Charter Communications will offer 5G mobile service this quarter, said CEO Tom Rutledge on a Q4 call Friday. It's "likely to participate" in the upcoming citizens band radio service spectrum auction, he said. Asked whether Charter would ever move to its own wireless network instead of relying at least partly on a mobile virtual network operator, Rutledge said it depends on pricing. He said it has no immediate plans to change its Verizon MVNO relationship, and anticipates it existing "for years to come." Rutledge said 10G investments will be done incrementally over time, and won't require an immediate network overhaul, saying Charter surpassed 10G capabilities in lab testing. Q4 revenue of $11.8 billion rose 4.7 percent year over year. It ended 2019 with 24.9 million residential broadband customers, up 5.4 percent, 15.6 million video customers, down 3 percent, and 9.4 million voice customers, down 6.8 percent. It has 1.08 million mobile lines, compared with 134,000. The stock closed up 5 percent to $517.46.

At year's end, 155,029 CableCARDs were in service, with 20,873 in inventory, NCTA said Wednesday in FCC docket 97-80. It said the average monthly CableCARD lease was $2, and average installation cost $50. The deployments were down slightly from the year-ago quarter.

New Jersey Board of Public Utilities commissioners are preliminarily restrained and enjoined from taking further action to enforce a Nov. 13 cease and desist order against Altice until litigation concludes at U.S. District Court in Newark, said Judge Brian Martinotti in a Wednesday order (in Pacer). “Or until the Court issues an order determining that circumstances render the injunction unnecessary (a) because Altice is no longer subject to effective competition or (b) if Congress repeals or a court invalidates any of the relevant provisions of the Cable Act.” Altice sued BPU for seeking to force the cable company to use pro-rated billing. The company argues that violates the Cable Act, the Constitution’s supremacy clause and New Jersey law.

The FCC should institute a "program carriage statute of limitations" that starts ticking when the program carriage offense allegedly occurs, bringing such rules in line with the time limits the agency puts on related matters like good faith requirements in the retransmission consent context and program access complaints, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly blogged Tuesday. He also urged an automatic stay of an administrative law judge's program carriage complaint initial decision to give the cable operator that loses a chance to appeal the decision to the full commission. O'Rielly recommended axing the requirement cable operators keep records of their attributable interests in video programming services and carriage of those vertically integrated video programming services on their cable systems.

NCTA backs USTelecom recommendations to reduce proposed letter of credit burdens for participants in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, posted Friday in docket 19-126. NCTA opposes USTelecom's request the FCC provide continued noncompetitively bid Connect America Fund support to price cap carriers. "As the Commission correctly states in the draft order, the support was always intended to be limited in duration," the telco group said. USTelecom didn't comment beyond its request.

The number of Americans who say they would consider subscribing to Disney Plus grew 23 points in January vs. the month before the streaming service’s November launch, Morning Consult reported Thursday. Over 2019, just DoorDash registered double-digit growth (14 percent). Most of the purchasing consideration growth came from consumers who said they're “absolutely certain” they will subscribe to Disney Plus, said Morning Consult, rising from 9 to 22 over the four-month period. Its data suggests Disney Plus’ rise hasn’t directly hurt Netflix and Hulu, but “their metrics have stalled in its wake.” Over the four months, Hulu’s trend line remained flat, while Netflix’ stepped up 1 point, said the research/media firm. Netflix attributed slowing Q4 subscriber additions to competitive launches in the U.S. in its latest earnings report (see 2001210061).

Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Margaret McKeown, William Fletcher and Mary Murguia approved Comcast's ask to stay issuance of a mandate in a cable TV pricing lawsuit pending the MVPD's seeking of a Supreme Court petition for writ of certiorari (see 2001220020). That's according to a docket 18-15288 order (in Pacer) Thursday. It said the mandate, on Comcast's efforts to get the litigation handled via arbitration, will remain stayed until final SCOTUS disposition.

Comcast plans a Supreme Court appeal in a legal fight over arbitration provisions, and asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay issuance of a mandate. A motion posted Wednesday (in Pacer, docket 18-15288) said it will ask SCOTUS to look at whether the Federal Arbitration Act pre-empts California's McGill rule, but absent a stay it will litigate rather than arbitrate a subscriber lawsuit over whether it falsely advertised cable TV pricing. Comcast said the district court handling the litigation stayed proceedings pending the 9th Circuit appeal but says it will lift the stay on denial of a petition for rehearing. The 9th Circuit last year rejected Comcast's appeal of a U.S. district court denying the operator's motion to compel arbitration (see 1908120009), and earlier this month rejected Comcast's ask for rehearing en banc. The company said the stay motion is opposed by the plaintiff-appellees. Their counsel didn't comment.

Comcast and Cox Communications are fighting a Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable request that the FCC delay considering the cable operators' effective competition petitions in the state (see 2001140050). Comcast posted a motion for abeyance that a pause would constrain its ability to compete and saddle it with administrative costs competitors don't bear, Wednesday in docket 19-385. Cox's docket 20-10 opposition took issue with MDTC not seeking FCC reconsideration of the agency's Charter Communications effective competition order (see 1910250036) and then appealing the Charter order with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 1912230063) after Cox submitted its petition. That "impose[d] substantial and unjustifiable harm" on it, Cox said. MDTC didn't comment.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., filed the Protecting Community Television Act Tuesday to ensure continued resources for public, educational and governmental programming. The bill follows the FCC’s cable TV local franchise authority order (see 1908010011). Localities are seeking a stay before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 1912180048), and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly Tuesday said he wants more deregulation (see 2001210028). Markey, Eshoo and others raised concerns the LFA order would treat cable operators' in-kind contributions required by local franchise authorities as franchise fees and subject to a cap. The Protecting Community Television Act would clarify that franchise fees that cable companies provide local governments include only monetary assessments, not in-kind contributions. Eshoo called “shameful” the FCC’s “attempt to gut these important voices.”