Mediacom Communications has announced the launch of Mediacom Mobile, which will rely on Verizon Communications as its multichannel video network operator (MVNO) partner. 

Born to be bundled with the Blooming Grove, New York-based cable company's Mediacom Xtream Internet service, Mediacom Mobile will be available as an unlimited service for $40 per month per line, plus taxes and fees, or in a pay-as-you-go scheme in which each successively used gig is billed at an additional $15 each on top of the $15-a-month base price. (This has become a cable mobile standard.) 

To start, Mediacom will use a bring-your-own-device scheme, accommodating unlocked iOS and Android handsets that can accept either a SIM or an eSIM.

“By combining a proven national wireless network with our fast and reliable fiber-rich Gigabit speeds, robust Xtream Wi-Fi capabilities, and simple, affordable pricing plans, we believe Mediacom Mobile creates a ubiquitous connected experience and a compelling wireless solution for consumers,” Tapan Dandnaik, Mediacom’s senior VP of operations, product strategy and consumer experience, said in a statement. 

Mediacom is only the latest tier 2 and 3 cable operator to launch a mobile service, following Cox Communications, Breezeline, WideOpenWest and the entire National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC), of which Mediacom is a member. 

As MoffettNathanson noted back in June, cable operators have a convergence advantage over incumbent wireless carriers in that they can market bundles across their entire footprint. Nationally distributed wireless companies can only market bundles in markets in which they have wireline broadband. 

But there is a downside for so-called “junior cable” operators, too, according to S&P Global Ratings analyst Chris Mooney. They don’t have the network resources to take mobile users off the pricey-to-lease Verizon network, as Comcast and Charter do. 

Also read: Comcast and Charter Are in a Better Position Than Smaller Cable Companies To Resist Fixed Wireless Competition, S&P Global Ratings Says

Notably, Mediacom doesn't disclose the size of its Wi-Fi hot spot network. 

Mediacom told the FCC it will meet the deadline to "rip and replace" equipment supplied by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE by its July 15 deadline. 

"To date, 100% of the program has been completed across the areas of removal and replacement, and 99% of equipment has received disposal certification," the New York-based cable operator said in a filing to the FCC Monday. 

Established by Congress in 2019 to weed out Chinese telecommunications gear that could be used for espionage, the "Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act" has suffered from significant underfunding. In May, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel sent a letter to Congress, informing lawmakers that the project has only received $1.9 billion so far, but needs closer to $5 billion to complete. 

A report compiled by the FCC and sent to Congress last week said only 14 telecom companies have completed their ripping and replacing of Huawei and ZTE gear. Nine of these companies, including Mediacom, took advantage of a six-month deadline extension rendered back in January. 

Rosenworcel told Congress that 40% of broadband providers can't afford to get rid of the Huawei and ZTE gear, which was deemed a national security risk in 2020.

The FCC has prioritized smaller ISPs "with 2 million or fewer customers,” which are often based in rural areas. And with these smaller companies, the FCC has been forced to prorate the funds, providing only 39.5% of the "reasonable costs" to replace the affected equipment. 

For its part, Mediacom asked for $86 million to lift its end of the couch and only received $36 million, according to Policyband's Ted Hearn. 

The incentive for ISPs, especially rurally situated ones, to comply is real. Failure to replace the Chinese gear would restrict ISPs from participating in the FCC's $8.1 billion Universal Service Fund subsidy program. 

Mediacom Communications has begun deploying the Xumo Stream Box to its broadband-only customers, the Blooming Grove, New York-based cable operator announced. 

The device was developed by a joint venture formed between Comcast and Charter Communications, and is designed to compete with TVOS platforms made and operated by Roku, Amazon, Google and Samsung, among others. 

“Xumo Stream Box is an incredibly versatile and consumer-friendly technology that seamlessly integrates our market-leading broadband speeds with a world-class streaming experience,” said Tapan Dandnaik, Mediacom’s senior VP of operations, product strategy and consumer experience, in a statement. 

The IP gadget is already in use with Charter video subscribers and Comcast broadband-only customers. 

Mediacom announced back in October at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver that it would deploy the technology, which is powered by the Comcast Entertainment OS. 

The device blends popular SVOD platforms, Comcast FAST programming and app-based pay TV, if the user subscribes to it. 

Mediacom has around 1.3 million subscriptions across broadband, video and voice products. 

Last week, the company CTO JR Walden said Mediacom has begun taking legacy QAM video signals off its network, as it migrates video consumption to the Xumo Stream Box and various TiVo-backed IPTV services. 

Joe Barone, the Italian-American general director of the ACF Fiorentina soccer team owned by Mediacom Communications chairman Rocco B. Commisso, died in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday at age 57 after falling ill before a scheduled match Sunday against Atalanta in Italy's Serie A. The cause of death was reported as cardiac arrest.

"The Commisso family and everyone associated with Fiorentina are utterly devastated by the terrible loss of a man who showed great professionalism and gave his heart and soul to restoring the historic Italian club to prominence," Thomas Larsen, senior VP of government and public relations at Mediacom, said in a company announcement on Tuesday. "He was a treasured friend who always stayed strong in the happiest and, above all, the most difficult moments. Please join me in sending heartfelt condolences to Joe’s wife Camilla, his children, and the entire Barone family during this time of immense sorrow."

Barone was employed by the New York Cosmos and was promoted to general manager after Commisso bought the team in 2017. When Commisso bought Fiorentina in 2019 Barone moved to Italy to take a leadership role with the team, Larsen said. "Joe had a background in the banking industry, but a deep passion for community soccer," Larsen said. "He helped run the Brooklyn Italians Soccer Club for many years and served as the chairman of the NPSL, which is a national league comprised of community based amateur and semi-pro soccer teams." The NPSL remembered Barone in a news post today. Barone's death prompted many tributes in Italy, including one from FIFA president Gianni Infantino on Instagram, according to ESPN: "You were proud of Viola Park, a beautiful sports centre. You were always moved when you spoke of Fiorentina. You improved the world of football, who loses you too soon. Tomorrow you would have celebrated your 58th birthday. Have a safe journey dear Joe, and a big hug to all the people who loved you."

Barone was born in Sicily and spoke fluent Italian, Larsen said. "His knowledge of soccer and bi-lingual skills proved to be very valuable assets as Rocco worked to rebuild the club. He was instrumental in the construction of Fiorentina’s new state-of-the-art training center, Viola Park. He also worked closely with city leaders on a renovation plan for the team’s stadium that kicked off earlier this year." 

Fiorentina's match on Sunday in Bergamo, Italy, was postponed. The team, known to its fans as La Viola, is in eighth place in Italy's top league.

Mediacom Communications has become the latest cable operator to remove old-world QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) signals used for linear video off its network, freeing up more wherewithal for high-speed internet. 

With a substantial portion of Mediacom’s customers using either TiVo's IPTV solution or the Xumo Stream Box for video, removing the video signals used to support traditional cable set-tops “turned out not to be that big a deal,” Mediacom chief technology officer JR Walden said while speaking at a Denver-area industry event Monday, which was covered by Light Reading.  

It's well known that cable operators have, in many cases, ceded their video operations to streaming-based solutions, including third-party virtual MVPDs like YouTube TV, for economic reasons: spiraling programming costs and cord-cutting have conspired to gut the margins on linear video services. 

But there's also a significant savings in network resources by not supporting QAM video infrastructure. 

“In addition to the benefits to our customers we will be able to accelerate the reclamation of bandwidth previously used for our legacy video service,“ WOW! CEO Teresa Elder said in November. “This allows WOW! to efficiently transition our network for DOCSIS 4.0 and serve the growing demand for customer usage without having to overbuild their own network.”

“We definitely are encouraging customers who take our traditional video to either subscribe to YouTube TV or a streaming service,” Elder added. “We have not forced customers off of video to date, and we are really trying to manage churn on that to continue to support that. With that said, we know that over the next year, 1.5 years, we want to completely get [video] off of our QAM network.”

According to Light Reading, Cox Communications and Midco are making post-QAM plans as well. 

DENVER — Comcast and Charter Communications arrived here at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo this week intent on selling their video platform joint venture, Xumo, to the rest of the U.S. cable industry. 

And they already have a taker in Middletown, New York-based Mediacom Communications, which Marcien Jenckes, president of the Xumo JV said Tuesday at an SCTE show-floor presentation, said will start distributing the new Xumo Stream Box to its customers. 

Also Read: Xumo Stream Box Reviewed: The First OTT Player From Comcast and Charter’s JV Has a Few Bugs and Limitations, but We Can Still See Potential

Jenckes offered little details about Mediacom's deployment — like when it’ll start — but he did say: “This is just the beginning with more to come. We’d like to be working with a lot more operators, and we’ll be doing that in the coming months and years."

UPDATED: The Xumo JV released an official statement two days after Jenckes' disclosure, indicating that the Stream Box will be distributed to Mediacom Xtream internet customers "in the coming months." The release didn't say if Mediacom would charge them for the device, and if so, how much.

"Through our partnership with Xumo, we will be able to significantly enhance the value of our broadband services by combining our market-leading speeds with a new world-class streaming experience," said Tapan Dandnaik, Mediacom's senior VP of operations, product strategy and customer experience. "Xumo Stram Box is incredibly versatile and consumer-friendly, and we are excited to be among the first companies to bring this cutting-edge device to market."

The Mediacom announcement comes two weeks after the JV formally introduced the Xumo Stream Box player, which in addition to playing the cable companies’ core pay TV apps — Charter's Spectrum app and the Xfinity Stream TV app — supports all major SVOD services and around 200 apps in all. 

Last week, Light Reading reported that Xumo was in talks with a number of tier 2 and 3 cable operators about offering the Xumo platform to their customers under ad-revenue sharing terms. The NCTC cooperative, which represents hundreds of smaller cable operators, reportedly expressed interest in the JV's proposition. 

The National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC) and other smaller cable interests are looking for ways to provide video to their now mostly broadband-oriented constituency, with rising content costs sapping their profitability and interest in linear video in recent years. 

For its part, Charter said the OTT platform — which is powered by Comcast voice-remote technology — had already replaced its linear set-tops as its “go-to” video platform.

“It’s the primary video box that we are deploying today,” Charter CEO Christopher Winfrey said during Tuesday’s Expo opening session. “It’s been hard for us lately to be excited about our video product. This is about as excited as we've been in 15 years." 

CommScope has announced a key customer win as it tries to maintain its position as the top cable technology vendor amid the cable industry’s “10G” network tech transition.

Hickory, North Carolina-based CommScope will be the primary tech vendor for the nation’s fifth-largest cable operator, Mediacom Communications, as it transitions its network to a virtualized Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) configuration.

In engineering-speak, CommScope will supply Blooming Grove, New York-based Mediacom, which serves around 1.47 million broadband customers, with its RD2322 RxD, “operating as a Remote MACPHY Device in the OM4120 Optical Node, configured with a high-split (204 MHz) upstream.”

CommScope and Mediacom have already collaborated on a successful trial in Ames, Iowa, of the vendor’s Remote PHY solutions, which featured CommScope products including the E6000 Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) Core, OM6000 node, Remote PHY Device (RPD) and Video Unified Edge (VUE).

The top cable operators, including Comcast and Charter Communications, have already begun the process of upgrading their 1 gigabit-per-second-capable DOCSIS 3.1 networks to the new Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 standard, which will provide symmetrical multi-Gbps speeds both upstream and downstream. 

Simultaneously, they’re virtualizing expensive, power-intensive proprietary cable-network hardware, migrating these devices’ functions to software running on commodity x86 servers, under the catchall heading DAA. (The cable industry has thrown both FDX DOCSIS 4.0 and DAA into an even broader bucket it calls 10G.)

Insurgent vendors including Harmonic have targeted CommScope's dominant market share in cable tech with new DAA software solutions. But the Mediacom win seems to show that CommScope is at least holding its own. Neither CommScope nor Mediacom disclosed how much money is involved in the commitment. 

“CommScope’s flexible solutions have allowed us to take advantage of our installed base of nodes, as well as the RD2322 RxD's ability to operate as a Remote MACPHY device, to make a smooth and efficient transition to our network of the future,” Mediacom chief technology officer JR Walden said in a statement. 

Added Guy Sucharczuk, senior VP and general manager of Access Network Solutions for CommScope, “This is a significant step forward for Mediacom's network, and it's a showcase for how CommScope is equipping the world’s leading operators for the 10G future.” ■

A campaign for Pedigree pet food, executed by MediaCom and submitted by OpenAP, won the Advanced Advertising Award for Best Definition of Target Market.

By using a data-driven audience strategy and identifying pet owners–and what type of pet they owned–Pedigree was able to reach the right audience with a more efficient cost per on-target reach.

The Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards will be presented on September 12 in New York at the Advanced Advertising Summit. 

A campaign for DriveTime, the used car shopping site, submitted by iSpot.tv won the 2022 Advanced Advertising Award for Best Use of Data. The Show Next Door, a program created by Roku sponsored by Maker’s Mark won the Advanced Advertising Innovation Award for Branded Content.

Winners for the Advanced Advertising Innovation Awards for Best Use of Multiple Platforms and Best Campaign will be named over the next few days and presented at the Advanced Advertising Summit.

While Pedigree is part of a large consumer packaged goods company that has bene successful with broad-reach TV campaigns, the brand saw it could improve return on advertising spending by switching to an audience based strategy.

OpenAP worked with Mediacom and Pedigree to build a custom audience segment based on pet owner purchase signals, deliver audience insights and campaign forecasting to inform media plans and seamlessly share the audience across multiple publishers. For this pet care brand, reaching pet owners specific to their animal was paramount to campaign success. 

With the campaign, the brand exceeded its forecasted in-target audience reach, reaching approximately 25% of the target audience. The campaign’s actual CPM was lower than the forecasted CPM.

“Through our work with OpenAP, we were able to go beyond our traditional demo buying strategy we’ve employed on behalf of Mars Petcare,” said Bennett Strauss, associate director, video investment at Mediacom. “The ability to utilize an audience-based strategy has allowed us to strengthen our media buys on TV by ensuring Pedigree ads are being delivered to the households with our ideal consumer. With the incremental reach delivered as a result of this campaign, we learned that an audience based-strategy on TV is an effective way to overcome challenges seen through traditional demo buys.”

After seeing great success with the first audience-based campaign, Pedigree has expanded its audience-based strategy to more products and brands. The parent CPG company also began moving more dollars to audience-based buying across business lines upon seeing the success of the pet care brand’s campaign.

“Pedigree needed to reach the right consumer with the right messaging to see the business results they wanted. For this brand, a cross-publisher unified audience-based strategy was the obvious solution,” said Abbey Thomas, chief revenue officer at OpenAP .”In being able to increase reach among pet owners at more efficient cost per on target reach, they leaned into scaling their audience-based strategy across more brands and business lines.”  ■

More than a quarter-century after risking his life savings to start a cable company specifically focused on secondary and rural markets, and months after logging 100 straight quarters of revenue growth, Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said he isn’t done yet. 

Mediacom finished the fourth quarter with $561.9 million in total revenue, a 2.2% increase over the prior year and the 100th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth for the company Commisso started in 1995, an accomplishment it said only a handful of companies can claim. 

Mediacom was first envisioned in an eight-page paper Commisso wrote in March 1995 after leaving CableVision Industries — where he served as chief financial officer for about a decade — titled “A Window of Opportunity.” In it, he mapped out a vision for bringing cable to small markets. At the time, the chairman believed it was a venture that would last at least a couple of years. 

“We never expected to be at this level,” Commisso said. “We were going to get out after five years. But things evolved. The things that helped me the most were, one; the support I always had from the debt community, and two; that I turned a lot of things down so I could keep control of the company.”

Commisso bought his first cable system in Ridgecrest, California, in 1996 and today Mediacom has 2.6 million voice, video and data customers in 22 states. The mix of customers has changed dramatically, as most are broadband subscribers instead of video customers. But the idea is still to provide good service at a reasonable price and continue to invest in the business. 

Along the way, Mediacom went public, at $19 per share, in 2000; spent $2.125 billion in 2001 on systems mainly in Iowa formerly owned by AT&T; and went private again in 2010, after the markets lost faith in the cable business. 

“Twenty-five straight years of growth is a remarkable achievement for any business,” MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett said. “It’s true that Rocco has been a brilliant financial engineer. But that sells him short. The real story is that he has also been a terrific operator. They’ve put up really nice numbers quarter after quarter. It’s a testament to a very well-run business.”

The largest acquisition was the one in 2001 from AT&T of systems in Iowa and three other states. That deal more than doubled Mediacom’s size, providing the clout to begin offering high-speed data in areas that hadn’t had it before and positioning it for an unprecedented period of growth. Since 2001, Mediacom has grown annual revenue from $885 million to more than $2.22 billion and annual adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) to more than $1 billion from $335 million.

But that was 20 years ago, and since then the industry has been turned on its ear. Commisso noted that in 2001, Mediacom had about 1.7 million primary service units (a combination of voice, video and data customers), including 1.5 million video customers and 100,000 high-speed internet subscribers. Today, broadband accounts for about 1.5 million subscribers and video customers number around 600,000, while total PSUs have grown to 2.6 million.

“Since 2001 we’ve lost over 1 million video customers,” Commisso said. “To lose all these customers and be able to triple your cash flow and grow your revenue every single quarter that we’ve been alive at Mediacom, in our opinion, is quite an accomplishment.”  

At the same time, Mediacom continues to invest in the business  — about $13 billion to fund acquisitions and to build and upgrade a national network that spans 600,000 fiber miles, Commisso said.

Still More to Do

“I am sure it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well that I am not about to stop pushing forward,” Commisso said in a chairman’s letter issued shortly after the Q4 results. 

Commisso is most proud of his ability to keep Mediacom’s debt low. Today, the company’s leverage ratio stands at 1.2 times cash flow, among the lowest in the entire media and telecom sector. In February, Standard & Poor’s raised Mediacom’s investment-grade credit rating to BBB-plus, higher than much larger telecom rivals like AT&T and a feat that would have been unheard of in the sector when the company began. But he stressed that Mediacom will continue to invest — capex is averaging around $350 million per year — even as it moves to reduce debt.  

“We’re investing in our business, in our community, in our people, in our infrastructure to stay in front of the competitive threats that are coming around,” Commisso said. ■

With Q4 revenue of $561.2 million, a 2.2% increase over the prior year, Mediacom Communications marked its 100th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth, entering a realm where only a handful of businesses have resided in modern business history, according to the company.

Adjusted Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization (OIBDA, a measure of cash flow) rose 8.2% in Q4 to $266.9 million. For the full year, revenue was up 4.3% to $2.2 billion and adjusted OIBDA increased 11.3% to $1 billion. 

While results were strong -- the increases came despite Mediacom losing 3,000 broadband customers in the period -- it was the milestone that prompted Rocco Commisso, one of the last remaining cable executives to lead the company he founded and continues to control to this day, to issue a letter to shareholders commemorating the event. In an interview, he said the last time he issued a letter to shareholders was when the company went public more than 20 years ago. 

Mediacom was formed in 1995 by Commisso, who after about 10 years as chief financial officer of CableVision Industries risked his life savings to start out on his own. He bought his first cable system in 1996 from Benchmark Cablevision in Ridgecrest, California, and now ranks as the fifth largest cable operator in the country, with about 2.6 million video, voice and data customers. 

While the cable business has had its ups and downs over the past three decades, Commisso and Mediacom have kept their eye on the ball, sidestepping for the most part the consolidation craze of the late 1990s and early 2000s, while focusing on investing in infrastructure and growing the business. 

Also: Mediacom: 20 Years of Growth 

Along the way Mediacom went public (at $19 per share in 2000, valuing the company at about 18 times cash flow); spent $2.125 billion on systems, mainly in Iowa, formerly owned by AT&T in 2001 and went private again in 2010 after the markets lost faith in the cable business in general. 

Through it all Commisso has kept his focus, expanding his network with an aggressive fiber buildout and bringing state-of-the-art high-speed services to rural communities. Mediacom deployed 1 Gigabit per second internet service throughout its footprint in 2017, staking a claim to be the first major cable company to do so. Mediacom said it has invested nearly $13 billion to fund acquisitions and to build and upgrade a national network that spans 600,000 fiber miles and serves 1.5 million customers across 22 states.   

Also: Mediacom: Standing Up for Small Cable’s Interests  

The AT&T deal in 2001 transformed Mediacom, more than doubling its size and raising its debt load to its highest level ever, about 8.3 times cash flow. Even at that level, Mediacom’s leverage was lower than some of its peers: Charter Communications at the time had a debt-to-cash-flow ratio of about 16 times. But the deal gave Mediacom the clout to begin offering high-speed data service in areas that hadn’t seen it before and positioned it for an unprecedented period of growth. Since buying the former AT&T systems in 2001, Mediacom has grown annual revenue from $885 million to more than $2.22 billion and upped annual adjusted OIBDA from $335 million to more than $1 billion.

Also: From Calabria to a Cable Chairmanship 

While that is an achievement in and of itself, Commisso is most proud of his ability to keep Mediacom’s debt low. Today the company’s leverage ratio stands at 1.2 times cash flow, among the lowest in the entire media and telecom sector. Earlier this month, Standard & Poor’s raised Mediacom’s investment grade credit rating to BBB+, higher than far-larger telecom rivals like AT&T and a feat that would have been unheard of in the sector when the company began. 

“I am pleased to say that the decision I made in 1995 to bet my life savings and my family’s future on serving neglected small communities in rural America has paid off, not only for me, but also for the thousands of employees and their families whose livelihoods depend on Mediacom’s continued success,” Commisso wrote in the letter to shareholders. “Since 2001, Mediacom has added more than 500 new positions to our highly skilled workforce, spent over $5 billion on employee payroll and made more than $500 million in 401(k) and medical benefit contributions.” ■

Tegna and Mediacom Communications announced that the reached a new retransmission consent agreement hours before the kickoff of the Super Bowl.

The agreement ends a blackout that began at the end of 2020 and affected stations in 12 markets.

The companies said that all Tegna stations would return to impacted Mediacom homes as soon as possible.

Tegna also reached a retransmission agreement with Dish a little more than a week ago. That agreement ended a four-month blackout.

“We are pleased to announce that we have reached a new agreement,” said Lynn Beall, executive VP and COO, media operation at Tegna, and Italia Commisso-Weinand, executive VP of programming and human resources for Mediacom in a joint statement. “This new agreement provides subscribers with access to valuable and important live local news, live local and national sports and popular network content. We appreciate the patience of our viewers while we worked to reach an agreement.”

Tegna has been involved in takeover reports involving Standard General and Apollo Global Management. 

The stations involved in the Mediacom dispute are:

WQAD (ABC) Davenport, Iowa; Rock Island and Moline, Illinois

WOI, KCWI, WOID4 (ABC, The CW, COZI TV) Des Moines and Ames, Iowa

WZDX (Fox) Huntsville and Decatur, Alabama

WHAS (ABC) Louisville, Kentucky

WMAZ, WMAZ2 (CBS, The CW) Macon, Georgia

KARE (NBC) Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota

WWL (CBS) New Orleans

WVEC (ABC) Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News, Virginia

KPNX (NBC) Prescott, Arizona

KFMB, KFMBDT2 (CBS, The CW) San Diego, California

KSDK (NBC) St. Louis

KMSB (Fox) Tucson, Arizona. ■ 

S&P Global said Thursday that it has raised its credit rating on Mediacom Communications one notch to BBB+/Stable after the cable company lowered its leverage ratio to 1.4 times EBITDA, and committed to keeping the metric below 2 times for the foreseeable future.

Mediacom previously had a BBB/Stable rating -- which is also considered to be investment grade --  on its debt, and the increase will make it easier for the company to access capital markets at favorable interest rates. S&P Global said Mediacom’s leverage commitment is well below the ratings agency’s BBB rating threshold of 2.5 times EBITDA.

S&P said the "stable" outlook reflects Mediacom’s predictable earnings growth and cash flow generation, which enables the company to lower its leverage by about 0.5 times per year.

S&P said Mediacom has consistently reduced its debt since going private in 2011. While it could beef up its debt in the future, especially if it considers a strategic acquisition, the ratings agency said that the commitment to keeping leverage at 2 times or lower gives it “greater clarity into the limitations on the magnitude of any potential re-leveraging.”

In raising Mediacom’s credit rating, S&P said it believes Mediacom has an affordable network upgrade path to ensure its place as the fastest provider of broadband service in its territories, and that its capital expenditures-to-revenue ratio should remain flat at about 15%. 

“Therefore, we expect cash flow conversion rates to continue to improve with higher EBITDA margins supported by solid, albeit moderating, HSD growth,” S&P said, adding that it expects annual broadband EBITDA growth of between 4% and 6% and average revenue per unit (ARPU) growth of 5% to 8% over the next two years. ■ 

Mediacom Communications said it has reached a retransmission consent agreement with Paxton Media for the broadcaster’s NBC-affiliate television station serving the Paducah, Kentucky market, ending a seven-month blackout.

Details of the January 1 agreement were not disclosed. 

The station -- WPSD-TV -- also serves Marion-Harrisburg, Illinois and Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Paxton first pulled the station's signal on May 31. 

Also: Kagan: Retrans Fights Could Be Fewer in 2021

The Paxton Media deal was one of the few carriage agreements that were reached as the year drew to a close, although one of the biggest retrans disputes of 2021 -- Tegna's ongoing battle with Dish Network -- shows no current signs that a resolution is near. Tegna stations in about 53 markets went dark to Dish subscribers on Oct 6. ■ 

Mediacom Communications said Monday that it has promoted long-time executive Glenn Goldsmith to group VP of programming.

Goldsmith, who joined Mediacom in 1998 as an intern in the finance department was most recently VP of programming. In his new role he will be principally involved in the negotiation of programming and retransmission consent agreements for new and traditional media rights and strategic multiplatform initiatives, including video-on-demand.

Mediacom also said it has promoted Jenna Guarino to VP of compliance and legal affairs and Randy Brown to VP of field operations. 

Also Read: Disney, Mediacom Reach Carriage Agreement

In her new position Guarino will negotiate, draft, review, and edit legal documents and agreements, and ensure Mediacom’s compliance with federal and state laws. She joined Mediacom in 2010 as an intern in the legal department.

As VP of field operations, Brown, a cable industry veteran with 40-plus years of experience, will play a key role in the operations of Mediacom Bolt, the fixed wireless broadband offering Mediacom is deploying in unserved and underserved rural areas.

Sometimes art imitates life a little too closely.

For the hit AMC show The Walking Dead, the lockdowns, social distancing and related protocols associated with the COVID-19 outbreak, which is nearing its one-year anniversary, presented a particular challenge. How do you keep arguably the largest cast and crew in scripted series production safe while at the same time ensuring that new episodes of the still-popular show continue to be produced? For AMC Studios, the production arm of parent AMC Networks and the producer of The Walking Dead, it was a truly collaborative effort. 

All across the television industry, distributors and programmers have walked the fine line between being able to get out their products, satisfy their audiences and customers and meet growing demand, all while keeping their employees safe. For cable operators and networks, that has meant adhering to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) protocols and finding new ways to deliver products to consumers. For programmers, it has also meant in some cases finding ways to limit cast sizes and production crew exposures in unique ways. 

The premise of The Walking Dead comes uncomfortably close to an all-too-familiar reality — a global pandemic of questionable origins causes widespread death leading to a zombie apocalypse and forcing the non-zombie survivors to find a safe haven. For the show, which finished its 10th season in 2020 and was headed into its 11th and final season later this year, the dilemma was how to keep the cameras rolling and the 250-person crew — including 22 actors — safe during a real-life pandemic. After some thought, executives, producers, showrunners and writers on the series came up with a unique solution, creating six episodes as an extension of its 10th season that would focus on specific characters and require smaller casts. 

“Creative people are creative,” The Walking Dead executive producer and showrunner Angela Kang said in a Twitter video on making the extended 10th season. “If there is any superpower that we have as people that are making television or movies, is that we are supposed to think of out-of-the-box ways to do things. So I think you’ve really seen people stepping up to figure out how to make these processes possible at a really difficult time for everyone.” 

AMC Networks chief operating officer Ed Carroll said the decision to produce the six extended episodes was made to keep people safe, but it also resulted in some of the best programming in the show’s decade-long run.

“Many of the best episodes of The Walking Dead are the ones that are based on character,” Carroll said in an interview, adding that the show wouldn’t have lasted as long if it relied only on the zombie scare. “You really need to care about the characters. … We were able to do that and get everyone back to work safely, and take a very big show and make the set quite a bit smaller, but I think creatively accomplish some of our best storytelling.”

Character-Driven Episodes 

The first of those six episodes aired on Feb. 28, titled “Home Sweet Home” and focusing on Maggie Rhee, who left the series in season nine and is played by the returning Lauren Cohan. Other episodes are focused on Saviors’ leader Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam). 

COVID-19 protocols were the same on the TWD set as in all other AMC Studios productions — having an on-site epidemiologist; constantly testing and monitoring crew and actors for the virus; thoroughly cleaning before, during and after shooting; practicing social distancing; and essentially keeping people segmented. But in the six new episodes, the writers and producers crafted narratives that gave them the ability to use two different directors and shoot them in a sequence that kept one unit away from another. 

“What you have to do is rethink the entire operation, so your actors are only with the actors they need to be in a scene with and the crew is only coming into direct contact with other crew members that are essential to do their job,” Carroll said. “You’re minimizing the number of people on an active set, and I include network executives in that. We would normally be making set visits for all sorts of reasons. We’re just not doing that. We’re having our interaction with the cast and crew via Zoom or Teams. When you take a big show that is a multifaceted compilation and you reduce it as best you can, you break off small segments of the operation and keep them as discrete as possible.”   

The Walking Dead was unique in that it lent itself to character studies. Other series on the AMC slate won’t likely go the same route.

 “As we’ve all gotten better at the protocols, we think we can go back to a larger canvas of storytelling for season 11 and certainly for our other shows as well,” Carroll said. “Ideally, if you think about years from now, if people are catching up on a show, you wouldn’t want them to be able to say, ‘Oh, those must have been the COVID episodes,’ because they look and feel different.”

AMC Studios is getting back into its production stride, Carroll added. Better Call Saul was expected to start production on its final season in early March, and season 11 of The Walking Dead is in production in Georgia. Prequel Fear the Walking Dead started production earlier near Austin, Texas, although there were some delays because of the frigid weather in that state.

AMC also is more than halfway through shooting the premiere eight-episode season of Kevin Can F**k Himself, and is starting production on the second season of  Walking Dead: World Beyond. Later this month, production starts on 61st Street, a criminal-justice series based in Chicago. Production for many of WE tv’s reality programs has been ongoing, either via Zoom or other means.  

Other Production Restarts

Many other content companies have resumed production in one form or another, including Fox Entertainment, which said it is adjusting and adapting for the “new normal” when it returns, with all scripted series — 9-1-1, 9-1-1 Lone Star, Prodigal Son, The Resident and Last Man Standing — in production. 

In addition, all of the studio’s pilots that were ordered last year have been in production and are scheduled to deliver in mid-to-late March, including comedy This Country from Jenny Bicks and Paul Feig, based on the BAFTA-winning BBC format, for 2021-22. Fox Entertainment is also creating new pathways for projects, including opening writers’ rooms for two dramas with an eye toward series orders: Our Kind of People, a co-production with 20th Television, based on the acclaimed novel, from executive producers Lee Daniels and Karin Gist; and an untitled music drama. 

Fox Entertainment added that its animation efforts, including its in-house studio Bento Box, which produced The Great North, Bob’s Burgers, Duncanville and upcoming series Housebroken, has been largely unaffected by the pandemic. Bento Box has added new crew members since the pandemic began and also will produce an untitled Dan Harmon animated comedy scheduled to premiere in 2022. 

It was about a year ago, March 11, 2020, that the World Health Organization called the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, with the first statewide stay-at-home orders issued shortly thereafter. To date, the pandemic has claimed more than 2.5 million lives globally (including more than 500,000 in the U.S.), forced millions of people to work or go to school from their homes and impacted nearly every aspect of everyday life. While hopes have been heightened by the slow but increasingly steady rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and the deceleration of cases in the U.S. and elsewhere, for the TV industry it is anything but business as usual.

For starters, the pandemic is far from over, even as there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel. While the number of daily cases was down in the U.S. in January and early February, according to the Center for Disease Control, it began to tick up toward the end of the month. According to reports, there were 77,804 new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as of Feb. 25, up from 55,195 as of Feb. 21. That number started to trend down again — there were 50,925 cases on Feb. 28, down 26% in the past two weeks, with 1,129 new deaths, down 21%. New strains of the virus were found in Houston and other parts of the country, but as vaccinations increase and funding for more widespread deployment is baked into the $1.9 trillion federal COVID-19 relief bill currently before the Senate, optimism that cases will continue their steady decline is high. 

Stay-at-home orders, implemented to halt the spread of the virus, also helped drive cable broadband subscriber growth to record highs, as the top three publicly traded cable operators added more than 4 million high-speed internet customers in 2020. While that level of growth isn’t expected this year, many operators are looking how to address the market as more consumers return to the office. 

At Mediacom Communications, the focus has been on making higher speeds available to its customers. Broadband speeds of 1 gigabit per second are now accessible in all of its markets, and the payoff has been strong.

The need for speed has been evident at the company. Mediacom reported a threefold increase in 1 Gbps customers year-over-year, and said 14.6% of its broadband subscribers take the 1 Gbps tier. That compares to about an 8.5% take rate for 1 Gbps service on average nationwide, according to OpenVault Broadband Insights.  

While most operators aren’t expecting the same broadband growth this year, some are looking closely at how their customers’ work habits could change. Some anticipate a hybrid approach between office and home will become more of the norm. 

“As things start to open up, we see customers that will still work from home permanently or on a hybrid basis and will continue to want to have a better connection that can give them that comfort that they can get their work done,”  Mediacom senior VP customer service and financial operations Tapan Dandnaik said.

To that extent, Mediacom has raised speeds for some levels of service and boosted usage allowances. The current usage allowance levels are 1, 2 and 6 Terabytes for its 100 megabits per second, 300 Mbps and 1 Gbps tiers. 

“We want customers to get the best speeds and the best service and make sure what we have for the customers is the appropriate service at the appropriate price point, so there is value in what we’re offering,” Dandnaik said. 

Charter Communications added more than 2 million broadband customers in 2020. While the No. 2 U.S. cable operator did see some customers migrate to higher speeds, chief operating officer John Bickham said that for the most part, subscribers found they could do a lot with less. Charter raised minimum speeds in most of its markets to 200 Mbps last year, and offers 400 Mbps and 1 Gbps service as well. Bickham said there are a few markets where 100 Mbps is still the minimum.

“We saw some upgrading,” Bickham said. “But fundamentally, if you have a 100 Mbps level of service in your home and it’s solid, there is hardly anything you can do that requires more speed. ... If people want a high level of speed, we’ll sell it to them.”  

Cable operators across the board moved to incentivize workers that had to remain in the field, either through bonuses or other means. Charter pledged to raise the minimum wage it paid hourly workers to $20 per hour by 2022, and said it is well on the way toward that goal. 

Charter also has teamed up with healthcare company Matrix Medical to vaccinate employees who want it on-site. According to executive VP, human resources Paul Marchand, the plan is to establish 50 to 60 megasites at Charter facilities across the country, working with local and state health departments to secure dosages and vaccinate employees that request it. 

Marchand added the company realizes that employees do and will have alternatives to get the vaccine — some are already getting it if they qualify — and that is OK, too. But he added that vaccines are expected to become more widely available in the coming weeks and Charter wanted to be prepared. 

“I can envision in the next four to six weeks on-site, maybe starting in one or two locations and building over time, we will be able to provide shots to our employees,” Marchand said. 

The pandemic accelerated cable’s long-desired plans to move toward self-installation. Comcast claims that more than two-thirds of its total installations are done by the customer. At Charter, self-installs are at about 80%. That pace is likely to continue.

“Don’t undersell self-installation,” MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett said. “It’s here to stay, and the MSOs will only get better and better at it.”

Remote Control

While all the emphasis has been on the general public working from home, most cable employees had to perform their tasks remotely and have performed amazingly well under the circumstances. For some workers — especially customer-service representatives — remote work could be permanent. 

“Work-at-home CSRs are a game-changer, particularly if we go back to having a tight labor market like we had pre-pandemic,” Moffett said.  “Among the biggest costs in running call centers are recruiting and training new employees, and one of the biggest reasons for turnover in call centers is lack of childcare. The ability to have CSRs working from home is transformational.”   

At Mediacom Communications, about 95% of CSRs work remotely, Dandnaik said. But he added that anything could change. 

“The thing is, we’re in March and if you asked me the same question in June, I hope to be able to say we have some kind of rotation,” Dandnaik said. “I think things are evolving. At some point in the future, I don’t know when, we will come up with the ideal hybrid approach to make sure we are adjusting to the new normal.”

Mediacom will be flexible with its employees and take their personal situations into consideration, he added. 

“We operate in 22 markets,” Dandnaik said. Where our call centers are, we have 10 or 12 locations. Every market is different and every situation is local.”  

Bickham said he expects the return to normalcy will most likely happen at a gradual pace.

“I think it goes away very slowly in terms of the impact on how people behave and where they work and how they go to school,” Bickham said. “It happens over an extended period of time. It’s not going to be like it was a year ago, when everyone went home and all of a sudden you had this very dramatic change.”  

Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, in a January conference call with analysts to discuss fourth-quarter results, said moving customer-care workers from offices to work from their homes has worked so well, the company is “leaning towards embracing this model permanently.” In 2020, agent-handled calls were reduced by more than 16 million, Roberts said. 

“We are working hard with our communications and marketing efforts to enhance awareness of all we have to offer, which enables us to take cost out of the business while delivering a better experience for our customers,” Roberts continued. 

More than half of Charter’s CSRs are working remotely, but the hope is that once the pandemic subsidies, more will be able to return to the office. 

Although Charter came under some criticism for its approach during the early days of the pandemic, Marchand said the priority has always been to adhere to CDC standards, as well as the varying standards by state. And while Charter is complying with all federal and state requirements, once the pandemic is over, it would like to get as back to normal as possible. 

Weighing an Office Return

Charter has in some cases started a scheduled approach, where some workers would work one week in the office, some two weeks remotely and so on. While there will always be exceptions, he said, overall the company would like to get back to a place where most workers are in the office.  

“In the end, we think work is best done when we are together in person,” Marchand said. “We think collaborating, innovating, leading training, on-boarding all is best done, is most efficient, effective and rewarding and frankly, the best employee experience, when we’re all together. That doesn’t mean some situations don’t necessitate some people working remotely, and that in the future we may continue to have that.” 

AMC’s Carroll said he too misses the days when most of the team was at the office. While there have been some benefits to working remotely — Zoom meetings, he said, can sometimes run more efficiently than in-person ones — he said personal interaction is important on both sides of the business.

“On the client side, we do miss the client contact,” Carroll said. “We are doing it remotely, and that seems to be OK, but
you don’t find out as much about what’s happening with your clients on a 30-minute Zoom call as you do over lunch.”   

While some programmers and operators may crave a return to in-person meetings, the pandemic may have dealt the final blow to large conventions. 

The shift from huge trade shows to smaller, regional and local confabs had already been happening years before anyone had even heard of COVID-19, primarily due to massive industry consolidation. In 2017, NCTA–The Internet and Cable Television Association, ended its annual cable show, INTX, after 65 years. In a blog post at the time about the decision, NCTA president and CEO Michael Powell wrote: “Large trade show floors, dotted with exhibit booths and stilted schedules, have become an anachronism.”

But Moffett said the ultimate demise of the large cable convention shouldn’t be blamed on COVID. “There’s no need for a big centralized show if the alternative is making one visit to Philly, one to Stamford, one to Atlanta and one to Denver, and then calling it a day,” he said.

Other more regional shows managed to survive, even through the pandemic. ACA Connects and the National Cable Television Cooperative held their annual get-together, The Independent Show Reimagined, virtually Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 2020, and said the event had a record 848 registered participants. Plans are to hold a hybrid event July 11-14 in Minneapolis. 

But larger shows like CES, which was held virtually Jan. 11-14, drawing about 81,000 attendees (down from 170,000 in 2020) — have come under more intense scrutiny. In 2022, the CES event is expected to be a hybrid live and online event.

The Consumer Technology Association, which produces CES, declined comment. 

It may be too early to predict the long-term effect on events, NCTA senior VP of strategic communications Brian Dietz said. He noted that smaller or more-focused conferences like the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers-International Society of Broadband Experts (SCTE-ISBE) Cable-Tec Expo, the Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) Leadership Conference and National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) conference were still very strong.

Virtual Events Draw Crowds

Attendance at the virtual SCTE-ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2020 broke records, according to the group. WICT said registered attendance at its virtual 2020 Leadership conference was 860, besting the previous mark set in 2018 of 818 attendees. NAMIC said attendance for its virtual 34th Annual Conference was up 40% over the prior year. 

The SCTE plans to hold its next Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta in October, the same month as the WICT Leadership Conference is scheduled for New York. The 35th annual NAMIC Conference is scheduled for Oct. 5-6 in New York.

The consumer-focused San Diego Comic-Con, used by TV programmers as a showcase for their newest offerings, also postponed the live event set for July 23-25 to 2022. Organizers said they will hold a virtual event this year, as well as a potential smaller live event in November.

But the jury is still out for larger conferences.

“I think it will be more interesting to see what happens with conferences like CES in which 150,000-plus gather in tight quarters for a week,” Dietz said. “That concept certainly seems to be more at risk because we are all now so much more educated about public health safety and how germs can spread rapidly.”

Whether big changes come and stick is about as uncertain as predicting when the pandemic will eventually peter out. But it is obvious that after a year (and counting) of relative isolation and disruption to the normal way of doing business, something has to give. Whatever it is, hopefully it will lead to a year ahead of living a bit less dangerously. 

Mediacom Communications dodged a big retrans bullet on Monday, reaching a carriage agreement with Gray Television that involved stations in more than 35 markets across the country. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Mediacom is the fifth largest cable operator in the country with about 663,000 video and 1.4 million broadband customers. 

Also Read: Retrans Season Starts With a Bang

While its Mediacom pact was negotiated without a service disruption, Gray TV is locked in a separate retrans spat involving one station -- ABC-affiliate WWSB in Sarasota, Florida -- that went dark to Frontier Communications customers on Dec. 18. Gray TV has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission claiming Frontier failed to negotiate in good faith, adding that it had offered to keep the station active to Frontier customers while negotiations continued. Frontier declined that offer.

Charter Communications has gained the support of another cable operator, mid-sized MSO Mediacom, in its bid to have conditions tied to its 2016 purchases of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks ended early.

New York-based Mediacom told the FCC that it employs data usage caps on customers and charges OTT companies interconnection fees to use its broadband network, two practices that Charter would like to resume. 

Despite the caps and the interconnection fees, Mediacom said that it now has twice as many high-speed data customers than it does video subscribers. 

“This transformation in the video marketplace has occurred even as Mediacom and many other companies have rolled out creative pricing options for consumers, including the use of data caps and usage-based pricing,” Mediacom’s ex parte letter to the FCC reads. “Consumers have flocked to online video services in ever growing numbers, creating incentives for the introduction of even more online video options. Yet, the opponents of the Charter petition claim that consumers ‘hate’ these options and even suggest that the Commission should have found a way to bar not just Charter, but all cable operators from implementing data caps and usage-based pricing. The record growth in high speed data customers experienced by companies implementing data caps and usage-based pricing plans demolishes that argument.”

Earlier this week, the FCC extended the comment deadline on Charter’s petition to Sept. 2.

Also read: FCC Extends Charter Petition Comment Deadline

Also, a federal appeals court thew out two of the merger conditions, with the court saying it essentially had no choice after the FCC failed to defend them. 

Also read: Charter Free to Charge Streaming Video Companies Interconnect Fees

For its part, Mediacom concedes that it “is not directly impacted by whether or not the Commission grants Charter’s petition. But continuing the DC/UBP condition paints those companies that offer such options in a bad light and encourages efforts to restrict such options, notwithstanding the evidence that they are consumer-friendly. The marketplace, not regulatory mandates, should dictate how internet service is offered. The Commission should grant Charter’s petition. 

Mediacom Communications said it has reached a retransmission consent deal with Nexstar Media Group, avoiding a blackout of the latter's TV stations within the cable operator’s territory.

Mediacom has been in talks with Nexstar to renew the retrans deal, which was scheduled to expire at midnight. Mediacom’s agreement comes hours after Nexstar reached similar retransmission consent deals with Comcast and Frontier Communications. 

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Several cable and satellite TV distributors will be watching the clock New Year's Eve, in hopes they can avoid blackouts of local broadcast stations and cable networks as the New Year approaches.

The biggest of those deals is the negotiation between the National Cable Television Cooperative, a group of more than 700 small cable operators representing about 3 million viewers, and Fox Corp. Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FS1 and FS2, Fox Soccer Plus and Fox Deportes were scheduled to go dark at midnight, and as of mid-day were apparently no closer to a deal. In addition, NCTC members will have to negotiate retrans deals for several Fox owned and operated TV stations whose deals expire at midnight separately from the co-op.  

Hearst Television’s 34 stations across the country were set to go dark to DirecTV and AT&T TV Now customers at midnight, and so far, there seems to be no indication a deal is imminent. UPDATE: Hearst said the agreement has been extended to Jan. 3 at 5 p.m. ET.

UPDATE2: Hearst stations went dark on Jan. 3, after a 7 p.m. extension passed with no deal.  

“Hearst has a long history of successfully concluding carriage agreements with cable companies and other satellite distributors with no disruption of service to subscribers,” Hearst said on its station websites.  “While we hope to conclude our negotiations before December 31st, so as not to deprive any of our respective viewers and customers of our programming, we want to advise our viewers and customers that the possibility of non-renewal of our current agreement exists.”

In a statement AT&T said it was "disappointed" that Hearst has decided to negotiate in public, but expressed some optimism that a deal could be reached.

"We want to keep Hearst’s local stations in our customers’ lineups but must have Hearst’s permission," AT&T said in its statement. "We remain on the side of consumer choice and value, whereas Hearst is known to often withhold its stations to try to increase its fees for free broadcast TV. Consumers deserve more choice over which channels they want to pay for – especially ones they can choose to get free – and the freedom to decide where, when and on what device they can watch any favorite programs. We hope to avoid a suspension of any Hearst stations and appreciate our customers’ patience while we work to settle this matter privately."

Mediacom Communications is still in talks with Nexstar Media Group for its stations in Iowa and elsewhere. Sources familiar with both companies said earlier that talks had slowed, but now that Nexstar has reached a retrans deal with the much larger Comcast Cable, perhaps those negotiations could accelerate. UPDATE: Mediacom and Nexstar cut a deal and averted a blackout.

Nexstar officials said they have reached retrans agreements with Comcast -- which Comcast also confirmed -- covering more than 90 of their stations across the country, and with Frontier Communications. Terms of those deals were not disclosed and Nexstar had no further comment. 

Related: Nexstar, Tegna Reach Retrans Deals With Comcast 

Tegna, which also reached a retransmission consent agreement with Comcast earlier, is still talking with Altice USA’s Suddenlink Communications unit and hopes to hammer out a deal by midnight. About 20 Tegna stations, including CBS affiliate KTHV in Little Rock, Ark.; NBC affiliate WKYC in Cleveland; ABC affiliate WFAA in Dallas; and Fox affiliate KIDY in Abilene, Texas are set to go dark at 10:59 p.m. (Central Time) if a deal can’t be reached. Another Tegna station -- Fox affiliate WTIC in Hartford, Connecticut is scheduled to go dark at midnight (Eastern Time) to Altice USA’s Optimum customers in that market at midnight, minus an agreement.

On their websites, the Tegna stations say they have reached agreements with other distributors and that its properties are “committed to reaching fair, market-based agreements with all the video service providers in our area. Our track record proves it. ...It has been disappointing that Suddenlink, so far, has refused to reach an agreement.”

UPDATE: Tegna and Suddenlink reached an agreement Tuesday night, avoiding a blackout of stations. 

"Tegna has reached a multi-year agreement with Suddenlink with no interruption of service to viewers," the broadcaster said in a statement. 

Mediacom Communications customers could be without Nexstar Media Group stations in the New Year if the parties fail to renew a retransmission consent agreement that is set to expire on Dec. 31.

Mediacom has about 730,000 video subscribers across the country, many of whom are concentrated in the state of Iowa, where the upcoming Iowa Caucus could play a role in the talks. The Caucus is scheduled for Feb. 3 and is usually a wellspring of broadcast advertising dollars leading up to the actual vote. Any disruption in how viewers access broadcast stations could have an impact on ad revenue during that period.

According to sources familiar with both companies, the talks have slowed, especially as Nexstar also is negotiating a much larger retrans deal with Comcast that expires at around the same time.

Nexstar officials did not immediately return a request for comment.

Mediacom wants to join America’s other large cable companies in testing possible commercial CBRS applications.

The New York-based cable operator has filed the requisite paperwork with the FCC, indicating plans to begin tests involving Samsung radio gear in the 3650-3700GHz frequency range.

Mediacom isn’t commending right now. Light Reading discovered the filing.

Related: CBRS-Focused Alliances Forge, er, Alliance on Key Tech Issues

Mediacom joins Comcast, Charter, Cox and Midco in looking for possible uses for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service, the 3500-3700GHz frequency band set aside by the government for a narrow lists of uses, primarily military.

The U.S. government has almost finished a lengthy test of commercial use of CBRS, and the first commercial deployments are expected to begin soon.

Related: Arris IDs CBRS as an Opportunity Right Now

So far among the cable companies, Midco is the only operator to be explicit in terms of its goals for the spectrum. Midco has tested applications in the 3.5GHz range and plans to use CBRS for fixed wireless services that will expand on its existing wireline network to access hard-to-reach rural areas.

As for the other U.S. operators, they’re still being vague regarding their CBRS plans.

“There are multiple spectrum opportunities, some of which are free and some of which are licensed,” noted Tom Rutledge, chairman and CEO of Charter, during last week’s first quarter earnings call. “CBRS is what we’re experimenting in and that will be available to us at no cost, at least part of it will be. And we also continue to develop WiFi and WiFi capabilities.”

Revenue increased by 4.1% and adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization rose a healthy 8.9% at Mediacom Communications in Q1, driven by continued gains in its broadband service and steadily declining capital expenditures.

Mediacom ended the quarter with revenue of $497.9 million and AOIBDA of $195.5 million. The mid-sized cable operator added 24,000 high-speed internet customers in the period, up from 19,000 additions in the prior year. Video customers declined by 12,000 in the period, three times the 4,000 customers it lost in Q1 2018.

Capital expenditures dipped 8.9% to $72.7 million from $79.8 million in the prior year. Free cash flow was up 31.5% to $98.2 million from $74.7 million in Q1 2018.

Mediacom Communications reported mixed results for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, with video subscriber losses up and broadband customer increases slowing, while revenue and cash flow continued to rise at a healthy clip.

Revenue for the quarter increased 5.2% to $496.4 million, while adjusted operating income before interest and depreciation (AOIBDA), rose 6.6% to $196.2 million. Despite those gains, Mediacom lost 17,000 video customers in the period, compared to a loss of 2,000 in Q4 2017. Broadband subscribers increased by 4,000 in the quarter, about one-third of the 15,000-subscriber gain in the same period in 2017.

Average monthly revenue (ARPU) increased 2% in the quarter to $62.26 from $61.04 per month per primary service unit. ARPU per customer relationship increased 5.3% from $115.42 per month to $121.59 per month in the most recent quarter.

For the full year, revenue was up 4.2% to $1.956 billion, and AOIBDA rose 4.6% to $745 million. Mediacom shed 45,000 video customers for the full year, an increase over the 14,000 it lost in the same period in the prior year. But broadband additions were up for the full year, numbering 55,000 at the end of 2018, compared to an increase of 47,000 in the prior year. 

Overbuilder WideOpenWest said it has finally restored 430 miles of network infrastructure in Panama City, Florida badly damaged in October when Category 4 story Hurricane Michael made landfall.

“While we’re thrilled to announce the total restoration of our network, we know there is still much work to be done. We are thankful for the community’s patience and we look forward to continuing to provide best-in-class products and services in 2019 and beyond,” said WOW CEO Teresa Elder, in a statement.

Related: WOW Rebuilds in Wake of Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael made landfall on Oct. 10 in Mexico Beach, Fla., as a Category 4 storm with winds up to 155 mph. The storm cut a path of destruction through seven states from Florida through to Virginia, causing more than $14 billion in damage.

WOW's networks in Augusta, Columbus, Georgia, and Charleston sustained less severe impacts from the storm and are open and operating normally.

As of mid-December, Comcast was in the final stages of building a new network in Panama City, building out more than 650 miles of new infrastructure.

Charter Communications, meanwhile, is rebuilding its entire plant in Chattahoochee, Florida, and it’s also working to restore service by mid-January in Blountstown, Florida.

And Mediacom has been working to lay 330 miles of new fiber in the Panhandle region since the storm hit.

"It's probably the worst storm our construction crews have ever dealt with," company spokesman Tom Larsen told local newscasters last month.

Cable operators, long used to suffering the slings and arrows of outraged customers during service glitches and outages, have increasingly worked to make it easier for subscribers to solve their own problems quickly, efficiently and accurately. At Mediacom Communications, the fifth-largest cable operator in the country with about 1.4 million customer relationships (mostly in the Midwest), the solution has been to develop and implement digital tools that speed up the journey toward satisfying service questions. One of those tools is an AI-based virtual assistant, dubbed “Molli,” currently part of Mediacom’s SMS text messaging system and geared to help customers navigate their way toward quick answers to their service questions. Multichannel News spoke with Mediacom senior vice president of customer service and financial operations Tapan Dandnaik about Molli and the operator’s customer care philosophy.

MCN: Tell me what you see as the latest trends in customer care for cable?
Tapan Dandnaik: Our philosophy is we have to be where the customer is, and we have to provide a customer experience that really results in the least amount of customer effort. From a measurement perspective, if it takes a customer five attempts to resolve something, if we can resolve it in one try, then that is a reduced effort. If we can do it in a way where we can engage it through a chat session or SMS text on their phone without having them to engage with an agent, or not engage with an agent, but get to the right answers.

We just recently launched our virtual assistant called Molli. When a customer engages with SMS, they first speak to Molli, and if Molli can’t answer the question we send them to a live agent. But the agent interacts with the customer via SMS from their dashboard, the same dashboard they would use if the customer called on the phone. We’ve been training Molli side-by-side with our agents and the early results are extremely promising. She is basically able to handle 70% to 75% of the conversations and only 25% [need to get] our agents involved. So, if you have 100 people chatting with Molli, only 25 are going to an agent where Molli cannot help, and we hope to improve on that.

MCN: What’s the technology behind that?
TD: We’ve engaged with a company called Twilio that provides the infrastructure for Molli, but the actual training and the coding and the learning for Molli is stuff that we’ve done internally. [Senior VP of information technology] Peter Lyons and [group VP, customer service and field support operations] Jon Coscia were a big part of the development.

The way Molli works, we have a Mediacom SMS text number and when a customer that is enrolled in Mediacom’s SMS texts us, Molli will greet them as “Hi I’m Molli, I’m Mediacom’s virtual assistant. How can I help you today?” Molli will go through and essentially help with paying bills, help schedule an appointment, she can find out if the tech is going to arrive at a certain time. If there are certain specific things that Molli is not trained for, then Molli will escalate [the call] to an agent, then the agent will reply and continue the conversation with the customer.

To the customer, the SMS trail will remain; it will never get lost. The agent can pick up where Molli left off and we don’t have to verify, we don’t have to do all the other things you have to do when you have a transfer happening on a phone call. It’s a really seamless experience and the agents that work in the platform love it, and our customers seem to be extremely surprised positively when Molli is answering them.

MCN: Does the name stand for something?
TD: No. We initially thought of making it stand for something, but ultimately Molli was a name our employees picked. We felt it was one of the names that led to a personality description that we wanted to have for our virtual assistant. We wanted our virtual assistant to be empathetic, super-smart, helpful. When we pitched those to our teams, Molli was the name that came out.

MCN: How has Molli been working out?
TD: Molli is doing about 2,000 to 3,000 transactions per day. This is two-way text care, SMS care — the idea being that people don’t want to be on the phone, they want the ability to chat. If you have kids, they don’t want to talk with you, they want to text with you. We have something that we are piloting and testing pretty aggressively and launching in the next week or two weeks — Xtreme View — which shows customers on the app when their technician is arriving in their neighborhood. Molli will be able to provide that kind of information and also say, your tech is about 25 minutes away from your house, they are on this road or that road. As we develop more products on the platform, we’re able to turn on Molli for those things as well.

MCN: So it’s expandable?
TD: Absolutely. I don’t see Molli not being able to do what our agents do. Ultimately our objective is for customers who are not comfortable interacting with Molli, we want to make sure we get them to an agent. Our goal is to get the customer the answer in the fastest way possibly and in the most appropriate way possible.

MCN: Has your focus on digital tools had any impact in terms of reduced truck rolls or calls?
TD: Mediacom is having one of its best years in terms of operations. We believe in an omnichannel approach that delivers to the best extent possible a frictionless customer journey and [we are investing] — about $1 billion over three years — in our business and particularly in our customer-facing digital platforms. Call volume is trending down to low double digits year over year, and the number of interactions on our digital platforms, which includes our Support site, mobile app, two-way SMS [including Molli, which just started] is already over one-third of the total customer contacts and has increased by more than 50% year over year.

All of those things are telling me that we are on the right track and that’s leading to higher customer satisfaction and a better overall customer perception of the company.

MCN: Other operators have used SMS for customer service with live CSRs. What makes Molli so special?
TD: We’re giving Molli a personality, so at some point if you want to ask her about the weather, she can chit-chat with you. One of the things we’re building — it’s in development — but if someone does ask Molli, we want to give her a background, how she was born, how she was created. We don’t want to hide anything — we up front say that she’s a virtual assistant.

With AI and predictive analysis we want to improve things like the ability to look at and triage credits and how we get that to customers quickly. We want to have Molli help with e-commerce, so if a customer wants to upgrade we can have Molli get involved with that. And then we want to bring the same technology into Apple’s new iMessage, Facebook Messenger, What’s App, Alexa. We are a small company, but there are a lot of things we have in the pipeline.

MCN: How long has Molli been available?
TD: We started piloting it softly in August and we’ve turned it on to a group of agents probably a couple of weeks ago. We’ve been doing this for two or three months and we have the data for two or three months. We haven’t formally announced it to customers because we wanted to make sure we didn’t have any missteps. One of the things with digital tools, you want to make sure you do it correctly, otherwise you take a couple of steps backward.

MCN: When is she going to be available system-wide?
TD: It’s going to be a process over the next two or three months. We’re going to grow into it. You have to enroll into our SMS to be able to communicate with Molli, because we want to make sure we get your opt-ins and approvals and all of the things that go with that.

You’ve got to have a great product set, which we think we do. We have the TiVo platform and were the first cable provider to have 1-Gig [Gigabit per second broadband] across the company. Our networks are getting better and [more] reliable; we’ve invested close to $1 billion [over three years in network improvements]. Our customer effort is getting better because we’re doing things that customers don’t have to expend a lot of energy to do — digital tools, texting and getting a quick answer, as opposed to picking up the phone. No one wants to pick up the phone these days.

Mid-sized cable operator Mediacom Communications added 9,000 high-speed internet customers in the third quarter, offsetting a loss of 6,000 video subscribers and helping to fuel a nearly 4% revenue gain in the period.

Mediacom grew revenue to $471.6 million, or about 3.8%. The video losses in the seasonally weak period were an improvement over the prior year, when Mediacom shed about 8,000 video customers. The operator also added 22,000 phone customers in the period.

RELATED: Mediacom Refinances Bank Facilities

Operating income before interest, depreciation and amortization (OIBDA, a measure of cash flow) was up 2.3% to $173 million in the quarter, and overall customer relationships rose 1.4% to 1.4 million. Mediacom ended the period with about 823,000 video subscribers.

The 2017 Tech Roundtable Panelists
Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief product and technology officer, Cox Communications
Dan Hennessy, chief architecture architect, Liberty Global
Jay Rolls, chief technology officer and senior vice president, Charter Communications
JR Walden, senior vice president of technology and CTO, Mediacom Communications
Tony Werner, president of technology and product, Comcast Cable
Read More From the 2017 Tech Roundtable Agenda
Capacity|Mobile & Wireless|The Home of the Future

MCN:What matters beyond speed and throughput/range and reach for some of the services headed our way -- augmented reality, augmented discovery, VR, aging in place, automation, healthcare? Pick your favorite.
Jay Rolls: What matters is network latency, and overall visibility. Things like AR and health care and adjacent verticals -- it’s all about interactivity, and the rapid translation of photons to electrons.

Technologies like 802.11ax will help with the latency quest, which will be never-ending. And real-time, local visibility into how the network is running will help us to deliver a consistently high quality of experience, across devices.

Kevin Hart: We're very excited about home healthcare...around enabling the aging population. Just based on demographics, there's a huge need and a huge opportunity, but within the network some of the artificial intelligence and some of the connectivity speeds but also some of the privacy components around HIPAA-compliant information ...are also important.

The infrastructure we're putting into place, from a speed [perspective] is great, but privacy and security and latency, some of the real-time responses, I think will become even more important as you see more [need] for remote healthcare monitoring and more healthcare-centric solutions over time.

Dan Hennessy: Other network conditions start to come in to play here, like latency, jitter, and packet loss.
We have equipment distributed across our footprint and in our network that allows us to closely monitor these parameters – to ensure that we know if it changes, why it changed, and what it means to the customer. This will become increasingly important. New standards, such as DOCSIS 3.1, also have targeted changes to improve the quality of service.

Tech Roundtable 2016 | Cable Tech at a Crossroads

For sure, what we expect, and as discussed in context of IoT, is a continued growth in devices. Giving our customers visibility and control is key. Making sure their devices get the right priority, and remain secure, powered, live and connected on the network -- as more and more devices connect and need proper “care and feeding” -- becomes more critical to day-to-day life.

MCN: How has your reliance on the public cloud evolved over the last couple of years? Are you using more public or private cloud, and why does that matter?
KH: It's really a hybrid of all of the above, based on the use case. We're doing a lot of things internally and some our own cloud capabilities with infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service and some of the things we're doing around virtualization. We also use third-party clouds where it makes sense, based on their skillsets and capability. And from a managed service perspective, we have some product and service offerings leveraging cloud-based components. But now that you've adopted this hybrid cloud environment, it's now about how do you optimize it for performance and cost and security -- that's probably the next frontier.

JR: We rely on both -- private and public. Both are good at different things, and the crux of it is taking advantage of what they’re good at. For instance, the public cloud is good for things that need velocity -- prototyping, instantaneous scaling. The private cloud is more for things that are in production, which need to be highly secure. A good example is cloud DVR. Cloud DVR is obviously going to need a lot of cloud infrastructure, but it’s also well understood, with well-defined metrics. Because you know how it’s going to perform, it’s just going to be more cost effective to do on a private cloud.

MCN: What is the right balance of engineering talent you need these days, and how do you attract it?
Tony Werner: We do a lot of recruiting, especially when we’re speaking at non-traditional industry events. The right balance is a tricky task - we still need RF engineers, because we still operate a lot of RF. We still need infrastructure experts, because we operate a significant infrastructure. In general, though, it’s software, systems, and architectural engineering talent that we seek. We’ve made significant strides in how we attract that talent, primarily by making sure that Comcast is a great environment for developers and innovators to come work, but we can always do more.

JR Walden: We're finding less need for HFC talent every day, in part because you still have a lot in the organization, so demands are kind of in the decline. Five to ten years ago, it was hard finding network skills. The battle for high-speed data is over. Cable has won. And most people in professional areas see that, so people with networking skills who have interest in being in the internet business are finding us a lot more than ever before.

Tech Roundtable 2015 | Revving Up to ‘Web Speed’

The area of challenge is on the software side. That has been tougher. I guess the good news is that being near New York doesn’t make for the most inexpensive job market, but people with those skills in New York are definitely not working for .com companies. At least I'm not competing for that talent. We've been plucking millennials straight out of college and teaching them ourselves and hoping that they don't leave too quickly. But we seem to be doing okay keeping the folks we have sort of home-grown.

KH: Investing in our people and our talent is a top priority at Cox in both product and technology and training and skillsets. [In early October], my team worked on an operating model of the future for the team, but software-enabled everything is critical, virtualization is critical, cybersecurity skills are paramount.

We bring in talent through recruiting and through our third-party vendors and we also have a very robust co-op and intern programs, and interns from leading schools like George Tech right here in Atlanta. Tulsa is one of our markets, and they have one of the top cybersecurity schools in the country. We're bringing in interns and co-ops and recruits from these feeder schools and also brining in talent with a lot of experience, as well, from some of these new trending areas, like mobility, IP, cybersecurity, etc.

DH: Our move away from closed vendor ecosystems to open, embedded software development -- either directly ourselves or with partners – means we must ensure that we have the right talent onboard. It’s these engineers that drive our business forward.

Over the last 12 months we have brought our technology group together across Europe, which gives a truly global opportunity for our engineers and developers to build products and services -- all the way from the UK, Germany and Switzerland, through to Eastern Europe, and across to Latin American and the Caribbean. Whether it’s fixed or mobile access, Internet, TV and video, or a full suite of B2B services. That’s a pretty rare opportunity.

JR: The right balance is the technologist who has a degree of nimbleness between hardware and software, and tends to think about things from a systems perspective. We’ve been surprised to see talent coming to our Denver engineering groups from Silicon Valley. The recurring themes appear to be both quality of life, and cost of living. I think you’ll see more and more evidence that shows a talent shift in our collective direction, and that’s really gratifying.

The 2017 Tech Roundtable Panelists
Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief product and technology officer, Cox Communications
Dan Hennessy, chief architecture architect, Liberty Global
Jay Rolls, chief technology officer and senior vice president, Charter Communications
JR Walden, senior vice president of technology and CTO, Mediacom Communications
Tony Werner, president of technology and product, Comcast Cable

Read More From the 2017 Tech Roundtable Agenda
Capacity|Mobile & Wireless| Beyond Speeds and Feeds and Attracting Talent


MCN: To what extent are you gearing up to automate people’s homes to make them more useful?
Dan Hennessy: Our automation focus is very much linked to our core products and services, and where we can bring clear value right now: Voice search and control of our video services. Ensuring that all our platforms work in harmony. Installing new hardware in the home, like WiFi APs, such that it happens seamlessly. Giving customers a way to easily onboard third party IoT devices in their home.

What’s as important here is the business logic we’re building in our back office for “connectivity services.” It’s similar to what we’ve done for our video products and services, in terms of having a flexible, microservices-based back end that is open to third party integration.

JR Walden: We're an Icontrol affiliate [Comcast and Alarm.com bought pieces of Icontrol earlier this year]. It hasn’t been a huge business for us. I think we have concerns that trying to compete with CE companies in that space...is going to be tough for Icontrol, let alone Mediacom.

We want to be a service provider. We think we're good at being a service provider, so what’s the service here? We imagine providing some services to help facilitate and manage the customer's smart home and IoT device future. I don't know if we'll manage the service as a whole...but we think there's a place to play there. Like maybe you could use your Amazon Echo to do things on your TiVo set-top box...rather than using the remote or using a voice remote.

Rather than trying to be the guy who does everything, let's work with what people want, even if Google Home is the device or it's an Amazon device. We’re going to come out with a voice remote, too, that works with Nuance [Communications].

Kevin Hart: We're making great advances in our connected home and smart home platforms. We’re leveraging the existing platform, but we've also got other future-state possibilities, and coupling the Cox HomeLife platform offering with our Panoramic WiFi [product]. We've been going market to market and connecting a home and making it a true smart home with over 50 or so connected devices in the home, and virtual reality and home care demos, robotic dogs, you name it. We're also doing a little bit some remote healthcare monitoring. There's a lot of possibilities here and I think we're just scratching the surface of the industry.

Tony Werner: With the combination of xFi and Xfinity Home we think we’re in an ideal position to give our customers a simple one-stop solution for controlling their connected homes. With xFi, we take the mystery and guesswork out of our customers’ home WiFi networks, providing a real-time dashboard of what devices are on the network and how they are performing. With Xfinity Home, we’ve combined a powerful home security solution, with an increasingly integrated IoT hub. Through our “Works With Xfinity” program, our customers can control their Nest thermostats, August locks, Chamberlin garage door openers, and many other popular IoT devices all from their Xfinity Home app. We are continuously bringing more partners onto the platform. On the backend, we’re leveraging machine learning and our own homegrown rules engine to give our customers more pinpoint control over how their connected homes work.

MCN: In what ways is AI and machine learning guiding your technology strategy?
DH: AI and ML already exist in our businesses in a number of different areas -- both embedded in our products and services, and also as part of a number of new avenues we’re investigating. Not just customer facing, but for operational and engineering analytics use cases, too.

We’re using machine learning, for instance, to help us fine tune our understanding of how WiFi performs in our customer’s homes. RF modeling, and knowing those behaviors, can get us so far. Adding in telemetry from our devices in the field, and ML in the backend infrastructure, takes our insights to the next level.

Additionally, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and the associated AI is already deployed as part of our voice search and personalization services. We see much more applicability here in the front lines of our business, where interactions across 24 million customers can be tailored much more accurately.

The key with AI and ML is telemetry and data management. To leverage these techniques, we need to be able to collect and analyze data. From that, we can affect changes back into our services and infrastructure -- whether this is across the network, our service platforms, or our care and operational support systems.

A big step in the right direction is to understand the art of the possible. We’re starting to innovate with partners, internally. We’ve started with multiple trials, and some first deployments as well.

Jay Rolls: Both AI and ML will play an increasing role across our technology stacks, from network management to troubleshooting to connecting customers with the content they want. I think as our networks become denser and more complex, adding more intelligence will help us mine data that matters to the overall success of the businesses.

MCN: What does the Internet of Things mean to your company?
KH: From a product standpoint, some of the analytics that are built into the products, whether they’re visual analytics or voice analytics are making the products more intelligent and more personal. The voice remote stuff is cool on the front end, but having contacts and predicting your next couple moves in the connected home are a big part of what you'll see more and more of on the product roadmap.

From a technology operational network perspective, there's things we are doing with software-defined networking and some of the intelligence we’re building in through software and quality of service and latency. And from an operational perspective, doing more and more with some of the artificial intelligence around quality of service, call-in rates and truck roll reduction and customer experience. It's early days, but we've seen some very promising results.

JR: Whether it’s ensuring security and privacy, or connecting customers to specific capabilities, like health monitoring and wellness -- the IoT scene, which our customers are bringing onto our networks by the handfuls, enables us to take a customer-centric approach. The key to the IoT and our industry is that it’s based on the common denominator of connectivity.

TW: We are committed to AI and machine learning, because we’ve seen firsthand how those technologies can make our products better and improve the customer experience. We use AI and Machine Learning algorithms today to advance and refine our Natural Language Processing platform, detect and fix incidents in our network, and help our customers find content they love. We’ve got a first-rate team of PhDs working on these technologies day and night, and customers are already seeing that reflected in the products they use every day.

DH: Opportunity, more than anything. We’re seeing an explosion in connected devices, for sure, and the need for seamless onboarding, increased visibility, control, configuration and management. This is a key consideration as we think about how we develop our connectivity products and services.

Our customers rely on us to ensure their home network is secure, effective, and above all, is just there. Available. The key will be which devices and services our customers bring into their homes. The IoT market remains fragmented, from a service and technology standards point of view (Sigfox, LoRa, NB-IoT etc.) We’re experimenting with most of these.

We also see many new partnership possibilities opening up, with both established and new players. The IoT landscape brings in very diverse industries -- from lighting, to kitchen goods, home security and other utilities. How these will play out, and where the value and roles lie, is still a work in progress.

Beyond residential, we’re seeing plenty of interest in the B2B segment. We have a number of trials with home builders and commercial real estate firms, where mutual opportunities exist. Whether it’s environmental sensors and control, WiFi coverage and management, broader sensor and device onboarding, or management.

MCN: What matters when the task is securing the physical home, as well as the digital stuff in it?
TW: One of our over-arching product goals is to provide equipment and services that behave like a courteous guest in the home. Always there, always on, always connected, and pleasing to the eye, but also always on the lookout. Our Xfinity Home product started out as a physical home security offering, and quickly expanded into automation and smart home. A big part of that overall philosophy is to safeguard for both physical belongings, and digital identities.

JR: It’s a one-word answer: Trust. We’re in a unique position, because we are poised to protect between the physical, and the digital. As IP-connected devices proliferate, in the home and the business, we are becoming the trusted entity. Both for reliable service, as well as stewards of security.

DH: Trust is key here, of course – with an operational model that truly supports the offering. In both residential and B2B markets, local regulation and standards compliance will influence our interest and ability to enter this market. We also don’t see (for now) the same degree of demand as we see in other markets (notably North America) for these services.

The focus of the cable industry used to be a lot simpler. Its lens was generally trained on how to deliver and wield a quality package of pay TV, broadband and voice service that could be used to thwart competition from the telcos and satellite-TV providers.

These days, those service and tech strategies also place a heavy emphasis on wireless (WiFi, in and out of the home, and mobile) and over-the-top video (as an emerging competitor and complementary offering). To support current services and those that are out on the horizon, cable operators are also moving ahead with strategies and architectures that help them use their existing bandwidth more efficiently, or by adding capacity through projects and initiatives such as DOCSIS 3.1 and Full Duplex DOCSIS.

To get a fix on these areas of importance ahead of this month’s SCTE-ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver (Oct. 17-20), Multichannel News caught up with a handful of top technology and engineering executives.

Taking part in this year’s virtual tech roundtable — an aggregation of separate interviews with MCN technology editor Jeff Baumgartner and columnist Leslie Ellis of Ellis Edits — were:
Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief product and technology officer, Cox Communications;
Dan Hennessy, chief architecture architect, Liberty Global;
Jay Rolls, chief technology officer and senior vice president, Charter Communications;
JR Walden, senior vice president of technology and CTO, Mediacom Communications; and
Tony Werner, president of technology and product, Comcast Cable.

The 2017 Agenda
Capacity|Mobile & Wireless|The Home of the Future| Beyond Speeds and Feeds and Attracting Talent

The 2017 Tech Roundtable Panelists
Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief product and technology officer, Cox Communications
Dan Hennessy, chief architecture architect, Liberty Global
Jay Rolls, chief technology officer and senior vice president, Charter Communications
JR Walden, senior vice president of technology and CTO, Mediacom Communications
Tony Werner, president of technology and product, Comcast Cable
Read More From the 2017 Tech Roundtable Agenda
Mobile & Wireless|The Home of the Future| Beyond Speeds and Feeds and Attracting Talent

MCN: What are your priorities, as it relates to network capacity?
Jay Rolls: Our priority is to constantly balance capacity against demand. It’s a never-ending quest. We watch it very closely, and we’re very pragmatic about it -- the volume of tools, metrics and ways to see what’s really happening, and invest accordingly, is really deepening in ways that matter.

Tony Werner: We’ve been on a pretty steady path of doubling our network capacity every 18-24 months for several years, and I don’t see anything that makes me think that will change. We’re making better and faster products for our customers who expect and deserve world-class online experiences, and the network has to deliver on that promise. The key from my perspective is staying ahead of that curve in a way that’s smart and future-proof. We’ve been strategically extending fiber further into our network to meet customer demand, and that effort, combined with our commitment to deploying DOCSIS 3.1 has given us a network that’s powerful, flexible, and ready for what’s next.

JR Walden: We have completed the removal of all the analog channels. That was the big step one. Step two was to start transitioning high-speed data over to DOCSIS 3.1, so we're not adding any more 3.0 channels, and reuse spectrum for 3.1, which is a bit more efficient. The whole company is 3.1, all of the modems we're buying since June have been 3.1, so we've begun that next transition. 

We're in the process of migrating to MPEG-4, mostly the HDs. That's following along with some of our set-top refresh -- getting some of the old MPEG-2-only capable boxes out of the network and we can transition more of the channels to MPEG-4. 

Right on the heels of that, we're going to start moving some channels, the lower-viewed channels and some premiums, over to IP. We're also reducing node sizes. We average about 285 homes to 290 homes per node as an average. 

Kevin Hart: Ultimately, our goal is to continue to provide a great customer experience with a competitive broadband product and service. To do that, we are continuing to keep pace with downstream and upstream data rates, which is key to being competitive with our speed offerings, and quality of service. Reducing latency is also a top priority.

We’re investing in the network and in those growth rates, in terms of downstream and upstream speeds. Those are key drivers. Ultimately, providing that in-home or on-premises (business) experience, with our WiFi products — is equally important.

Tech Roundtable 2016 | Cable Tech at a Crossroads

Dan Hennessy: We see demand increasing by up to 45% across our markets and in recent years, we responded with a wide deployment of CCAP [converged cable access platform] equipment throughout our footprint. That investment, along with ongoing node size optimization, enabled us to increase capacity at a much faster rate. As a result, 70 – 80% of our plant will be DOCSIS 3.1 ready by the end of next year, giving us a path to even greater capacity expansion allowing us to continue to increase the available capacity across our access network, upstream and downstream 

MCN: What is your strategy with regard to fiber?
TW: Suffice it to say that fiber plays a key role on our network architecture. Our network today contains more than 150,000 route miles of fiber, and to meet customer demand, we extend fiber further into the neighborhoods we serve each year. When it comes to delivering gigabit speeds, our focus is obviously on DOCSIS 3.1, and our new xFi Advanced Gateway, which will bring Gig availability to more people, in more markets than ever before. But part of the reason we’re able to deliver that capacity is because we’ve systematically enhanced our network with fiber.

I feel pretty strongly that the best path ahead is to leverage the existing coaxial network and DOCSIS resources to the fullest, then inch towards FTTH, over time. Why? Because we can. We don’t have to build an entire network just to turn up one customer.

KH: Once you leverage the existing coax that we have, by taking fiber deep toward an N+0 architecture, we're future-proofing our investment , we're positioning ourselves to leverage DOCSIS 3.1, and also position ourselves for Full Duplex, because symmetrical speeds will be important. 

And we're also thinking about the fiber investment and fiber deep as it relates to our wireless strategy, enabling some of our customer with a small cell strategy but also positioning ourselves to take advantage of that in the future as well as thinking about fiber deep to benefit both residential and our commercial customers simultaneously. 

We've got a ten-year network 2.0 network transformation plan, and fiber deep, DOCSIS 3.1 and Full Duplex are at the core of what's driving the investment. 

DH: We’re aggressively future-proofing our network. Over 80% of our new build program is based on a combination of either fiber-deep, retaining the HFC final drop, or fiber-to-the-home.

The U.K. is a good example -- that’s where our “Project Lightning” network expansion initiative is happening (announced in early 2015). Cable network build had been very limited in parts of the U.K. since the ‘80s, and until a few years ago and is now benefiting from this fiber strategy.

JW: [Fiber deep] is a bit further out, at least as a large-scale type of project. I think fiber deep for MDUs, high-density areas and some planned communities, higher end communities doing deeper fiber or fiber-to-the-home [is happening]. But as a wholesale [change] and going to node+0 kind of architecture, I don't see that in the next two years. 

Tech Roundtable 2015 | Revving Up to ‘Web Speed’

JR: Fiber-deep is part of the overall capacity conversation. We’re constantly analyzing and monitoring our infrastructure, and matching those results against the technologies we have in our portfolio -- whether that’s DOCSIS 3.1, or taking fiber deeper, or Full Duplex DOCSIS. It’s a rational approach, where we’re trying to balance the needs, the available technologies, and the costs. DOCSIS 3.1 has some pretty remarkable capabilities, but it’s not necessarily a hard-and-fast reason to not take fiber deeper, for instance. Different situations drive different capacity decisions. There’s nothing universal about it -- you have to take it on a market-by-market basis.

MCN: To what extent will you use bridging techniques, like remote PHY & DOCSIS 3.1?
DH: We’re already trialing and testing both Remote PHY and DOCSIS 3.1 across our footprint. Our plan of record is to exploit virtualized and distributed access architectures.

Our strategy is fully focused on leveraging 3.1 and cost to upgrade is less than 20 Euro per home passed, so a very efficient way of getting to speeds of 1 Gbps-plus.

KH: We're making tremendous progress in calendar year 2017 on our DOCSIS 3.1 CCAP deployment. We started in earnest early in the year and by the end of this year, we'll have over one-third of our footprint 3.1-enabled with north of 90% of our footprint enabled with 3.1 by the end of 2018 and early 2019. We're definitely going to be leveraging a remote PHY architecture and some of the early stage testing around remote PHY currently. 

JR: They both play a role. Just like DOCSIS 3.0 and PON played a role in the evolution of the network over the past five years, DOCSIS 3.1 and remote PHY are going to play a major role in the coming years. Everyone will be using them, us included. Like everything else, it’s a matter of matching the right tool to the right task.

TW: I could tell you how committed we are to DOCSIS 3.1, but it may be easier just to lay out our progress to date. Since December 2015, when we provisioned the world’s first DOCSIS 3.1 modem on a customer-facing network, we have been aggressively expanding our D3.1-powered gigabit offering. Today, we have deployed D3.1 in 23 states and dozens of markets, with more coming online all the time. What I love about this technology is that it is a cost-effective way to make gigabit speeds a reality for a far broader cross-section of Americans, and not just to those lucky few who live in a few select neighborhoods. As for remote PHY and DAA [Distributed Access Architecture], both technologies are advancing at a breakneck clip, and I think you’ll hear more from us about them soon. 

MCN: What are the consumer factors pushing you toward the desire to provide symmetrical bandwidth, and eventually take advantage of technologies like Full Duplex DOCSIS (FDX)?
JR: The world of applications and services continues to evolve, obviously, but so far we’ve been able to meet those needs with an asymmetrical topology. That said, things like real-time gaming, augmented and virtual reality, and the Internet of Things -- some of those will likely drive more symmetry in the network. It remains to be seen. Whether it goes completely crazy, or just nudges the demand on the network, it’s good to have techniques like FDX on the drawing board.

KH: It’s a little but further out on the horizon. The upstream growth rate is ticking up a couple of notches, but not to the tune that we would need significant additional capacity and/or a complementary need for symmetrical bandwidth. We're still testing that, but the experiences, the gaming, the latency and interactive [applications] and additionally connected everything, I think, will be drivers of higher need for improved symmetrical speeds. But at this stage, the symmetrical is a nice-to-have for residential and definitely will be a good option for our commercial customers. 

DH: Presently, both our products and the consumption of those products are highly asymmetric. While we see some increase in upstream demand from cloud-based services, we don’t see the asymmetry changing any time soon.

Because of that, we are actively engaged with CableLabs and industry partners on the development of Full Duplex. We see it as part of our future access toolkit.

The 2017 Tech Roundtable Panelists
Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief product and technology officer, Cox Communications
Dan Hennessy, chief architecture architect, Liberty Global
Jay Rolls, chief technology officer and senior vice president, Charter Communications
JR Walden, senior vice president of technology and CTO, Mediacom Communications
Tony Werner, president of technology and product, Comcast Cable
Read More From the 2017 Tech Roundtable Agenda
Capacity|The Home of the Future|Beyond Speeds and Feeds and Attracting Talent

MCN: What are your wireless priorities?
Dan Hennessy: We believe that connectivity to the home, around the home, and on the go needs to be a high performance, reliable and seamless experience.  As such, we are focused on three areas.

For fixed broadband connectivity services in the home, we want to ensure that our customers are able to benefit from the power of our network -- both to and around the home. That’s regardless of where they live, what their home is like (how big and what it’s made of), or how many devices they want to connect to their in home WiFi. This is where a significant amount of engineering and innovation effort is spent.

From a mobile services perspective, it’s about making sure our customers get the best quad-play deal and experience out there. To do that, we will build on our MVNO capabilities across our markets. Where needed, we want to leverage VoWiFi technologies, to solve for in-home/business coverage issues. As well, we want to ensure that our customers are able to leverage our WiFi access points--roughly 10 million, across Europe. The goal is to bring the fixed and mobile connectivity experience together, seamlessly. To give our customers the best of both.

The third areas is specific to where we have a full MNO footprint, such as in Belgium. Telenet’s acquisition of the mobile operator, BASE, presented an opportunity to upgrade and deliver a world-class radio access network -- alongside the power of a cable access network.

Tech Roundtable 2016 | Cable Tech at a Crossroads

Jay Rolls: First is the launch of WiFi-first MVNO service with Verizon next year, which will serve us well for our short- and medium-term wireless goals.

Second is optimizing the WiFi experience for our residential and business customers. So many people equate “the internet” to “the WiFi signal”! That’s why it’s important that we continue to improve everyone’s WiFi.

Beyond that, we’re conducting both lab and field trials of CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service), in the unlicensed 3.5 GHz spectrum, as well as 5G millimeter wave technologies for fixed use cases, like backhaul.

Kevin Hart: The in-home experience, the on-premises experience and the experience within common spaces in MDUs -- about a third of our residential footprint is multi-dwelling units, so having a having a best-in-class WiFi experience there is key. We've also done a ton with convention centers with hospitality networks and hotels. We made an investment in a company [Blueprint RF, acquired by Cox over the summer] that's going to be bring best in class WiFi for commercial businesses. 

We’ve done some 5G trials, in conjunction with CableLabs. From a technical standpoint, we’ve been one of the leaders in small cell deployments, because of what we’ve been doing with some of our key partners and customers. The 5G trial was a fixed point to point [test]...just to prove out some of the technology and the performance.

JR Walden: We've been focused on in-home WiFi for many years. Maybe 60% of our customers pay us for a managed home WiFi solution. About 90% of our new customers do take that product. We have also been rolling out community WiFi, or metro WiFi...in a number of our communities, but not as aggressively as some of the big guys as we tend to have more low-density markets. I’m not necessarily convinced there are any business models around that. The theory around that is it's a customer affinity [strategy]. But it's not super-expensive to do, so you don't have to gamble too much on that. 

In regards to getting into more of a mobile play, we certainly haven't announced any plans. We've certainly been looking at what options might be and things like 5G and CBRS or other kind of solutions might impact us, both as a B2B or wholesale kind of enabler, like we were with cell tower backhaul, but also potentially getting into the retail side. 

That's one of those areas we'd rather be a fast-follower, frankly, so I’ll root for Comcast or Charter or somebody to blaze a successful trail, and then maybe we'll be prepared to invest in that. 

MCN: What are you doing to make WiFi better or best in class?
Tony Werner: We’re committed to offering a fantastic Wi-Fi experience to our customers, and from our perspective, that means providing a combination of speed, coverage and control. When it comes to speed, our xFi Advanced Gateway is not just the fastest gateway we’ve ever built, we believe it is the best device available today anywhere in the world.

On coverage, we want our customers to have amazing online experiences wherever they go, in or out of the home. On the go, that means continuing to expand our network of more than 18 million Wi-Fi hot spots, and at home, it’s a combination of our world-class gateway, and our forthcoming pods, which will give customers who want it a powerful Wi-Fi mesh network that can blanket any size home with great Wi-Fi. Finally, on control, we really believe xFi is a game changer. We launched it in May to more than 10 million devices, and the response we’ve seen has been tremendous, both in terms of adoption, and customer satisfaction. Today with xFi, our customers can pause WiFi to their kids’ devices for bedtime or dinner (our most popular feature), track the activity of devices on their home networks, and troubleshoot when things go wrong.

In addition, as you know we’re big proponents of RDK-B, where the B stands for “broadband.” It’s similar intent to RDK-V, video, which is the core foundation of our X1 UI. RDK-B is piled with techniques and technologies to continuously improve WiFi experiences.

KH: On the residential side, our offering, called Panoramic WiFi with the tagline of "It's wall to wall fast," has had an excellent take rate from a customer perspective. NPS (net promoter score) is up significantly. It's a combination of having a better in-home device, a professional install and additional to make sure your signal strength, location, quality of service is what you want it to be inside your premises. 

DH: Our WiFi strategy focuses on both raw hardware capabilities, and the software we use to optimize for value and performance. Both solve for whole home connectivity. We are constantly evaluating hardware-related developments and standards to include in the equipment we deploy in customers’ homes.

Alongside that, we are focused on software developments (embedded and cloud-based) to optimize WiFi range, reliability and performance. That means channel optimization, air time fairness, band- and client-steering. We have a range of embedded software and cloud-based services going to market in 2017 and 2018.

We’re also looking at the best ways to give our customers the right equipment to ensure whole home coverage, from point-of-sale to care. This includes developing a mix of property profiling (size, fabrication etc.) and machine learning techniques.

Making WiFi better for our customers is very much about giving them visibility and control.

Tech Roundtable 2015 | Revving Up to ‘Web Speed’

Ensuring all the hardware and technology we’re using works in harmony, such that the customer can see it, configure, it, and personalize it. We’re doing this with our “Connect” app, which – in addition to allowing them to manage their mobile tariffs and access hotspots while on the go -- brings all of this to the customer. Whether it’s parental controls, guest WiFi access, speed tests, onboarding of powerline devices, resetting passwords. It’s all the things our customers would and should expect. Meaning WiFi that consistently works well, with control in the palm of their hand.

JR: We’re currently deploying 802.11ac Wave 2 in the home, which has impressively nerdy feature names, like beam-steering and multi-user operation. Bottom line, they make the signals behave better in a given (and often hostile) environment. We’re also actively testing the benefits of 802.11ax, which works in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectral areas and enables multi-gigabit speeds.

On top of that, we’re planning a 2018 deployment of cloud-based radio resource management, which is all about optimizing the WiFi experience -- it takes some of what’s traditionally been processed locally, and pulls it back into the network. And, we’re testing some distributed WiFi solutions, to expand indoor coverage.

MCN: Is 5G an opportunity for small cell and backhaul, or a threat to the last mile? (A little bit of both?)
JW: The business model [for 5G] kind of confuses me some. For the markets that Mediacom operates in, which are much lower density than maybe the average -- we're well below 50 homes a mile. Although we don’t have as many line-of-sight issues with many tall buildings, the reach of these very high frequencies are really going to limit their use in lower density markets. 

I realize that Verizon and others are talking about 5G...but it's starting to feel a lot like 3D, in that there's a ton of talk about it, but when you go and look at the engineering, this is not going to be like LTE. When 4G came along, it was really about enabling a new frequency and new, more efficient protocols. This is fundamentally a different architecture. You're not going to enable with this with macro towers; you're going to have to build a whole new network to do this. And it's going to cost a lot of money. I think they have the performance to compete with landlines, but I don't think they have the capacity...at any cost-effective rate to really compete with landline. 

JR: It’s both, but probably more of an opportunity for backhaul. I mean, in rural areas, or very non-dense areas, having a wireless option, vs. wired, may make sense. We’re testing 5G for both, but to us it looks better for fixed use cases. That’s because millimeter wave comes with very large channel sizes, that can offer very high bandwidth -- but at those frequencies, propagation can be really challenging. Anything in the line of sight -- a tree, a building -- can mess things up.

DH: We don’t see 5G as a threat to the last mile. For starters, the economics aren’t there, at least in the foreseeable future. Plus, a 5G last mile will not offer the performance equivalent to fiber rich and deep access networks.

Spectrally, 5G performance will require larger bandwidths, which implies higher frequency spectrum and the use of advanced radio technologies, such as Massive MIMO or coordinated multi-site transmissions.

Higher spectral bands imply denser deployments of radio access nodes (smaller cells) with more backhaul locations, so for sure there are opportunities to scale backhaul revenues here.

When asked what a good coverage 5G access network might look like, I often point to one of our cable access maps showing our WiFi hotspots.

Ultimately, it’s not a question of 5G or cable access in the last mile. More, it’s a question of how will 5G radio access and fixed, fiber-rich cable access complement each other. Just like how unlicensed WiFi radio access compliments fixed cable access today.

KH: It is a little bit of both. From a technical perspective, we're taking advantage of some of the small cell opportunities.  

#NYCTVWK: ‘B&C’ Hall of Fame, VR 20/20 Kick Off Fifth Annual Event|Register Here

Mediacom Communications said Tuesday it has promoted Barry Paden to senior vice president of programming, the first in a series of key promotions at the mid-sized cable operator.

In his new position, Paden, who had been group vice president of programming, will continue to negotiate programming and retransmission consent agreements on behalf of Mediacom. He will also focus on securing media rights for strategic multiplatform initiatives, including video-on-demand and out-of-home authenticated TV Everywhere content. Paden began his career in the cable industry in 1988 with Multivision Cable TV, and joined Mediacom as director of programming in 1999.

In addition, Mediacom said it promoted vice president of internal audit Louis Gentile to group vice president of internal audit, where he will take on a principal role in providing internal audit compliance and other field audit activities for the company. He began his career in the cable industry in 1989 as an internal auditor with Multivision Cable TV, and joined Mediacom in 1998 as business manager of the Gulf Coast Region.

Mediacom also upped Mary Green from senior director of internal audit to vice president of internal audit. In this role, she will oversee the Sarbanes Oxley related audits conducted by Mediacom as well as the operational audits the company performs at its 100+ business office locations throughout the country. She entered the cable industry in 1989 as a manager trainee with Tele-Communications, Inc., and joined Mediacom in 2005 as a senior manager of internal audit.

Joseph Michulski has been promoted from senior director of finance to vice president of finance and will continue to play a major role in administering the company’s 401(k) plan, overseeing medical benefit expenditures and purchasing corporate insurance among other responsibilities. Michulski began his career in the cable industry in 2000 as a financial analyst with Mediacom.

Debra Zullo has been promoted from senior director of IT to vice president of IT where she will lead the LINUX system engineering and Oracle database administrative teams. In this role, she will work with both internal and external groups on new system and data requirements as well as design, implementation, testing, validation and automation. Zullo began her career in the communications industry in 1994 with AT&T, and joined Mediacom in 2005 as senior manager of system engineering.

The MCN 2017 Gatekeepers: The Pendulum Swings Back|Dish’s Andrew LeCuyer: Starting the ‘Hard Conversation’|WOW’s Roger Seiken: ‘It Has to Be a Win-Win’|A Veteran Gatekeeper for a New Distributor

Italia Commisso Weinand has seen a lot in 40 years in the programming negotiation business. Through stints at Comcast, Tele-Communications Inc., Times-Mirror Cable and Time Warner Cable, and since 1996 at midsized cable operator Mediacom Communications, she has hammered out deals that have set the benchmark for both large and small operators.

But as programming deals have evolved from simple carriage agreements nailed down over the course of a dinner conversation to the complicated digital, mobile and on-demand rights tomes that can take months and sometimes years to work out, she has stuck to one basic tenet: Do the right thing. That goes for both sides of the negotiating table, Commisso Weinand said in an interview with Multichannel News. As deals get more complicated and programmers rely more and more on carriage fees to make up for advertising and viewership declines, that tenet becomes more important than ever.

For Commisso Weinand, doing the right thing doesn’t mean she wants programmers to acquiesce to her every demand. She has said for years that Mediacom is more than willing to pay fair prices for content. But she also insists that programmers realize she has a business to run and that programming talks should consider other constituencies besides the two sides at the negotiating table.

“It’s not about us; it truly is about the customer,” Commisso Weinand said, adding that larger companies sometimes lose that perspective, especially when dealing with operators the size of Mediacom.

“I’m the buyer, not the seller,” Commisso Weinand said. “When my staff gets mistreated because there is a big ownership group, and they’re so much more important and they’re so much bigger, that’s when it all breaks down. But we’re still around. Most of those people don’t have jobs today. The arrogance persists.”

Commisso Weinand is fiercely protective of her negotiating team, which with just four people — group vice president of programming Barry Paden, vice president of programming Joseph Appio, vice president of advanced consumer services John Woods and consultant Glenn Goldsmith — has hammered out countless deals and stuck together for 18 years.

That kind of longevity doesn’t necessarily mean they always agree, but it does mean that they can let their opinions be known, Commisso Weinand said: “I have smart people. They don’t always agree with me. We have arguments.”

Paden said that, during programming negotiations, the team has “very entertaining conversations, because we have three different points of view, but we get to a good place.”

To which Commisso Weinand added, “a good place for the company and for the customers.”

DENVER – The early reviews of DOCSIS 3.1 are in, with engineers with some of the top MSOs in North America reporting that the technology is performing better than expected.

But if there’s one near-term issue they are all grappling with is getting access to integrated DOCSIS 3.1-based gateways that enable the in-home network to match the speeds that are entering the home from the network and eliminating those potential bottlenecks.

The availability of DOCSIS 3.1 gateways is a “little behind” where Mediacom Communications would like it to be, JR Walden, SVP of technology and CTO of Mediacom, said here at Light Reading’s Cable Next-Gen Technologies & Strategies conference.

In fact, in-home WiFi testing is becoming a major focus for DOCSIS 3.1 rollouts, added Cyrille Morelle, president and CEO of test and measurement firm VeEX.

“Having a very powerful WiFi device is critical” for DOCSIS 3.1, agreed Damian Poltz, VP of technology strategy and networks at Shaw Communications.

Comcast is trying to address this with the XB6, a full-featured DOCSIS 3.1 gateway that will also integrate speedy WiFi, ZigBee and other connectivity technologies.

For its initial D3.1 deployments, Comcast has been pairing stand-alone modems with a separate gateway to serve “thousands of customers.”

While acknowledging that such a set-up is not ideal, Jorge Salinger, VP of access architecture at Comcast, confirmed that Comcast is building versions of the XB6 that use Broadcom and Intel chipsets. He said Comcast is completing employee trials shifting toward customer trials and on to commercial deployments, which are expected to begin in the next month or so.

RELATED: Comcast Taps Arris, Technicolor for ‘XB6’ Gateways: Sources

Vendors such as Hitron Technologies are building and developing DOCSIS 3.1-based gateways and network extenders to help bridge that gap. Hitron, said company CTO Greg Fisher, has about 30 D3.1 gateway trials underway around the world.

RELATED: Rogers Rolling Out Hitron’s DOCSIS 3.1 Gateway

Short-term gateway issues aside, MSOs are pleased with the performance they’ve seen from DOCSIS 3.1 in the early going.

DOCSIS 3.1 is working “really well” regardless of now clean the HFC plant is or the size of the node sizes that are serving customers. “It [DOCSIS 3.1] works better than 3.0 in noisy plant,” said Walden. Mediacom has already upgraded its entire HFC network to support DOCSIS 3.1 and is in the process of deploying D3.1-based broadband services.

RELATED: Mediacom Goes Big With DOCSIS 3.1

Walden said the economics of D3.1 has been a major driver for Mediacom after it analyzed assumed broadband capacity demand and how much it would cost to stay with DOCSIS 3.0 to keep up with it, or start to shift to D3.1. (DOCSIS 3.1 modems are hybrids in the sense that they can support both D3.0 and D3.1-based traffic.)

He said Mediacom expects to get better economics for all tiers of service, not just billboard 1-Gig services.

Mediacom isn’t pinpointing how many subscribers are taking the MSO’s fastest offered speed tier, but Walden offered a range that 3% to 10% of new subs are taking 1-Gig.

Salinger said DOCSIS 3.1’s ability to support multiple modulation profiles is a “significant benefit” as Comcast continues to expand its reach.

RELATED: Comcast Sets DOCSIS 3.1 Expansion, Launches 1-Gig in Detroit

“It’s in full swing of execution,” he said of that deployment. “The idea is to have gigabit service everywhere.”

Salinger also talked about the importance of an MSO having its own speed test tools to show or demonstrate that D3.1 is performing at the right levels as some subscribers don’t have in-home equipment that can support 1-Gig.

Mediacom Communications has been selected as the new data service provider for the Missouri Innovation Center, a non-profit business incubator focused on leveraging research & development produced in conjunction with the University of Missouri.

Through the relationship, Mediacom will provide a dedicated fiber connection to the facility and Gigabit data speeds.

In a statement Mediacom Business senior vice president Dan Templin said the agreement with the center is due in part to Mediacom’s Project Open Road, a program to proactively connect more businesses to its network and provide the level of broadband capacity that is critical for commercial and research facilities like the MIC.

“The Missouri Innovation Center is currently sharing a University of Missouri fiber feed with other university users, limiting bandwidth to incubator residents who are in need of higher capacity to power their business applications,” Templin said in a statement. “Mediacom Business’ Gigabit+ Fiber Solutions will provide the 1-Gig internet speeds to power next-level technology like precision agriculture, live augmented reality and other cloud-based services. Our network will deliver the dedicated, fast and private connection to the public internet that is critical for incubator residents.”
One beneficiary of the high-speed data connection is StoryUP, an incubator company that uses virtual reality technology to immerse users in stories and experiences that can produce specific brainwave patterns.

Stacey Button, Director of Economic Development for the City of Columbia, Missouri, and President of Regional Economic Development Inc., said in a statement the partnership between Mediacom Business and the Missouri Innovation Center will help entrepreneurs translate their new business ideas into high-growth businesses. “Mediacom Business has the high-capacity broadband tools that the MIC needs to help businesses grow and be successful, all for the benefit of this region and the state,” she added.

The New York Cosmos soccer team, now principally owned by Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso, has a new home stadium -- MCU Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. -- and will open the North American Soccer League season there on April 1, the team said today.

The Cosmos, rescued by Commisso's acquisition from dire financial straits, had been looking for a new place to play, preferably somewhere in New York City. MCU Park, near the Coney Island boardwalk, where a minor league affiliate of the New York Mets plays baseball, is that place and it will be the team's home field for 16 regular season games.

“When I took control of the club on January 10th, our immediate priorities were to stabilize the NASL, re-hire the Cosmos front office personnel and coaching staff, rebuild our team roster and relocate to a fan friendly venue within the five boroughs,” Cosmos chairman Commisso said in a team press release. “In less than a month, we have achieved those objectives, including re-signing many of the starters from our 2016 Championship Team. During the Cosmos’ inaugural season in 1971, the team played at Yankee Stadium. With our move to MCU Park in Brooklyn, we are not only able to offer fans easy access to a one-of-a-kind entertainment experience, but we are also reconnecting the club to its original New York City roots. Adding the excitement of Cosmos’ games to Coney Island’s already vibrant atmosphere will be a win-win for our club and soccer enthusiasts throughout the metropolitan area.”

The team last played its home games at a stadium on the campus of Hofstra University on Long Island.

The team's release had quotes from city luminaries including Mayor Bill de Blasio and from New York Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, who said: "We are thrilled to showcase MCU Park as a multi-purpose venue and welcome the Cosmos, a storied franchise in American soccer history. All New York area soccer fans will enjoy watching the Cosmos make their mark in Brooklyn."

Yankee Stadium now is the home of New York City FC of Major League Soccer.

The Cosmos also said season-ticket packages go on sale on Friday, Feb. 3.

Mediacom chairman, CEO and founder Rocco Commisso can now add sports mogul to his lengthy resume, with the purchase of North American Soccer League champion the New York Cosmos.

Commisso will be chairman of the club as well as its majority shareholder. Speculation regarding his involvement with the team has been rampant for days.

Commisso is buying the team from Sela Sports and Cosmos chairman Seamus O’Brien. According to reports, O’Brien is expected to stay on as a minority owner.

The Cosmos are one of the best-known names in the NASL, and had a storied run in the 1970s with iconic players like Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto. In recent years, the team has been relegated to the second tier NASL.

“Like so many of our fantastic fans, I have followed the Cosmos since the fabulous days of Pelé, Chinaglia, Alberto, and Beckenbauer,” Commisso said in a statement. “With my deep roots in the New York City area as a former player, youth coach, and proud supporter of the Columbia University soccer program, I look forward to building on the rich history of America’s most iconic soccer club.”

Commisso, a life-long soccer fan and a star player in college – he was co-captain of the Columbia University squad in 1970 – should bring stability and needed funds to the club.

The Cosmos have lost six of their top players to other teams in recent months – including 2016 NASL MVP Juan Arango – and have reportedly lost as much as $30 million over the years.

As defending champions of the NASL, the Cosmos will return to the field in 2017 with head coach Giovanni Savarese at the helm.

“Cosmos fans deserve a world class experience,” said Savarese in a statement. “I am thrilled Rocco is giving me the opportunity to continue as head coach to pursue our fourth championship in five years.”

The Cosmos are expected to officially unveil the new ownership at a teleconference at 11:30 a.m. today.  

“We’ve worked hard to secure a positive future for the club and Rocco is the perfect person to lead the continued renaissance,” O’Brien said in a statement. “He is not only extremely knowledgeable about the beautiful game as it is played worldwide, but brings extensive entrepreneurial experience in the media and communications business to the organization.”

Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso is close to purchasing iconic professional soccer franchise the New York Cosmos, with some reports claiming the cable baron could take control of the team as early as this week.

UPDATE, Jan. 10, 2017: It’s Official: Commisso Purchases NY Cosmos

The Cosmos plan to hold a press conference tomorrow morning (Jan. 10) at 11:30 a.m. to offer an update on the team's plans for the 2017 season. No further details were available but sources familiar with the situation said it is likely the fete is to introduce new ownership.

The Cosmos, once the home of soccer legends Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer during its heyday in the 1970s, has fallen on hard times of late, reportedly furloughing workers and deep in debt.

Currently owned by Sela Sports and One Word Sports owner Seamus O’Brien, the Cosmos have lost as much as $30 million over the past several years, according to some reports.

About six players have already left the club, including 2016 league MVP Juan Arango, to sign with other teams.

The team also has been looking for a permanent home – it previously held games at Hofstra University’s Shuart Stadium in Long Island, but was ousted from that venue earlier. The team has been negotiating to play at MCU Park in Coney Island, N.Y., home of Class A minor league baseball team the Brooklyn Cyclones. The NASL regular season starts in April.

Commisso was seen as a savior for the team, which has been seeking a buyer for months.

One of the conditions of the deal was that the league the team plays in – the North American Soccer League – retain its Division II status with its parent league the MSL. That was achieved last Friday – governing body U.S. Soccer Federation granted provisional Division II status to the NASL as well as former Division III league the USL on Friday.

On its website, the Cosmos confirmed full participation in the NASL’s 2017 season, adding that the affirmation of the league’s Division II status “allows us to move forward with confidence.”

According to reports, Commisso was expected to pay back wages for players and front office staff once he assumed control of the team. O’Brien is expected to retain a minority interest.

Reports began to surface last week that Commisso was in line to purchase the Cosmos. A native of Calabria, Italy, Commisso was a college soccer star at Columbia University, where he served as co-captain of the soccer team in the 1970s and was invited to try out for the 1972 U.S. Olympic Soccer squad. Columbia named its soccer stadium after Commisso in 2013,  acknowledging his strong support of the soccer program over the years. He is still an avid fan of the sport and is said to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the game.

Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso was inducted into Columbia University’s Athletics Hall of Fame Thursday night, for his lifetime commitment to Columbia Althletics, specifically its soccer program.

Commisso, a Columbia graduate, was honored at a black-tie gala Thursday night at the Low Library on the University’s Morningside Campus.

The Hall of Fame was founded to honor those individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of intercollegiate athletics and who have helped bring recognition, distinction and excellence to Columbia University. With his induction, Commisso joins a legendary group of Columbia alumni including Lou Gehrig,Sid Luckman, Roone Arledge, Robert Kraft, Len Renery and Amr Aly. 

On Saturday (Oct. 22), Commisso will be recognized by the University during the official dedication of the newly renovated soccer field at the Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium named in his honor. Scheduled in conjunction with the Columbia’s 2016 Homecoming festivities, the ceremony will take place at 6:30pm between the women’s and men’s soccer matches against Dartmouth College. During the program, Commisso will be joined by Columbia Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, Peter Pilling, as well as a large contingent of current soccer players, coaches, alumni, family and friends.  

Despite not playing soccer in high school, Commisso earned a full four-year undergraduate scholarship to attend Columbia and was awarded three soccer letters. He started every game during his four-year career from 1967-70 (except for one due to injury) and earned a reputation as the “toughest” player in the Ivy League. A three-year All-Ivy League honoree both as a defensive and offensive player, Commisso guided the Lions to a four-year winning record. He served as Co-Captain of the 1970 team, the first-ever Columbia squad to advance to the NCAA Tournament, scoring 9 goals in 8 games as a center-forward, including Columbia’s first two NCAA Tournament goals in school history. He was also a member of a freshman squad that finished with an undefeated record and was invited to try-out for the 1972 U.S. Olympic Team.

Commisso has supported the University’s soccer program for 49 years, co-founding the Friends of Columbia Soccer in the mid-1970s and serving as its chairman from 1978-86, during which time Columbia won 8 straight Ivy Championships and became the only Ivy League school ever to compete in the NCAA Championship Final Game. In 2013, Columbia recognized his long-standing contributions to the university by naming its soccer venue at the school’s Baker Athletics Complex as the Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium.

Commisso earned both a BS degree in Industrial Engineering in 1971 and a MBA degree from the Graduate Business School in 1975. At the Business School, he was elected president of the student body and was the recipient of the prestigious Business School Service Award.

Mediacom Communications said it has renewed its carriage deal with the Big Ten Network. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Big Ten Network, a joint venture between the Big Ten athletic conference and Fox Networks (which operates the network), provides access to more than 1,000 sporting events each year including football, basketball and numerous Olympic sports. Mediacom is the fifth largest cable operator in the country, serving more than 1.3 million video and broadband customers in the Midwest and Southeast.     

Mediacom -- which is the biggest cable provider in the state of Iowa, home of Big Ten member school the University of Iowa -- was among several cable providers that held out for about a year before launching BTN in 2008. 

Mediacom Business has inked a deal to deliver speeds up to 10 Gbps over fiber to commercial buildings owned by R&R Realty Group in the Des Moines, Iowa, metro area.

Mediacom said it will offset construction costs and installation timeframes for R&R Realty Group to deliver service to over 6.3 million square feet of office, flex and industrial space that were previously unserved by the Mediacom Business network.

The deployment is part of a broader plan announced by Mediacom in March to invest $1 billion over the next three years for a number of projects, including “Project Gigabit,” an upgrade and expansion initiative that will bring 1-Gig broadband to “virtually all” of the 3 million homes and businesses in the MSO’s footprint, which covers about 1,500 communities in 22 states.

“Our agreement with R&R Realty Group kicks off a companywide initiative to proactively connect more businesses to our network known as Project Open Road,” Ed Pardini, SVP of field operations for Mediacom, said in a statement. “Once complete, we will be able to bring up to 10-Gig speeds right to the doorsteps of the R&R Realty buildings located in the Des Moines Metro Area, providing their tenants with a choice for high-capacity broadband.” 

Entertainment Studios has reached a carriage deal with Mediacom Communications for two of its high-definition channels, Comedy.Tv and Pets.TV, the company announced Wednesday.

The multi-year distribution deal calls for Medicom – the fifth largest cable operator – to distribute the Byron Allen-owned channels via its linear, on demand and TV Everywhere platforms, said company officials.

“This deal for carriage of our Comedy.TV and Pets.TV branded networks is important to us, and we are thrilled to have reached a long-term agreement with Mediacom,” said Byron Allen, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Entertainment Studios in a statement. 

Added Italia Commisso Weinand, Mediacom’s Executive Vice President of Programming and Human Resources: “These networks deliver a unique and entertaining mix of today’s funniest comedians, stand-up comedy performances, sitcoms, and pet lifestyle shows. This type of programming is popular with our customers."

Mediacom Communications lost about 11,000 basic video subscribers in the second quarter, an improvement over the 12,000 it lost in the same period last year, as high-speed data and telephony additions also rose in the period.

Mediacom ended the quarter with 14,000 more high-speed data customers (compared to 10,000 additions in the same period last year) and phone customer additions more than doubled to 10,000 in the period versus 4,000 in the prior year.

Those improved subscriber metrics helped boost revenue for the period up 4.4% to $450.8 million and OIBDA up 4% to $172.7 million.

Mediacom ended the quarter with 1.3 million customer relationships, up 2.5% from the prior year.

A year after providing its Gigabit + broadband service to Iowa Speedway, Mediacom Business has been tapped to extend its WiFi network to the sports venue, allowing racegoers and news media to post live comments, pictures and videos during races as well as accessing mobile apps to enhance the racing experience.

“We’re fortunate that Iowa Speedway is a source for testing innovative platforms like this,” said Iowa Speedway president Jimmy Small in a statement. “We are building on our successful strategic relationship with Mediacom Business in bringing high-capacity broadband to Iowa Speedway, among the best connected tracks in the business. Our Newton Club members will be the first to enjoy this new service during Wide Opening Weekend June 18-19.”

The WiFi connection will allow attendees in the Newton Club to access NASCAR and INDYCAR mobile apps with features such as live leaderboards, real-time track position and driver telemetry, driver audio, in-car cameras and highlights.

WiFi service for both indoor and outdoor sections of the Newton Club is enabled by the Cisco Meraki business solution.

“Meraki provides powerful WiFi, security and networking capabilities that work immediately out-of-the-box and still allow for easy customization via the web,” Mediacom Business, senior vice president Dan Templin said in a statement. “We’re excited to leverage this proven technology to expand on the race fan experience at the Iowa Speedway.”