The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit should affirm the FCC’s decision not to reopen Tennis Channel’s carriage complaint against Comcast, already decided by the court in the cable giant’s favor, the FCC said in a motion for summary affirmance filed Wednesday in response to the Tennis Channel’s March petition for review of the FCC decision. “The Commission correctly determined that ‘Tennis Channel had a full and fair opportunity to litigate its complaint’ -- both before the agency and on judicial review,” the FCC filing said. Tennis Channel had argued that the Comcast decision against it had created a new test for when a company is being discriminated against and asked the FCC to reopen the proceeding so it could submit new evidence to fulfill that test. The FCC disagreed that the court had intended for the case to be reopened. “Context” doesn’t suggest “that the Court intended the Commission to conduct remand proceedings to revisit the question whether evidence of unlawful discrimination exists -- on either the existing record or a new one,” the FCC said. Since the court and the FCC have already ruled on the matter, the D.C. Circuit should affirm the commission’s ruling to bring the proceeding to a close, the FCC said.

Another group opposed an FCC rulemaking that proposed to give cable operators nationwide effective competition deregulation (see 1505060051) unless local franchise authorities (LFAs) demonstrate otherwise, saying that would "unfairly burden" LFAs. The group, Consumer Action, cited cable rate increases that have outpaced inflation. It said the commission should at least "slow down and carefully consider how these rule changes could affect consumers." There's "no reason to rush through" the congressionally mandated proceeding to streamline the effective competition process for small cable operators, said the group in a filing posted Monday in docket 15-53. Agency and industry officials and the NPRM itself say the 2014 Satellite and Television Extension Localism Act Reauthorization Act requires the revamp of at least the small-operator effective competition rules by June 2 (see 1505070046).

The FCC needs to ensure that the Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee “results in solutions that enable robust competition among retail and operator-leased navigation devices,” said a letter Monday to Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and the FCC staff on the DSTAC from several committee members and non-member companies and groups, including Amazon, CCIA, Free Press, Google and Public Knowledge. That comes after a letter sent by multichannel video programming distributors in April, which opposed Public Knowledge and TiVo's efforts on the committee. “Limiting the DSTAC’s scope to downloadable security alone, without reference to the committee’s broader mandate of furthering the competitive availability of navigation devices, would result in a walled-garden approach” that doesn't promote ”vigorous competition and innovation,” the new letter said. It responded to MVPD complaints that PK and TiVo are trying to make the group's product resemble CableCARD. “Congress recognized that the FCC and the private sector need to enhance functionality like that provided by CableCARD,” Monday’s letter said. “The DSTAC’s final recommendation should avoid moving backward, by ensuring the ability of retail navigation devices to offer differentiated and innovative user interfaces, search functions, and recording and cloud functionality.” The FCC should “focus not on specific services or commercial arrangements, but on the features and choices available to consumers,” the letter said.

Gigabit Pro will be available next month, offering more than 500,000 customers in Nashville a chance to have 2 Gbps broadband at home, said Comcast in a news release Wednesday. The service will be offered in the metropolitan area and surrounding middle-Tennessee communities, the company said. Comcast has announced Gigabit Pro rollouts in Atlanta, California, Chattanooga, Chicago and Florida, and plans to deliver the service to 18 million homes by the end of the year, it said. The service will be available to any home within close proximity to Comcast’s fiber network, it said.

Among the Comcast service enhancements revealed this week was a coming modem that allows 1 Gbps speeds for an "overwhelming majority of our customers," it said in a news release. The modem goes into production this year and will be available to subscribers in early 2016, said the cable operator. "Because it works with our Hybrid Fiber Coaxial network already in place, the Gigabit Home Gateway will be able to deliver gigabit speeds to virtually all Xfinity customers once the DOCSIS 3.1 networking standard is deployed nationally," said a post by Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner. "The Gigabit router is also fully backward compatible with the DOCSIS 3.0 networking standard that is in place today." Comcast CEO Brian Roberts used the INTX show that's wrapping up in Chicago to demo various enhancements. CableLabs, the cable industry's research and development arm that developed the DOCSIS 3.1 specification, has said products meeting that spec can deliver up to 10 Gbps on hybrid fiber-coax networks (see 1412160036).

Comcast will launch an Ultra HD set-top later this year as it brings its Xfinity in UHD catalog to the X1 platform, the company said in a Wednesday news release. The Xi4 will deliver UHD content “directly to the television, enabling X1 customers to enjoy unlimited virtual 4K linear channels by creating personalized playlists from the Xfinity in UHD library,” Comcast said. It will follow that next year with the launch of a high-dynamic-range Xi5 set-top, Comcast said. Comcast representatives didn’t comment whether the Xi5 set-top will support an open HDR standard such as that being espoused by the UHD Alliance or a proprietary standard such as Dolby Vision. The Xi5 high-dynamic-range set-top will provide “increased color, contrast and brightness,” Comcast said. The deployment of Xfinity in UHD for the X1 platform will mean “our customers can easily and seamlessly enjoy some of the best 4K programming available today as part of their subscription with no additional equipment or costs,” Comcast Cable General Manager-Video Service Matt Strauss said. Comcast said it also plans to add hundreds of additional films and shows to its Xfinity in UHD catalog, including IMAX films and content from Starz, SyFy and USA. At the INTX cable show in Chicago, the operator demo'd other enhancements as it's trying to improve customer service (see 1505060012).

Comcast will create more than 5,500 customer service jobs as part of a new multiyear plan to improve customer service, it said Tuesday in a news release. The plan includes a goal by Q3 2015 of being always on time for customer appointments, it said. The company will “simplify billing and create better policies to provide greater consistency and transparency to customers” and invest in employee training, it said. “This transformation is about shifting our mindset to be completely focused on the customer,” said Neil Smit, CEO of Comcast Cable. The company's new job creation effort will kick off with 2,000 new employees hired to staff three new customer support centers in Albuquerque, Spokane and Tucson, Comcast said. The first new center -- in Albuquerque -- will be staffed with “bilingual employees who will support Spanish-speaking customers across the country,” Comcast said. The centers in Tucson and Spokane will be “operational” later this year, Comcast said. The company is tripling the size of its social media customer care team, hiring 250 new employees for its Xfinity stores, and automatically crediting customers $20 if a technician is late, it said. The customer service effort also includes an online service that will let customers track their service technicians, revamped Xfinity stores and increased training, Comcast said. In Chicago at INTX 2015, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Tuesday demo'd new technologies designed to improve customer service (see 1505040059) after what he has called a disappointing end to the company's bid for Time Warner Cable (see 1505040059).

“The vast majority" of VoIP customers of Cablevision and Charter Communications don't buy batteries to back up the service when the power goes out, executives of the cable operators told FCC Public Safety Bureau officials, Charter said in an FCC filing. "Charter and Cablevision make significant efforts to educate their customers about the VoIP services they offer, including that such service will not work during a power outage without a backup battery." The filing was posted Tuesday in dockets including 14-174, which was related to an NPRM asking about "steps the Commission could take to safeguard continuity of communications throughout a power outage, including the possible adoption of new rules."

The FCC record backs the agency's proposal to presume cable operators face effective competition nationwide, with cable competitors' market share exceeding 15 percent penetration in every designated market area, NCTA said in an ex parte filing. "It is unsurprising that the Media Bureau has granted virtually every effective competition petition that a cable operator has filed in the last several years." Operators likely haven't sought deregulation in the remaining franchise areas where an effective competition order hasn't been granted "because they are deterred by the cost and other burdens of gathering information" to make such requests, the association said. "Opponents of reversing the presumption provided no evidence of consumer harm" in the 10,000-plus communities the bureau has found face effective competition, the group said of lobbying conversations its executives had with aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai. The filing was posted Tuesday in docket 15-53, where the next day a Hispanic Institute filing was posted saying the group opposes the proposed rule. "In communities where the Commission has determined effective competition does not exist, the current rules offer a backstop that helps ensure low rates for the basic tier of cable TV service," it said. The last time the group made an FCC filing itself and not with others, according to the agency's database, was in 2011 to say that it backed AT&T's buy of T-Mobile, a deal the companies later abandoned amid FCC and Department of Justice concerns. The Hispanic Institute is a member of TVFreedom.org, TVFreedom.org's website said. TVFreedom.org's members also include broadcasters and it's at odds with pay-TV interests over carriage issues. NAB is among those opposing the effective competition NPRM (see 1504170063). "Over the course of the last year, The Hispanic Institute had called for accessibility and affordability of the basic tier and video market reforms that account for the needs of Latino and Spanish-speaking television viewers," noted its new filing. “The effective competition rule as it stands is a critical consumer protection for low-income and minority communities," said Hispanic Institute President Gus West in a written statement responding to our questions Wednesday about the group's funding and involvement in the effective competition proceeding. "By changing the presumption, the FCC would give cable providers the ability to manipulate their programming tiers so that customers would be forced to pay for expensive cable programming before they can access local broadcast TV stations, curtailing consumers' access to lifeline information."

USA Network said its content will be available on Apple TV via USA Now, the network’s TV Everywhere streaming product.