November 1, 2007

360AM: Sprint Calls Time Out on Pivot; AT&T's U-verse to Resume in CT

Sprint calls for "simpifying" wireless joint venture with cable operators; AT&T gets judicial OK to resume U-verse rollout in Connecticut; and more Thursday news.

By Shirley Brady

Cable360AM — News briefing for Thursday, Nov. 1 »

Sprint Nextel's CFO and acting CEO, Paul Saleh, said during the company's third quarter earnings call this morning that its Pivot wireless phone joint venture with cable operators will stop adding new Sprint retail stores until the company and its cable j.v. partners (Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable, Advance/Newhouse) can figure out a way to simplify the service. Although Pivot cellphone service is now in 33 cable markets and 20% of Sprint's stores, "the unfortunate part," Saleh told analysts on the call, "is that this product is still very complex to provision ... (so) we've just stopped the additional expansion of that product in our stores. We are still very strategically aligned with the cable companies. ... we are looking at alternative ways of just really simplifying the offering and make it a whole lot simpler at the point of sale." Sprint's third quarter earnings reported a 43% increase in annual IP revenues "due to strong demand from cable partners and corporate uses," including 2.6 million cable VoIP customers on Sept. 30. The Wall Street Journal has more on Sprint's 3rd quarter results.

A Connecticut Superior Court judge ruled yesterday that AT&T can resume signing up new customers in the state for its U-verse IPTV service, reports the Hartford Courant. Judge Robert McWeeny overturned a ruling by the state DPUC that required AT&T to follow the same rules as cable companies. McWeeny ruled that AT&T should instead be regulated under a new state law designed to promote video competition between cable companies, telcos and other entrants. AT&T can't start signing up new customers until it gets the required competitive video service provider license from the state.

Besides banning exclusive contracts between apartment building owners and cable operators, as expected, the FCC yesterday extended video franchise reforms to cable operators in a bid to streamline franchise approvals  across the board, reports Dow Jones. Originally granted to Verizon and other telcos, cable companies including Comcast had complained to the FCC that the rules left them at a competitive disadvantage. FCC chairman Kevin Martin also this week circulated a proposal to improve the agency's broadband data collection methods by having ISPs report on their high-speed customers on a more granular (zip and then zip+4) level, reports WSJ.com.

The Writers Guild of America's contract expired at midnight after "talks ended abruptly" last night over payments for digital and online distribution of TV and movie programming, reports AP. WGA members could strike action as early as tomorrow, which would impact TV series and movies now in production.

Comcast SportsNet Northwest goes live today, offering University of Oregon and (starting Friday) Portland Trail Blazers games; more in the Statesman Journal.

Steve Case and some fellow former AOL-ers (including Ted Leonsis) are backing a free (DRM-free and free-of-charge) streaming music service called Qloud (pronounced 'cloud') that lets users play their iTunes and other music playlists on Facebook — where it's now the 2nd biggest application, with more than 1 million registered users — and other social platforms.

A&E halted production on Dog the Bounty Hunter (reports the New York Times) following racist remarks by Duane "Dog" Chapman that the reality series' star has acknowledged he made regarding his son's girlfriend.

Adelphia's former corporate HQ in Coudersport, PA, sold for $3.4 million in an online auction (that saw 31 bids) to an undisclosed buyer yesterday.

DirecTV this morning confirmed last night's full-time addition (following a sneak peek last Friday night) of the NHL Network in both HD and standard-def on channel 215; more details here.

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