Charter Hires Former Cablevision Executive as COO

Source: Charter Press Release

Charter Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:CHTR) announced that John Bickham joined the company effective April 30, 2012 as Chief Operating Officer. In his new position, Mr. Bickham will be responsible for managing operations across Charter's footprint.

A 26-year veteran of the cable industry, Mr. Bickham most recently served as President of Cable and Communications for Cablevision.

Prior to joining Cablevision in 2004, Mr. Bickham was Executive Vice President for Time Warner Cable with corporate responsibility for a number of large markets. In 1986 Mr. Bickham was a founding executive of KBLCOM, a cable company that partnered with ATC and owned cable systems with 1,700,000 customers. His tenure with KBLCOM ended in 1995 as President and Chief Operating Officer.

More Changes at Cablevision, AT&T's McCastle Joins as President Media Sales

Source: Cablevision Press Release

Cablevision Systems Corporation announced that Gregory McCastle will be joining the company as president, Cablevision Media Sales, effective immediately. The company also announced that David Kline, who most recently led Cablevision Media Sales, is stepping down to pursue other opportunities.

Mr. McCastle comes to Cablevision from AT&T where he served as senior vice president, AT&T Services Inc. and was a member of the senior leadership team of the AT&T Advertising Solutions organization. In his new role at Cablevision, Mr. McCastle will lead the company's advertising sales teams for Cablevision's local cable and advanced platform services, its local media properties including News 12 Networks and Newsday Media Group, and the New York Interconnect. He will be responsible for developing the company's sales strategy as well as advanced multiplatform advertising solutions for national, regional and local advertisers, and will report to Tad Smith, president of Cablevision's Local Media group.

Large ISPs Will Act to Stop Online Piracy

ISP-Content Industry “Graduated Response” Anti-Piracy Program Begins July 1

The tech industry scored big when the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) were essentially killed earlier this year, but the demise of these shoddy legislative initiatives was not accompanied by the demise of online piracy. The problem still exists, and many tech insiders expect further legislation will come up, likely after the 2012 election. Meanwhile, law enforcement and the content and Internet industries will continue to take matters into their own hands to stop online piracy as best as they can. On March 14, CNET reported that several large ISPs (Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and others) will roll out their own anti-piracy measures starting on July 1, 2012.

CNET explained that these programs have been in the pipeline for at least a year, but since they were initially announced, “the ISPs have been very quiet about their antipiracy measures.” The quiet period apparently ended last week at the Association of American Publishers’ annual meeting in New York with an announcement by Cary Sherman, ceo of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The anti-piracy programs will be based on a “graduated response” system, where suspected infringers will be notified several times that they are venturing into illegal activity. “If the customer doesn’t stop, the ISP is then asked to send out ‘confirmation notices’ asking that they confirm they have received the notice. At that time, the accused customer will also be informed of the risks they incur if they don’t stop pirating material. If the customer is flagged for pirating again, the ISP can then ratchet up the pressure,” CNET explained. Possible penalties include throttling and suspending service, but “not one of the service providers has agreed to permanently terminate service.”

The ISPs’ efforts are supported by the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), who also strongly supported SOPA and PIPA much to the chagrin of most of the tech industry (ISPs were generally mum on SOPA/PIPA, possibly because some of the biggest names were already in the process of designing their own anti-piracy efforts without overarching legislation). According to CNET, the content associations and ISPs have been working together on anti-piracy efforts for a long time with support of the government, which contributed to RIAA and MPAA believing “they had the momentum to get antipiracy legislation passed in Congress.” CNET adds, “They were wrong, of course.”

Supporters of the ISP-as-traffic-cop programs “say this could become the most effective antipiracy program ever,” because “network providers are in the best position to fight against illegal file sharing.” This statement naturally brings up several questions, most notably why exactly it should be an ISP’s responsibility to protect copyrighted property of which it has no specific financial ties to, just because it is technically in a position to do so.

There are also questions about whether small ISPs will jump onboard. A DailyTech article explains, “Of course not all ISPs are likely onboard. Implementation of the scheme will likely be expensive, though it may yield a net payoff, depending on how well it works at discouraging piracy. Smaller ISPs—such as municipal Wi-Fi, small carriers, and other players—may find it infeasible to adopt similar schemes. After all, Comcast, TWC, and Verizon are some of the biggest ISPs in America.” To implement these graduated response systems, ISPs would have to develop specific databases and train staff; RIAA’s Sherman explained that “Every ISP has to do it differently depending on the architecture of its particular network.” In other words, it may take some trial and error before a truly effective solution is achieved. DailyTech also notes that the ISPs could incorrectly send notices to non-pirates, such as P2P gamers, which “could turn into a massive embarrassment;” and “lead subscribers to abandon an ISP en mass.”

It will be interesting to see if this anti-piracy initiative trickles down to small ISPs. From an RLEC perspective, the costs appear high in comparison to the benefits of becoming an Internet traffic cop.  

ACA Adds Three New Board Members

Source: ACA Press Release

The American Cable Association announced the addition of three new board members. Joining the ACA Board are Kate Adams, CEO of James Cable in Braintree, Mass.; John Conrad, Legal Affairs Director of Liberty Cablevision in Luquillo, Puerto Rico; and Dave Keefe, CEO of Atlantic Broadband in Quincy, Mass. These new leaders provide the ACA Board with 20 voting members.

Adams and Conrad, each appointed to three-year terms by the ACA Board, were assigned to fill new Board seats.  Keefe is filling the recently vacated seat of Scott Widham, CEO and Founder of CoBridge Communications. The ACA Board, which convenes quarterly, most recently met March 13 in Washington, D.C., at the start of the 19^th annual ACA Summit, the cable industry's marquee event for independent cable operators.

Optimum Lightpath Launches Private Fiber Service

Source: Optimum Lightpath Press Release

Optimum Lightpath,  a division of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC), announced that it has launched its Private Fiber Service. The new offering is being targeted to large enterprises and financial services companies that want dedicated fiber without the need to manage equipment or take on the large, upfront operational costs typically associated with dark fiber products.

Private Fiber Service provides throughput of up to 390 GB, high security and reliability, simplified management, guaranteed latency and competitive installation intervals. Pricing is distance-based, with optional flat rate pricing for additional bandwidth as needed.