Comcast deployed CSG Content Direct’s content monetization and management platform to launch its Xfinity On Campus service. Comcast debuted the service last month (CD Aug 22 p13). CSG facilitates the sale of premium services through the Xfinity On Campus service “by using a student’s university ID to provide a seamless user experience,” Comcast said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1qNnghI). A commerce management engine also facilitates recurring payments for the premium subscription services that students select “by storing preferred payment methods in a fully integrated eWallet function to provide convenient and flexible purchase options,” it said.

Comcast and Univision Communications reached a long-term agreement for the operator to distribute Univision Deportes Network, Comcast said in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1p84kWV). It said UDN will go to XFINITY TV customers who receive Comcast’s Digital Preferred or XFINITY Latino service. UDN is a 24-hour all-sports Spanish language network showing professional and international soccer, Formula 1 races, boxing, NFL, NBA, MLB and other sports leagues, said Comcast. “This partnership speaks to the growing influence of Hispanics,” said Univision President-Sports Juan Carlos Rodriguez.

The public interest harms if Comcast buys Time Warner Cable “far outweigh” the benefits, said representatives from several public interest groups in meetings with FCC commissioners and their staffs last week, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1BpTF2D) in docket 14-57. Representatives from Consumers Union, Free Press, The Open Technology Institute at New America Foundation and Public Knowledge held a series of meetings with Commissioners Mike O'Rielly, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, along with their staff and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s Chief of Staff Adonis Hoffman, the filing said. A Comcast/TWC would be in “a prime position to extract tolls before allowing content providers to reach its massive subscriber base,” said the public interest groups. Comcast “greatly overstates” the amount of broadband competition it faces “by defining the product market improperly,” they said. “DSL and wireless broadband offerings do not serve as substitutes for advanced broadband services such as cable and fiber-based broadband.” Comcast’s claim that it will control 35.5 percent of the broadband market post-deal “is sorely misplaced,” because it counts broadband subscribers at speeds as low as 3 Mbps, the groups said. “That number fails to meet the Commission’s current definition of broadband; and the Commission itself in multiple proceedings has suggested that such speeds are woefully outdated and insufficient to meet consumers’ current and future broadband needs."

Time Warner Cable representatives spoke with staff from the FCC Media Bureau and Comcast/TWC deal task force Friday about TWC’s responses to the agency’s information requests related to the deal (CD Aug 26 p1), said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1rV1wnW). It said TWC explained “areas for which we believe a modification would either reduce the burden of responding, deliver the Commission a more fulsome response, or both."

NCTA again said if the FCC opens a proceeding to consider requiring that cable operators post public inspection files online, it should examine how to tailor requirements to cable operators’ obligations. Seeking to minimize undue burdens on cable operators is important “in light of comments that describe problems television stations have experienced with the existing online database,” it said in reply comments in docket 14-127 (http://bit.ly/1qedwza). “Real world experience with the impact of the increased volume of television station activity on the commission’s database during the fall 2014 political advertising season” before considering expanding the rules, it said. The Campaign Legal Center continued to urge the FCC to propose and adopt a rule expanding the online public file regime to cable and satellite TV operators, and to radio stations (http://bit.ly/1pMx8Ey). Small commercial radio stations shouldn’t be exempt, it said. CLC supports allowing waivers in certain, narrow circumstances where a station can show that it isn’t physically capable of uploading the documents to the system, “or the station’s situation is such that online filing truly imposes a heavy burden,” it said.

The current system for resolving customer complaints on closed captioning is “unfair, inefficient, and ineffective” because it requires video programming distributors to get contractual commitments from programmers to comply with FCC rules, said the American Cable Association in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 05-231 (http://bit.ly/1ufHnYo). Programmers “have little incentive to comply with their obligations with respect to smaller [multichannel video programming distributors] as these smaller providers are less likely to seek legal recourse in the event of a closed captioning problem due to the costs involved in doing so,” said ACA. Instead, the FCC should hold programmers liable for closed captioning errors when the programmer is the source of the problem, ACA said. The FCC reached a similar conclusion in the IP closed captioning order, ACA said. There, the commission recognized that “video programmers and owners should bear responsibility and liability for compliance with the quality standards while video programming distributors would continue to be responsible for passing through the captioning intact,” ACA said.

The FCC should rely on Telecom Act Section 706 authority in creating rules governing net neutrality, said Comcast officials in a meeting Thursday with staff from commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mike O'Rielly’s offices, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1nGEYQG). “Comcast agrees with the Commission’s tentative conclusion to limit its rules to the provision of broadband internet access services to end users.” Comcast also lauded the benefits of a “light touch regulatory approach” and pointed out that its plan to buy Time Warner Cable would extend its “open Internet commitment” to “millions of additional broadband customers."

Charter Communications and Comcast representatives met with officials from the FCC’s Comcast/Time Warner Cable task force last week to discuss the commission’s information requests, said Charter (http://bit.ly/WmqrSm) and Comcast (http://bit.ly/1wbNxbn) in ex parte filings posted Friday in docket 14-57. Comcast officials said “the NBCUniversal transaction conditions are generally applicable other than those that have expired” or apply only to NBCU properties. Comcast officials also asked for “information concerning the standards and process” the FCC would use for “any exceptions made to the ex parte rules for this proceeding,” it said. In Charter’s meetings, the company and FCC staff discussed Charter’s internal databases and how data is tracked in them, said that firm.

The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on TiVo’s request for a waiver of the agency’s home networking digital interface requirement for cable operators that use the company’s set-top boxes, said a public notice issued Friday (http://bit.ly/1rfY1lG). TiVo filed a petition for the waiver, in docket 97-80, saying its set-tops already meet the intent of the home networking requirement “by allowing consumers to send video content throughout their homes” and had that ability before there was an industry standard for such technology, the PN said. TiVo also asked the FCC to clarify that the requirement hadn’t been stripped away by the EchoStar decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Comments on TiVo’s request are due in docket 14-146 Oct. 6 and replies, Oct. 20, the PN said.

The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) asked the California Public Utilities Commission to grant the group party status in its ongoing review of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal. CETF said in a filing posted Wednesday that it has expertise in programs meant to close the state’s “digital divide” and can provide information on the public benefit of Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, which has come under scrutiny during merger reviews elsewhere (http://bit.ly/1AbwAy5).