Cable One will end its 100 Mbps broadband tier this spring and migrate all customers to its 200 Mbps tier, raising their bill by $5 per month, CEO Julie Laulis said in a quarterly earnings call Thursday. Twenty-two percent of its residential customers have 100 Mbps speeds now, she said. Nearly 80% of new customers choose tiers of 200 Mbps or higher, she said. Chief Financial Officer Steven Cochran said as part of its increased broadband focus it will unwind its bulk video offerings to places like hotels and condominium buildings, eliminating time and resources spent on an unprofitable product offering.

WideOpenWest will spend $40 million over the next two to three years on extending its fiber network to parts of Orange County, Florida, CEO Teresa Elder said during a call Thursday announcing its latest quarterly results, in addition to $60 million it will spend over the next two to three years on fiber expansion to greenfield areas of Seminole County, Florida, announced earlier this month. Elder said the Orange County focus will be on the northern suburbs rather than the Orlando metro area. Chief Financial Officer John Rego said construction should start in the second half of this year, with the first Greenfield customers expected to come in early 2023. He said the two projects combined will take its network past 100,000 new homes. WOW said it ended 2021 with revenue from continuing operations of $725.7 million, down $45 million. It said it finished the year with 511,700 high-speed data subscribers, up 12,900 year over year. It said broadband generated $399.1 million for the year, up $40.1 million from 2020. Rego said that partially offset year-over-year declines in video and telephony revenue of 13% and 12.1%, respectively. WOW stock closed at $16.96, down 3.8%.

The Supreme Court denied Eugene, Oregon's petition for a writ of certiorari on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding part of the FCC's cable TV local franchise authority order (see 2111010048), it said Tuesday in SCOTUS docket 21-661.

WideOpenWest is partnering with Reach Mobile to offer Reach mobile service to WOW subscribers, WOW said Tuesday. The partnership includes discounts to WOW data customers who buy Reach/WOW mobile, and bundling mobile service with WOW broadband.

Goldman Sachs plans to close on buying Iowa's ImOn Communications in 2022's first half, said the companies Thursday. They said the deal will provide resources to accelerate ImOn's spending on fiber data, video and voice services in eastern Iowa. Goldman said ImOn fits as part of its focus on infrastructure investing. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Xfinity's U.S. pay-TV customers can access 150 hours of Beijing Olympics coverage in 8K via an NBC Olympics VR by Xfinity virtual reality app, said Comcast Friday. Live and on-demand coverage of six popular sports will be available “in an immersive 180-degree environment,” it said. “Select events will offer viewers the option to switch between different cameras.” Coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies also will be available, as will features and highlights from 10 more sports, it said. Comcast previously used the Olympics as a platform for upscale video and audio experimentation, having announced plans last summer to deliver the Tokyo Olympics to X1, Flex and Stream customers in Dolby Vision HDR and Atmos surround audio (see 2107140035). The Olympics VR app is available for download at the Oculus Meta Quest 2 online store. It supports the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 VR headsets and the Oculus Touch controller, says the store. It lists the app as having been released July 9, which would have been two weeks before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics. Facebook parent Meta owns Oculus.

SkyShowtime, the Comcast/ViacomCBS joint streaming venture, landed its European regulatory OK, said the venture partners Wednesday. SkyShowtime will launch later this year in more than 20 markets, including Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden, they said.

Comcast’s FreeWheel launched a partner program to certify TV and premium video buyers and sellers, plus data and technology companies, to create “a more efficient and effective media supply chain for the TV ecosystem,” it said Wednesday. The goal is to “provide another tool to make TV simpler and more efficient to plan and transact upon, while continuing our commitment to interoperability,” said FreeWheel General Manager Mark McKee. Partners will be listed on FreeWheel’s online portal.

FuboTV subscribers can access Olympics programming, including 4K HDR coverage and Dolby Atmos sound provided by NBCUniversal to its customers, in select markets, said the virtual MVPD Tuesday. NBC prime-time 4K coverage will also be made available via a next day re-air. The Winter Olympics are Wednesday through Feb. 20.

Charter Communications will ramp up broadband speeds throughout its network this year with more high-split deployments, CEO Tom Rutledge said Friday as the company announced Q4 results. The high-split upgrades allow symmetrical gigabit speeds or multi Gbps downstream, and are cheaper than network capital spending such as new nodes, he said. Rutledge said Charter will expand its 800,000-mile network by 100,000 miles over the next five years through Rural Digital Opportunity Fund funding. He said beyond RDOF, the company is using broadband stimulus money and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding to reach other rural areas, plus expanding into areas adjacent to subsidized builds. That rural spending, including RDOF and other subsidized rural projects, will be about $1 billion this year in capital expenditures, said Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fischer. Rutledge said Charter continues to work on DOCSIS 4.0 tech development, with recent tests delivering speeds of more than 8 GB downstream and more than 6 GB upstream. He said Charter is rolling out its 5G hybrid mobile network operation using citizens broadband radio service small cells in an unspecified market, letting people connect to CBRS small cells when they're not in Wi-Fi reach. Charter said it ended 2021 with 28.1 million residential broadband customers, up 1.1 million year over year and 15.2 million residential video subscribers, down 400,000. It reported 3.4 million residential mobile lines, up 1.1 million, and 8.6 million residential voice customers, down 600,000. Revenue was $13.2 billion, up $600 million. The stock closed up 5.3% at $590.47.