Video programmers that want to avoid the problem of usage allowances that can deter internet video streaming have a new way to make an end run around Net Neutrality, distributing their content “cap-free” through “virtual cable channels” that are distributed over broadband, but appear like traditional cable TV channels on a set-top box.

This morning, Fierce Cable noted Wurl’s IP-based streaming cable television network platform was here, offering cable operators new cable channels that are actually delivered over the customer’s internet connection. The Alt Channel, Streaming News Network, The Sports Feed and Popcornflix will appear on set-top boxes and onscreen guides like traditional linear cable channels, starting in August. Wurl claims at least 51, mostly small and independent cable operators, have already signed up for the service, which could quickly expand to 10-12 channels in the future. But Multichannel News has confirmed only one partner so far — Fidelity Communications, a small cable operator serving parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

What makes these channels very different from the other networks on the lineup is that they are delivered over the customer’s internet connection directly into a cable set-top box, and will generally be exempt from any usage allowances or caps providers impose on broadband usage. Wurl acts as a distributor, obtaining content from “popular online studios” that “until now has only been available on computers and mobile devices.” Wurl’s partners can get their content exposed on traditional cable TV to a potentially greater audience, who can watch while not worrying about using up their monthly internet usage allowance.

The first series of bracketed channels are Wurl-TV broadband based channels, while the second are traditional linear cable networks delivered by RF or QAM. Both integrate seamlessly into the cable set-top box’s on-screen program guide.

Wurl’s unicast approach relies on its own content delivery network to provide one internet stream for each set-top box accessing its programming, which also allows for support of on-demand programming. But every cable customer watching a Wurl channel is effectively streaming video over their internet connection. Cable operators usually blame internet video for consuming most of their available internet bandwidth, necessitating the “need” for usage allowances/caps or usage based billing to manage and pay for bandwidth “fairly.” Yet Wurl’s networks consume just as much bandwidth as traditional online video. But because Wurl is partnering with cable operators, that content is not subject to the usage caps Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Video customers have to contend with.

Wurl claims its approach is so cable-operator friendly, “there’s no reason to say no,” said Sean Doherty, Wurl’s CEO and co-founder.

Cable operators are offered Wurl channels for free, with no affiliate fees or upfront costs, and no significant technology costs since the channels are distributed direct to the set-top box over broadband, not RF or QAM. A video player is embedded into the virtual cable channel, which allows viewers to pause, rewind, and fast forward programming.

In the future, cable systems are expected to gradually transition to IP-delivery of all of their video content, turning the cable TV line in your home into one giant broadband connection, across which television, internet access, and phone service are delivered.

But cable operators are still making distinctions between services that are gradually becoming different in name only. If a customer watches a Wurl channel over the internet on their desktop, that would count against their usage allowance. But if they watch over a cable-TV set-top box, it won’t, despite the fact the journey the channel takes to reach the viewer is exactly the same. That gives certain content providers an advantage others lack, representing a classic end run around Net Neutrality.

To be fair, that is not a distinction Wurl has made in any of its marketing material, but the fact preferred content can be managed this way is just one more reason the FCC should ban usage caps and usage-based billing on consumer internet accounts. Wurl’s own marketing material tells operators the cost and impact of its video streaming on the cable operator’s existing infrastructure is next to zero… because Wurl’s content comes across broadband platforms already so robust, they can easily accommodate the potential of thousands of viewers all watching Wurl channels without any issues. That reality undermines the cable industry’s own questionable arguments about the need for data caps or usage billing.

Time Warner Cable subscribers in Otsego County, N.Y. have been able to watch WBNG-TV, the CBS affiliate in Binghamton, since there has been a cable company called Time Warner Cable. But as of yesterday, that is no longer the case. In Baxter County, Ark.,  Suddenlink customers suddenly lost KARK (NBC) and KTHV (CBS), two stations from Little Rock, after the cable company decided it would henceforth only carry KYTV (NBC) and KOLR (CBS) instead. Part of the problem for subscribers is those two stations are located in Springfield, Missouri, a different state.

Time Warner Cable wasted no time yanking WBNG off the lineup of their Oneonta and Cooperstown cable systems. WBNG received a letter informing them of the decision on June 16. Two weeks later, the channel was replaced with WKTV from Utica, which is a secondary affiliate of CBS (WKTV has been an NBC affiliate for decades, but through the use of digital subchannels, WKTV has managed to lock down affiliations with CBS, NBC, CW, and Me-TV). Time Warner argues Otsego County is in the Utica television market, such as it is, so there is no reason to spend more to put Binghamton stations on the lineup as well.

Oneonta, N.Y. is located between Binghamton and Utica.

Another cable company with cost-cutting fever is Altice-owned Suddenlink, which stopped carrying the two Little Rock-based broadcast stations in northern Arkansas on June 7, leaving KATV (ABC) as the only central Arkansas-based news outlet on the cable provider’s Mountain Home-area system.

The decision to drop the two Little Rock channels was made at the corporate level, local employees told The Baxter Bulletin, and the Mountain Home office had no input in that decision and were not allowed to talk about it.

The mayor of Mountain Home sure is, however.

“We’ve had a lot of people calling in, coming by the office,” Mayor Joe Dillard told the newspaper. “Several have been in a couple times. I do not understand why we got two of our main channels in the state taken away.”

An authorized Suddenlink spokesperson finally admitted it was about the money.

“In recent years, local broadcast station owners have begun asking for increasingly larger amounts of money in exchange for allowing us to renew contracts to carry their stations,” said Gene Regan, senior director of corporate communications for Suddenlink. “To help keep down the costs of providing services to our customers, we have made the decision to drop out-of-market stations that duplicate network affiliations with other existing in-market stations.”

That policy has been gradually implemented in a growing number of Suddenlink-served communities, which are often exurban or rural towns located between two larger metropolitan areas. These are the areas most likely to receive multiple network affiliates from different nearby cities.

Suddenlink has standing orders from Altice to look for savings wherever possible, but none of those savings are returned to subscribers. The loss of the stations has not reduced anyone’s cable bill and Suddenlink recently moved TBS and INSP — a Christian cable network — to a more costly Expanded Basic tier. In place of the two networks dropped from the Basic package are home shopping networks that actually make Suddenlink money – Evine Live and Jewelry TV.

“I’m disappointed,” Anna Hudson of Bull Shoals told the newspaper. “I have friends in Little Rock, in Batesville. I like to know what’s going on in Arkansas, not in Missouri. It doesn’t help when the Legislature is in session, that will not be covered by the Springfield stations.”

Premium movie channels Starz and Encore have been sold to Lionsgate in a $4.4 billion cash and stock deal.

Originally created as a counterweight to increasingly expensive premium movie channels, John Malone wanted a cheaper in-house alternative and launched Starz in 1994 on many of his Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) cable systems nationwide. The movie channel never proved to pose a significant threat to Time Warner (Entertainment) or CBS/Viacom, which own HBO and Showtime respectively.

Malone maintained an interest in Starz and the mini-pay Encore Movieplex even after selling TCI cable systems to AT&T (which in turn sold most of them to Comcast) under his Liberty Media holding companies until 2013, when Starz (and Encore) were spun off as an independent company.

The sale was not a surprise and was expected for months.

Lionsgate gains a dependable outlet for its content and Starz and Encore gain access to 16,000 movie and TV shows and a studio to help it produce original content. Lionsgate is already known for its productions including Mad Men and Nurse Jackie. In a media release, Lionsgate says it currently produces 87 original series for 42 different American networks and has earned $7 billion in revenue from its movie releases in the last four years.

Starz continues to be the lesser known premium network, with 24 million subscribers. But many of those subscribers receive the premium movie channel for free or at a profoundly discounted rate as a promotion from their pay television provider. Encore, dubbed a “mini-pay” channel — a reference to the fact it costs about half the price of HBO and other premium channels — has a larger viewer base with 32 million subscribers.

Lionsgate is expected to be less committed to protecting the integrity of the cable television bundle and will likely broaden independent distribution of Starz and Encore through online video outlets and direct sales to consumers.

Despite clamoring for more competition in the cable industry, FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler is reportedly ready to circulate a draft order granting Charter Communications’ $55 billion dollar buyout of Time Warner Cable, with conditions.

The Wall Street Journal reported late last night the order will be reviewed by the four other commissioners at the FCC and could be subject to change before coming to a vote.

Wheeler’s order is likely to follow the same philosophical approach taken by New York State’s Public Service Commission — approving the deal but adding temporary consumer protections to blunt anti-competition concerns.

Most important for Wheeler is protecting the nascent online video marketplace that is starting to threaten the traditional cable television bundle. Dish’s Sling TV, the now defunct Aereo, as well as traditional streaming providers like Hulu and Netflix have all been frustrated by contract terms and conditions with programmers that prohibit or limit online video distribution through alternative providers. The draft order reportedly would prohibit Charter from including such clauses in its contracts with programmers.

Critics of the deal contend that might be an effective strategy… if Charter was the only cable company in the nation. Many cable operators include similar restrictive terms in their contracts, which often also include an implicit threat that offering cable channels online diminishes their value in the eyes of cable operators. Programmers fear that would likely mean price cuts as those contracts are renewed.

Wheeler has also advocated, vainly, that cable operators should consider overbuilding their systems to compete directly with other cable operators, something not seen to a significant degree since the 1980s. Cable operators have maintained an informal understanding to avoid these kinds of price and service wars by respecting the de facto exclusive territories of fellow operators. Virtually all cable systems that did directly compete at one time were acquired by one of the two competitors by the early 1990s. It is unlikely the FCC can or will order Charter to compete directly with other cable operators, and will focus instead on extracting commitments from Charter to serve more rural and suburban areas presently deemed unprofitable to serve.

Most of the other deal conditions will likely formalize Charter’s voluntary commitments not to impose data caps, modem fees, interconnection fees (predominately affecting Netflix) or violate Net Neutrality rules for the first three years after the merger is approved. As readers know, Stop the Cap! filed comments with the FCC asking the agency to significantly extend or make permanent those commitments as part of any approval, something sources say may be under consideration and a part of the final draft order. Stop the Cap! maintains a cable operator’s commitment to provide a better customer experience and be consumer-friendly should not carry an expiration date.

It could take a few weeks for the draft order to be revised into a final order, and additional concessions may be requested, a source told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is still reviewing the deal. News that the FCC is prepared to accept a merger is likely to dramatically reduce any chance California regulators will reject the merger out of hand. Stop the Cap!’s Matthew Friedman is continuing discussions with the CPUC to bolster deal conditions to keep usage caps, usage-based billing, and other consumer-unfriendly charges off the backs of California customers. New York customers will automatically benefit from any additional concessions California gets from Charter, as the PSC included a most-favored state clause guaranteeing New Yorkers equal treatment. Any conditions won in California and New York may also extend to other states to unify Charter’s products and services nationwide.

An independent monitor to verify Charter is complying with deal approval conditions is likely to be part of any order approving the transaction, although critics of big cable mergers point out Comcast has allegedly thumbed its nose at conditions imposed as part of its acquisition of NBCUniversal, and only occasionally punished for doing so.

While Comcast, Cox, Suddenlink, and a handful of other cable companies play games with usage caps and expensive broadband, Germany is getting some massive broadband speed improvements with no data caps, speed throttling, or rate increases.

Unitymedia, owned by Liberty Global (related to Liberty Broadband, Charter’s largest single investor), is giving Germans a broadband upgrade you wish you had. Starting Feb. 1, 3.2 million cable homes in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia  will see their broadband speeds double to 400/20Mbps at prices starting at just $40 a month, which includes a flat-rate landline with unlimited free calls across the German landline network, and a free combination wireless/Wi-Fi router and cable modem.

Unitymedia’s current offer is for 200/10Mbps. Starting Feb. 1, those speeds will double.

Unitymedia, which also serves customers in the German states of Hesse and Baden-Württemberg, will still be using DOCSIS 3.0 technology for the speed upgrade. DOCSIS 3.1 is expected to bring even faster speeds and better service beginning later in 2016. The company also offers subscribers access to more than 1,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots across all three states, helping give DSL service serious competition.

While U.S. cable operators have dragged their feet on upgrades while raising broadband prices, Unitymedia CEO Lutz Schüler said his company would make the necessary investments to drive network upgrades forward without delay. Schüler may not have much choice. Telephone company Internet providers have benefited from increased speeds of up to 100Mbps that come from deployment of vectoring technology, which can dramatically boost DSL speeds.

The investment also intends to send a message to the telecommunications marketplace that hybrid fiber-coaxial cable systems can deliver dramatically faster and affordable broadband speeds than they often do today, all without usage caps or usage billing.