said it will continue to enhance its legacy video platform with more 4K content and a DVR that can record and playback 4K content.

Rogers, which has been rumored to be in the mix for a potential X1 syndication agreement since 2015, noted that its new IPTV service will ride on an enhanced Internet platform that enables gigabit broadband. Rogers began to roll out a DOCSIS 3.1-powered gateway from Hitron this week.

RELATED: After Cox and Shaw, Canada’s Rogers might be next to tap Comcast’s platform (subscription required) 

Rogers didn't announce which features of X1 it will use early on. Comcast has been bulkling up X1 with features that include a cloud DVR, a native sports app, a voice remote, and integration with its Xfinity Home security/automation service. Comcast has also started to team X1 with more OTT services, including Netflix and Pandora, Comcast's ad-based short-form video service Watchable, and will soon tie in Sling TV, the Dish Network-owned OTT-TV service

RELATED: Comcast Adding Netflix to X1 Next Week 

“This partnership is great news for our customers,” Alan Horn, chairman and interim CEO of Rogers, said in a statement. “We’re bringing our customers a world-class IPTV service with the most advanced features available in the market today. On top of that, our customers will be future-proofed thanks to Comcast’s innovative and robust product roadmap.”

RELATED: Rogers CEO Laurence Steps Down

“We’ve seen growing desire of other operators to leverage the industry-leading innovations we’ve created at Comcast,” added Neil Smit, Comcast’s Cable’s president and CEO. “Comcast is excited to bring the experiences of the award-winning X1 platform to Rogers’ customers in Canada.” 

Cable Onda, a service provider based in Panama City, Panama, is developing a next-gen multiscreen video service that will rely on a unified backoffice and integrated content management and advertising systems from SeaChange International.

For the deployment, Cable Onda will upgrade to SeaChange’s Adrenalin backoffice and deploy the vendor’s AssetFlow content management and Infusion advanced ad solution for a service that will integrate its traditional pay TV service and OTT offerings and support apps such as a network DVR. Cable Onda’s been running its VOD and ad business on prior-gen SeaChange technologies and systems since 2009.

“By upgrading to SeaChange as our unified and centralized back office foundation and ad revenue engine, Cable Onda will unite operations for HFC, OTT and IPTV service to achieve our vision for a Next Generation Subscriber Experience that keeps subscribers entertained and engaged across all their video devices,” Charlie Brown, Cable Onda’s SVP of operations, said in a statement.

On its Q3 earnings call, SeaChange CEO  Ed Terino said the vendor has more than 20 customers “quoted for upgrades” to Adrenalin, a multiscreen video backoffice that succeeds SeaChange’s Axiom platform.

Pushing ahead with a video strategy that hinges on IP-powered services, Frontier Communications said it has expanded the reach of its new “Vantage TV” offering to nearly 75,000 homes in the Raleigh-Durham area.

The expansion means more video competition for incumbent providers Charter Communications (via its acquisition of Time Warner Cable) and AT&T, as well as Google Fiber, which started the service sign-up phase in the Triangle area in September.

RELATED: Google Fiber Starts Connecting in North Carolina

The News & Observer noted that the expansion covers about a third of Frontier’s North Carolina footprint.

Vantage TV is powered by the latest release of Ericsson Mediaroom, the IP video platform that Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in 2013.

RELATED: Frontier Fires Up ‘Vantage’ Brand

In Raleigh-Durham, Frontier will be delivering the service over its FTTP and fiber-to-copper networks.

Frontier, which entered the market after acquiring systems supporting about 4.8 million access lines from Verizon in 2010, said the new video service offers more than 400 channels, support for TV Everywhere (via the Frontier TV app), a multi-view feature (up to four channels at once), a whole-home DVR with 1 TB of storage, with integration of Netflix on the set-top “coming soon.”

Triple-play bundles start $64.99, and double-play packages start at $54.99, with no contract and a 24-month price lock. Frontier is also tossing in Amazon gift cards, free installation and a free DVR (for 12 months).

Frontier, which has a reorg underway in the wake of its acquisition of Verizon’s wireline operations in California, Texas and Florida in April, is moving ahead on a plan to roll Vantage TV to three markets and 150,000 homes this year.

As previously announced, Frontier has a plan to  launch IP-based video service to more than 40 markets, representing about 3 million homes, over the next three to four years.

Pushing ahead with plans announced in August, Windstream this week said it has launched Kinetic TV, its IP-based pay TV offering, to more than 50,000 homes across 13 communities in North Carolina.

RELATED: Windstream Merging with EarthLink

The service, which runs on Windstream’s fiber network in the area, is also powered by Ericsson Mediaroom, the platform it acquired from Microsoft in 2013.

Windstream’s rollout in North Carolina includes Albemarle, Badin, China Grove, Concord, Harrisburg, Hemby Bridge, Indian Trail, Kannapolis, Matthews, Mooresville, Mt. Pleasant, New London and Oakboro.

Windstream subs can bundle Kinetic TV with its phone and Internet service. Its “Kinetic Preferred Bundle” paired with a 1-Gbps service runs $99.99 per month for the first year.

Windstream has also launched Kinetic TV in Lincoln, Neb.; Lexington, Ky., and Sugar Land, Texas.

The company, which also resells and bundles pay TV services from Dish Network, lost about 36,000 digital video subs in Q3, ending the period with about 329,000.

Layer3 TV is preparing to launch its white-glove, concierge-style service in its hometown city of Denver “soon,” possibly later this year, company CEO Jeff Binder told The Denver Post.

RELATED: Layer3 TV Opens Its Denver Headquarters

He didn’t reveal a launch date, but seeing Layer3 TV offer service in the backyard of its corporate headquarters doesn’t come as a huge surprise, as the company has been actively seeking installation technician positions in Denver. Indicating possible other launch cities, it’s also seeking candidates for that particular job in Houston and Washington, D.C. 

RELATED: Layer3 TV Seeks 'Installation Supervisor' in Handful of Markets

Layer3 TV launched its full-freight bundle in Chicago, its first market, over the Labor Day weekend, leading off with a basic package that features more than 200 channels in HD starting at $75 per month. It’s also hawking three thematic add-on tiers (Sports & Info, Movies & Music, and En Español), premium multiplexes from HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and EPIX, and a batch of a la carte offerings, including Fox Soccer Plus. 

If Layer3 TV pulls the trigger in Denver, it will be facing off with incumbent video providers, Comcast and CenturyLink, as well as satellite TV providers DirecTV and Dish Network. 

Layer3 TV doesn’t own last-mile access networks to get its service into the home in Denver, so it likely will need to rely on standard interconnection agreements with local service providers, such as Comcast, to pull that off and deliver the kind of high-quality signal that consumers will insist upon. Comcast has been asked to comment on its business relationship with Layer3 TV. 

Layer3 TV has insisted that it is not an “over-the-top” service like Sling TV, but rather a facilities-based managed IPTV service because its signals ride a secure, dedicated IP transmission path into the communities it is serves before it is handed off to the local access network (Multichannel News will have much more on this technical approach soon). 

Convinced that there’s limited consumer interest in so-called “skinny” bundles, Layer3 TV, a self-described “next-generation cable operator,” has pushed ahead with the launch of a  full-freight pay TV service in Chicago that features a baseline package of more than 200 channels in HD, including local broadcast TV feeds, that starts at about $75 per month.

Layer3 TV, which debuted service in Chicago over the Labor Day weekend, is entering the market with a baseline package called “allHD Platinum," along with a variety of genre-focused add-on packages, premium packages, and some a la carte options.

Layer3 TV still isn’t saying precisely how it’s getting service into the customer's home, since it doesn’t own the last-mile access network. However, industry sources have said that Layer3 TV is securing capacity from other area providers (Comcast and RCN are among the incumbent MSOs in the Chicago area). Still, Layer3 TV does consider itself a facilities-based MVPD that delivers a managed IPTV service.

Though there are lingering questions about that last mile element, Layer3 TV does provide just about everything else, including the installation, a fleet of electric-powered BMW i3s for its field techs, the in-home equipment, the user interface/guide, and the billing and customer care components.

RELATED: Layer3 TV Fleet Goes Green

“It’s concierge cable,” explained Lindsay Gardner, Layer3 TV’s chief content officer, the industry vet who has been spending most of his waking hours during the past two years carving out the MVPD’s carriage deals.

RELATED: Lindsay Gardner Joins Layer3 TV

Layer3 TV is starting off with a service delivered to a high-octane, 4K-capable gateway that works with smaller client boxes that provide the same functionality as the main device. Gardner said Layer3 TV has also locked in content rights for a TV Everywhere, Look Back and Start Over services that will be activated in the coming months.

"We will be activating new features all the time and will be adding new channels and new markets all the time,” he said.

Layer3 TV’s basic package features the local broadcast network and a large array of basic cable channels, including mainstays such as A&E, AMC, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Disney Channel, E!, Freeform, FS1, FX, History Channel, IFC, TLC, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, MTV, and The Weather Channel, to name but a few.

Early on, that baseline offering is being complemented by thematic add-on tiers that include Sports & Info PLUS (examples: ESPN Classic, Great American Country, Pac-12’s regionals, Ride TV and Fox College Sports); Movies & Music PLUS (Chiller, an EPIX multiplex, Reelz, Sony Movie Channel, among others); and En Español PLUS (CNN en Español, Discovery Familia, TBN Salsa and Nat Geo Mundo, among others).

Layer3 TV is also pitching a handful of premium multiplexes – EPIX PLUS, HBO PLUS, Cinemax PLUS, Showtime PLUS (noticeably absent from that list is Starz). Layer3 TV is also selling some services on an a la carte basis, including Aapka Colors and Fox Soccer Plus.

Wired reported earlier this year that Layer3 TV will be delivering HD into the home at less than 4 Mbps using the bandwidth-saving HEVC codec.

Per the company, pricing ranges from about $75 on up and is dependent on programming choices and configurations, and believes that its packages will always be competitive with like offerings from incumbent providers. The base package also includes Layer3 TV’s primary gateway/whole-home DVR and a smaller client device. Customers can rent out more devices for an additional fee. 

In addition to the beefy basic package, Layer3 TV “will do niche better than anybody does niche,” Gardner said, noting that Layer3 TV’s content team negotiated all of its own carriage deals and has 20,000 pages of documentation to show for it.

Execs from several programmers, including Disney, Scripps Networks, Viacom, and The Weather Channel, praised Layer3 TV’s tech and approach in the MVPD’s programming release.

An example: “Layer3 TV’s user interface and packaging options offer a fantastic environment, taking advantage of the latest technology to present our content. We continue to look for new ways to reach consumers and Layer3 TV offers a great avenue to do that,” Justin Connolly, EVP of affiliate sales and marketing for Disney and ESPN Media Networks, said in a release.

4K Coming

Layer3 TV also has a 4K offering in the works. Gardner said the MVPD has already inked a deal for its first full-time 4K channel, and that several “major programmers” will be offering VOD content in the format. “In every conversation I have with a movie studio or programmer, 4K comes up,” he said.

Layer3 TV has not yet announced where it will launch service next. It’s been conducting a trial in a couple of markets in Texas under the Umio TV brand. It’s believed that Suddenlink (now owned by Altice) has been partnering with Layer3 TV in that effort.

RELATED: Layer3 TV Seeks 'Installation Supervisor' in Handful of Markets

Layer3 TV is also complementing its main video offering by integrating over-the-top and social media services, including YouTube and Facebook, and is expected to expand that slate in the coming months.

Denver-based Layer3 TV has raised about $100 million, and Altice and Paulson Co. are reportedly among its unannounced investors.

In a deal that expands its video software expertise and market share, Espial on Friday (August 19) said it has closed its acquisition of Arris’s Whole Home Solution platform.

RELATED: Espial Swings Deal for Arris’s Whole Home Solution

Terms and conditions of the deal were not disclosed, but Ottawa, Canada-based Espial said in June that it expects the acquisition to add $7.7 million annual revenues as it moves ahead on a plan to spur growth with “video-as-a-service” offerings.

Arris and Espial said they will collaborate on integration and co-marketing activities, and are creating a reseller agreement. Arris is now Espial’s preferred partner for gateways, but Espial is free to work with other hardware partners.

The deal also covers WHS’s infrastructure, client and server software products, a development and operations team primarily located in Kirkland, Wash., and a network operations center and two WHS cloud data center operations.

Espial also announced that Ron Miller will transition from Arris to lead the business as general manager.

The deal effectively transfers some key video software expertise to Espial from Arris, the world’s largest maker of set-top boxes -- , a position established through its acquisition of U.K.-based set-top maker Pace plc. in January, and its purchase of Motorola Home in April 2013.

Arris’s WHS originated from its $20 million acquisition of the Digeo set-top and software business from Paul Allen in 2009. MSOs that have deployed Arris’s WHS include Shaw Communications, WideOpenWest, Buckeye CableSystem, EastLink, Comporium, Consolidated Communications and Service Electric Cable TV.

Espial has previously said it will support current roadmaps, and look to accelerate future product roadmaps, for more than 40 service providers that use WHS in the U.S., Canada and Latin America.

Espial CEO Jaison Dolvane said when the deal was announced that there are more than 2 million boxes deployed that are powered by Arris’s WHS platform. He said the growth plan includes expanding the reach of WHS at existing customers, upselling others, and selling and deploying the offering to new customers.

"Espial gains a broad base of new customer relationships and further scales our world-class integration, operations, and software development teams,” Dolvane said in a statement.

The agreement will pit Espial against others that are looking to help MVPDs transition to IP video and next-gen video services, Evolution Digital, for example, is targeting that opportunity with its eVUE-TV platform. Comcast, meanwhile, is trying to syndicate and license its X1 platform. Cox Communications and Shaw Communications are already on board.

C Spire said it is working with MobiTV on a next-gen, in-home TV service that will do away with “traditional” set-tops and instead target a wide range of connected streaming platforms, including Roku players, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV devices, select smart TVs, and iOS and Android smartphones and tablets.

The Mississippi-based wireless operator, which timed the announcement with this week’s The Independent Show in Orlando, Fla., said it expects to launch beta testing in November and obtain customer feedback and input prior to a commercial launch.

C Spire said the new service will feature a full linear TV lineup, including local broadcast TV stations, VOD, a cloud DVR, and seven-day TV “catch up” service. C Spire said it also has plans to pair that full-freight pay TV service with optional “skinny” channel packages

"Since the service relies on in-home streaming and mobile devices, it eliminates the need for traditional set top boxes,” Suzy Hays, SVP of consumer markets at C Spire, said in a statement. “This next generation service leverages our long-standing history of providing customer-inspired wireless experiences and will look and feel more like an app than your standard cable TV service with features such as in-depth search, personal recommendations and catch up TV.”

C Spire’s decision to go with an apps-style pay TV service comes amid the FCC’s pursuit of new set-top rules. The cable industry, led by the NCTA, has been advocating for an apps-based approach under its “Ditch the Box” proposal. Last week, the NCTA fed the FCC a pile of data and information about the technical and operational components of its proposal.

C Spire’s legacy pay TV service, called Super HD TV, features a mobile app with TV Everywhere support, interactive guide, and a whole home DVR that can record up to 400 hours of HD and record six shows at the same time. The company has been asked for more detail on its legacy vendor partners. C Spire has been rolling out fiber networks in several communities, including Clinton, Flora, Jackson, Madison, Quitman, Ridgeland, and Starkville.

Updated: A C Spire official confirmed that its legacy video platform was developed in partnership with Innovative Systems, and that its next-gen, app-focused TV product will be delivered into the home via managed IP connections.

MobiTV said C Spire is the first U.S. MVPD to tap its IPTV platform, which integrated several components, including the CMS, DRM, Media Player, nDVR, content policy, identity management, billing and authentication.

MobiTV has historically focused on mobile operators, and counts clients such as AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Sprint, T-Mobile, TELUS, US Cellular and Verizon.

“The in-home TV experience is changing rapidly, creating both challenges and opportunities for providers as they navigate the new reality of delivering pay TV services in today’s market,” said Charlie Nooney, CEO of MobiTV. “This is only the beginning for us. We continue to break barriers and utilize our long-history in the video delivery space to help more companies’ future-proof their offerings through our ever-evolving, agile solutions within the video delivery ecosystem.”

The Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, or HITN-TV, is being added to CenturyLink's Prism TV service as part of the Paquete Latino Spanish-language offering as of Wednesday, July 20, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based programmer said. “HITN-TV is very pleased CenturyLink will offer our channel to its Prism TV lineup. This addition affirms our recent shift in programming and the increase in viewership HITN-TV has had during the first half of 2016,” Eric Turpin, HITN’s general manager, said in a release. HITN-TV will air on Channel 3055 in all Prism TV markets.

UPDATE: beIN Sports also said it's being launched today (July 20) on CenturyLink's Prism TV service. beIN Sports joins the Prism Preferred and Prism Sports Plus packages on channels 662 and 1662 in HD and beIN SPORTS en Español will now be available through the Prism Paquete Latino package on channels 3119 and 4119 in HD. “This agreement with CenturyLink allows us to reach a larger fan base, providing new viewers with access to leading soccer and global sporting events,”  Yousef Al-Obaidly, deputy CEO of beIN Media Group, said in a release. “This partnership marks an integral step in our network’s expansion, and is a testament to our continued efforts to strengthen our offerings and provide unrivaled programming to even more viewers across the U.S.”

Hunting-focused Pursuit Channel also said it has a carriage agreement with CenturyLink to launch on Prism TV this fall. “Pursuit Channel is thrilled to offer world class outdoor programming to millions of CenturyLink customers,” Rusty Faulk, CEO and founder of Pursuit Channel, said in a release. “This agreement, on the heels of other recent launches, greatly expands the opportunities for us to reach more outdoor enthusiasts.”

Few companies in the cable and telecommunications industries have escaped the cyber attacks that continue to wreak havoc on just about every layer of the supply chain.

Varying degrees of security breaches at Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable and other cable providers have raised the red flag in the cybersecurity space and prompted a new mantra: Now is the time to raise the level of security.

“A fundamental evolution is taking place and the security implications are numerous,” Michela Menting, research director at consulting firm ABI Research, said. “Above all are the issues raised by the transition to all-[Internet protocol] networks, which are already highly exploited by threat actors and will be a boon for malicious cyber-agents — and all sectors are vulnerable.

“Investment in security services and corresponding hardware and software is not something they can ignore or put off , except at great cost to their services, reputation and client base,” she said.

Cybersecurity concerns have become so paramount that in its Charter Communications-Time Warner Cable merger order, the Federal Communications Commission required Charter to submit a plan to manage its increasing security risks during the transition.

And according to the Hewlett Packard Enterprise/Ponemon Institue “2015 Cost of Cyber Crime” study, hacking attacks cost U.S. firms, on average, some $15.4 million a year. Globally, U.K. insurance firm Lloyds estimates that cyber-attacks are costing businesses a staggering $400 billion a year.

There’s also the shaken confidence of clients and subscribers about the safety of their data. And not everyone is convinced the cable industry is prepared for any attacks.

“Cable networks are archaic in many respects, as they extend the life of existing systems, and frankly, the security posture of networks and the less time spent on security leads to a lot of holes,” Chris Simkins, CEO and co-founder of supply chain analysis and risk management firm Chain Security, said.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a consultancy moving deeper into the cybersecurity space, believes cable companies are getting the message that shoring up their networks should be of the highest priority.

“There’s a lot going on with MSOs and we’re seeing the awareness lev el rising,” Mark Lobel, a principal in PwC’s U.S. advisory practice and Cybersecurity Technology, Information, Communications & Entertainment leader, said. “But cybersecurity is like a chess game with no kings, and trying to stay ahead of who’s across the board.”

And just who is across the board?

“There are many threat vectors,” Irfan Saif, a principal in Deloitte’s Cyber Risk Services practice, said. “There are service-disruption actors, those looking at the backbone to propagate malware and those who want to compromise customers. It’s a broad range of threat actors and companies must be cognizant of them all.”

That will require a holistic approach, Saif noted. “You must understand what behavior is considered normal and what indicates a threat of attack and what are the crown jewels that require higher-grade protection.”

Cisco Systems, another player in the cybersecurity space, concurred with Saif’s assessment.

“The best approach is a holistic look at security and where each layer builds on top of each other — firewalls, advanced malware protection, email and core technologies like conditional access, DRM and anti-piracy technology — a breadth of security,” Cisco senior product and solutions marketing manager Sam Rastogi said.

Another less glamorous threat, but just as dangerous, comes from the inside.

“Employees or vendors with access to information is a growing concern,” Rastogi sad. “Who’s accessing information and how, and is there abnormal activity? A risk-based program with alerts, authentication measures and more will give companies more insight.”

CableLabs, the cable industry’s research and development consortium, is accelerating its cybersecurity activity with two initiatives: It’s working with the Wi-Fi Alliance to ensure links to hotspot access points are secure, and it’s reaching more deeply into home managed access points.

“The level of engagement is very high and there are real questions being asked,” The mindset is changing,” CableLabs principal security architect Steve Goeringer said.

That’s a good thing, said Rick Michaels, CEO of CEA, a cable industry-focused investment bank. “It’s one thing that cable is carrying 60% of the Internet traffic, but now there are data centers and multiple services with different touch points in cable. Cybersecurity should be of paramount interest to the cable industry.”

Most cable companies are understandably reluctant to discuss their cyber security strategies. Comcast, which in March hired Noopur Davis as senior vice president of product security and privacy, offered a statement from Myrna Soto, senior vice president and global chief information security officer: “We’ve committed extensive resources with a focus on risk management and built resilient and smarter networks with many security layers that are monitored continuously. Using automation, tooling and analytics is key.”

Arris, another key equipment supplier to cable networks, said in a statement (in part): “Security remains a top priority at Arris, as it does for all manufacturers of Internet and network-connected devices” and that it “employs a variety of protective measures to help ensure the safe and reliable operation of our devices including, but not limited to, DOCSIS compliance, vulnerability scanning, and monitoring programs.” It works “actively with security organizations and our service provider customers to identify and quickly resolve any potential vulnerabilities to protect the subscribers who use our CPE devices.”

Breaches cut across both residential and business markets, added Sander Smith, president of Sericon Technology.

“It’s clear that very soon we’ll see consumers filling their home networks with IoT devices, and these devices will be rushed to market with very little thought given to security.”

Yet even with the increase in cyber attacks (PwC reported a 38% increase in 2015 vs. 2014), there is cautious optimism that with emerging cybersecurity innovations, an expanding community of cybersecurity companies and a heightened awareness among service providers, security is being strengthened.

“We’re seeing various levels of maturity in cable and telecom and a raising of awareness in those organizations,” PwC’s Lobel said. “But they can’t lose focus.”

The National Cable & Telecommuications Association is focusing its cybersecurity attention on two areas, senior vice president, science and technology and chief technology officer Bill Check said.

“We are leading the industry’s Cybersecurity Working Group and working with the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), along with various cybersecurity-related working groups,” he said. “The challenge is to anticipate current and future threats and design systems of early detection and resistance, because cyber-criminals will always look for new exploits.”

Frontier Communications, which has been growing as a pay-TV provider through acquisitions (including former Verizon Fios and AT&T U-verse systems) and by introducing an IPTV-based service called Vantage in other markets, has applied to provide TV service in Middletown, N.Y., where Time Warner Cable operates.

Mid-HudsonNews.com reported that Frontier officials discussed video expansion plans in the city of Middletown at a common council public meeting Tuesday night. Norwalk, Conn.-based Frontier offers the recently rebranded Vantage service throughout much of Connecticut and recently launched the service, based on the Ericsson Mediaroom platform, in Durham, N.C., as well. Officials have said the company hopes to expand video service into 40 more markets over the next three to four years. Frontier has applied for a statewide franchise in Ohio, according to officials.

The news site reported Frontier proposed paying the city a franchise fee based on revenue, as Time Warner Cable (now owned by Charter Communications) does, and would not have to rip up streets to provide TV service. 

After completing a $10.5-billion buyout of former Verizon wireline operations in California, Florida and Texas, Frontier has about 1.5 million video subscribers on its networks, making it the eighth-biggest pay-TV provider in the country, according to MCN estimates. The next biggest company on that list, Mediacom Communications, is headquartered near Middletown, a community about 70 miles north of New York City in Orange County.

UPDATE: Patricia Amendola, communications manager for Frontier's East Region, told Multichannel News: "Frontier has filed a cable franchise application with the City of Middletown and other nearby communities served by Frontier. The City of Middletown held a public hearing as the first step in approval of a cable franchise where Frontier presented its plans to offer competitive cable service and choice in the City of Middletown. We are also currently installing some of the equipment in our central offices so that we are ready once the regulatory process concludes. The equipment upgrades will occur within our existing buildings and facilities without any disturbance to the public." Frontier also will seek New York State Public Service Commission approval to launch Vantage TV in Middletown and the other communitites, she said. 

Layer3 TV, the self-described “next generation” cable provider, is seeking an “installation supervisor” in a handful of U.S. markets.

Layer3 TV is currently looking to fill that positon in Chicago; Houston; Alexandria, Va.; and in its hometown of Denver. Layer3 TV also has an office in Boston, but does not appear to be seeking an installation supervisor there.

Per the job description, a Layer3 TV Installation Supervisor will be tasked with managing and training technicians (contractors and employees), performing in-home installation, cable modem provisioning and in-home cable and wireless networks. The job will also be good for candidates who know their way around DOCSIS, WiFi, and Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA, technology that delivers IP video and other content over home coax lines at high speeds for applications such as whole-home DVRs).

The location of those jobs could fuel further speculation on which markets Layer3 TV will target in the early phases of its service deployment.

Layer3 TV, which will use electric-powered BMW i3 vehicles in its service fleet, has been offering its IP-delivered service under the “Umio” brand in a couple of its early test markets for -- Midland and Kingwood, Texas – also the territory of incumbent cable operator Suddenlink (now part of Altice).

In a recent company profile in Wired, Layer3 TV CEO Jeffrey Binder said the company would also be launching in Chicago and a “couple of other major cities on the East and West coasts.” Per that report, Layer3 TV’s offering will sell for $80 to $150 per month, depending on how many TVs are connected to the service.

The story also shed some more light on Layer3 TV service distribution strategy. It won’t deliver content into the home over-the-top, but will instead come in via managed IP connections, and lean on a distribution facility in the Denver along with a 12,000-mile fiber backbone that will link it to individual markets that Layer3 TV will serve. For the last mile link, Layer3 TV will forge deals with “large infrastructure companies.”

Layer3 TV is not commenting further about its service deployment plan.

On the heels of its acquisition of Verizon’s wireline operations in California, Texas and Florida on April 1, Frontier Communications said it lost 10,300 video subs (including a reduction of 6,700 satellite video subs through its bundling deal with Dish Network), but added 24,600 net broadband customers in the first quarter of 2016.

As of March 31, Frontier had 2.48 million broadband subs, and 543,400 video subs. The Verizon deal adds about 3.3 million voice subs, 2.1 million broadband connections and 1.2 million Fios video customers.

Frontier’s cutover that started April 1 “was the largest and most complex flash cut that has ever been executed in our industry and I'm proud to say that it has been very successful," Frontier president and CEO Daniel McCarthy said on Tuesday’s earnings call.

He acknowledged that there were bumps during the cutover, but said they were limited to less than 1% of the company’s overall base in any given point in time.

McCarthy said Frontier expects Q2 to be affected by the ongoing integration, with customer metrics in the period “most likely be negative, as we begin to build our marketing campaigns over the coming weeks.”

Frontier, which recently introduced a new brand, “Vantage,” that will be used across its video, broadband and IP voice services, is also pushing ahead with a plan to  launch IP-based, 4K-capable video service to more than 40 markets, representing about 3 million homes, over the next three to four years.

“We can service slightly over 30% of our 14.5 million household footprint with video today, and we anticipate that will grow to well in excess of half over the coming year,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also weighed in on the FCC’s vote to remake the rules governing the business broadband market that could potentially extend regulated rates to cable operators that provide special access service.

“We think that the Ethernet marketplace is very competitive today,” he said. “I think the reality is that the FCC will find many of the markets very competitive, that it won't have much of an impact at all. I think it's pretty premature at this point to predict what any final decision will look like, because they are really in a fact-finding mode.”

Frontier had about 284,000 business customers at the end of Q1.

On the financial front, Frontier posted Q1 revenue of $1.35 billion, down 4% year-over-year,  and a net loss of $186 million, or 16 cents per share, widened from a net loss of $103 million, or 9 cents per share.

For the full year of 2016, including the impact of the Verizon deal, Frontier's expects adjusted free cash flow in the range of $800 million to $925 million, and capital expenditures for Frontier's combined operations is in the range of $1,250 million to $1,400 million.

Windstream said it has moved ahead with the launch of its IP-delivered Kinetic TV service in Sugar Land, Texas, where it faces off with incumbent MSO Comcast.

Windstream, which offers the service there to more than 30,000 homes in there, announced plans to launch the service to the affluent Houston suburb back in February.

Windstream’s pay TV service runs on a fiber-based network using Arris-made wireless whole-home HD-DVRs powered by Ericsson Mediaroom, the IPTV middleware platform that  Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in 2013.

Windstream has also launched Kinetic TV in Lincoln, Neb.; and Lexington, Ky., where it competes with Time Warner Cable.

Windstream is bundling Kinetic TV with its high-speed and telephone services, or offering it as a standalone starting at $39.99 per month.

Among the service combos, “Bundle 1” ties different TV tiers with a 25 Mbps Internet service for prices starting at $59.98 (with a “Basic” TV) package, while the triple-play, also with a 25-Meg broadband offering, starts at $64.98 per month. Pricing on its “Select” and “Preferred” TV bundles require a 12-month agreement.

Windstream also offers a 1-Gig broadband service in Sugar Land.

Stream TV, Comcast’s in-home, managed IPTV service that’s being offered in two markets, has entered the news cycle again, and again there seems to be some confusion about how it’s being delivered into the customer’s home.

The latest round got started this week when TV Predictions noticed that Comcast’s FAQ about Stream TV, a $15 per month skinny TV service tailored for mobile devices, mentions now that the operator is working on new option that would allow consumers who wanted that skinny bundle service to get it if they happened to get broadband service from another provider, and not from Comcast. Actually, Ars Technica made note of this coming option earlier in the month.

Here’s that language: “If you're not an XFINITY Internet customer, we are working hard to make the required equipment available in 2016.”  It also reiterates that  Stream TV – an in-home service (Stream TV subscribers also have access to some authenticated TV Everywhere content that's available when they are on the go) -- will only work if the supported video viewing device (a PC, laptop, smartphone or tablet, in this instance) is connected via the Comcast-supplied in-home network (wired or via WiFi).

Early on, Comcast has been offering Stream TV to customers who also get broadband from the MSO. The plan is to add an option whereby customers who get high-speed Internet service from another provider can still subscribe to Stream TV as a stand-alone pay TV service, though those customers will still need a new IP gateway (the new piece of the puzzle) to obtain the managed IPTV signals from Comcast's network.

Comcast isn’t saying much about this gateway, but it would seem that the operator is working on a new type of “headless” gateway – headless in the sense that it doesn’t support direct video outputs like a set-top or a “headed” gateway (like the XG1) do. The video output device, in the case of Stream TV, would be the laptop, tablet or smartphone. Bottom line: it would give Comcast a way to market and sell Stream TV to consumers who get broadband from another ISP – however big or small that part of the market is.

The confusion is coming about because there have been some suggestions made that this means Comcast will be delivering Stream TV into the subscriber's home via someone else’s access network, which is false and would sure be a neat trick (of course that could change someday if Comcast decided to offer an over-the-top video pay TV service that travelled the public Internet, which would be an explosive, market-changing thing for sure).

But as of today, the Stream TV service will still come into the home via Comcast's managed IP network using bandwidth that does not mingle with the bandwidth it has set aside for the MSO’s public Internet service (in some ways this is akin to how AT&T U-verse delivers U-verse – some IP capacity is set aside for the broadband service, while other IP capacity is set aside for its managed IPTV service; they are kept separate).

So, this means that Stream TV does use IP transport, but it isn’t delivered into the home “over-the-top” like Netflix, Sling TV or PlayStation Vue, for example.

This is all of supreme interest, of course, because Stream TV streaming (just like Comcast’s legacy QAM-based video services, which is also managed but uses a different kind of transport technology, MPEG) is exempt from the usage-based data policies that Comcast is testing in several markets for its high-speed Internet service.

Critics believe this violates network neutrality rules (Public Knowledge filed complaint to the FCC about it in earlier this month), while Comcast argues that it doesn't because Stream TV doesn't use the Internet to get into the customer's home. Bu critics also say such policies put OTT services at a competitive disadvantage. And this discussion is also somehow being tied into the debate around new, controversial “zero-rated” and sponsored-data services from mobile providers such as T-Mobile (Binge On) and Verizon (FreeBee Data). If anything, it’ll make for an interesting debate for both sides of the argument.

Frontier Communications, which is nearing the close of its pending acquisitions of a batch of Verizon wireline properties, has launched a “Vantage” premium brand that will be affixed to its mix of video, broadband and IP voice services.

Frontier introduced its Vantage brand and set of products in Durham, N.C., in the fourth quarter of 2015, and will now bring it to parts of Connecticut and expand to other markets.

The new branding also enters play as Frontier moved forward on a plan to launch IP-based video service to more than 40 markets, representing about 3 million homes, over the next three to four years. Once that’s complete, Frontier will offer video service to about 50% of it 8.5 million homes in its current footprint. Its pending deals for Verizon’s wireline assets in California, Texas and Florid will give Frontier the chance to expand the Vantage TV brand to more than 3 million more homes.

Frontier also shed some light on the new Vantage TV service,  noting that it will offer 4K capability in “select markets,” offer up to 1 terabyte of DVR storage, and a whole-home DVR set-up that records up to four shows at once.

It will also support a VoD library of more than 100,000 movies and TV shows, an enhanced search capability that lets users find shows across live TV, VOD and the DVR, and a “Channel Peeks” feature that maintains full-screen viewing while letting the subscriber get a glimpse of other programs on live TV and content recorded to the DVR. The video platform will also integrate Twitter and Facebook and interactive apps spanning weather, home shopping and games, Frontier said. 

“This is the perfect time for Frontier to launch our premier products. ‘Vantage’ conveys the ultimate customer experience and represents products and services that deliver value, solutions, and choice,” Cecilia K. McKenney, EVP and chief customer officer and head of corporate marketing at Frontier, said in a statement.

Frontier Communications used its fourth quarter earnings call Tuesday to outline its video strategy, announcing that it plans to launch video service to more than 40 markets, representing about 3 million homes, over the next three to four years.

That offering, delivered via IP, will lean fairly hard on Frontier’s fiber-to-the-node platform, though it will also be using FTTP networks it has obtained, and will soon obtain, from Verizon Communications.

“Once complete, video service will be available to about 50% of the 8.5 million households in Frontier’s existing footprint, not counting the pending Verizon acquisition,” Daniel McCarthy, Frontier’s president and CEO, said on the call.

With the expected Verizon properties in California, Texas and Florida factored in, Frontier will be in position to provide video service to more than 7 million homes.

“We anticipate additional opportunities as we upgrade select copper markets in the acquired states,” McCarthy said.

He said the video plan was made to be “extremely capital-efficient” because it will ride on the investments Frontier has been making in its broadband plant in recent years, and because it will use new compression technology that will allow it to deliver an HD signal in about 2.5 Mbps of capacity.

That means “a household with four HDTVs active at once will only require 10 megabits of capacity into the home, leaving the remainder available for data usage,” the exec said, estimating that it will require less than $150 million spread over several years to enable 1.3 million homes to receive video over its existing broadband infrastructure.

“We think a good video product would be about a 15-meg video product,” he said, noting that what it’s doing today in Connecticut  requires about 80 Mbps of capacity to deliver four HD streams.

McCarthy said Frontier is in the final phases of preparing to close its pending acquisitions of Verizon wireline operations in parts of California, Texas and Florida, noting that it’s scheduled to wrap up those deals on April 1.

Frontier, he said, believes the new video offering “opens the door to attracting new customers to our broadband service while introducing new tools to improve retaining existing customers.”

Frontier started the process when it launched a video service trial in Durham, N.C., in the fourth quarter of 2015 that has since reached the commercial stage.

McCarthy said Frontier is in the process of booting up video services in an additional two markets.

Frontier ended 2015 with 3.12 million residential customers, down 0.7% on a year-over-year basis.  Frontier added 28,500 net broadband subs in the period, for a total of 2.46 million, and lost 5,800 video subs, including a reduction of 5,400 satellite video subs, giving it a total in that category of 553,700.

On the financial front,  Frontier posted Q4 revenues of $1.41 billion, and a net loss of $103 million, or 9 cents per share.

It appears that Layer3 TV’s field techs will be riding in style while also doing something positive for the environment. 

Amplifying its policies around power savings and energy efficiency, Layer3 TV, the Denver-based “next generation” cable operator, confirmed that it has added the BMW i3, an electric-powered vehicle, to its service fleet.

Pictured is a BMW i3 outfitted with Layer3 TV’s branding that was parked late last week near the company’s new Denver headquarters. A spy on the street there passed the image along to Multichannel News.

Layer3 TV said the vehicle is the first installment of the company’s Field Operations Organization (FOO). It’s not clear how many BMW i3’s will eventually become part of Layer3 TV’s fleet, but an industry source indicated that there could be a larger engagement afoot between the emerging pay TV operator and the car maker. Layer3 TV isn’t commenting on its relationship with BMW.

According to BMW data on the i3, it was recognized as one of Kelley Blue Book’s ten top “Green Cars,” can travel 81 miles per charge, or up to 150 miles with a “range extender.” Per the car maker, buyers are eligible for a tax credit of up to $7,500. The baseline i3 carries a starting MSRP of $42,400, while the vehicle with the range extender starts at $46,250.  

Layer3 TV’s selection of the BMW i3 factors into the company’s broader commitment to the environment and sustainability.

Company co-founder and CTO David Fellows recently joined the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers’ Energy 2020 initiative in the role of “chief scientist.” Fellows, a cable industry vet late of Comcast, AT&T Broadband and Scientific Atlanta, noted that the time that a goal of Layer3 TV is to be “the greenest cable company in the world.” Eric Kuhn, Layer3 TV’s head of marketing, meanwhile, is on the council of Earth Justice, a non-profit environmentally-focused law organization.

Details about Layer3 TV’s fleet vehicle selection comes as the company makes progress on the deployment front. It has launched, on schedule, limited user trials in several markets. Layer3 TV, however, has not identified the locations of those trials nor discussed in great detail its grander go-to-market strategy.

However, Layer3 TV, which has raised about $80 million via two rounds of funding, did drop some hints in a recent FCC filing indicating that it will operate as an MVPD. A Pace-made IP set-top for Layer3 TV has also passed through the FCC.