Google Fiber's expansion in North Carolina may show the internet company isn't exiting the ISP business, as some speculate, Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said in a research note Tuesday night. Google Fiber tweeted Tuesday that its service is coming to Morrisville and the state’s Triangle region, which includes Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Durham and Cary. Recent reports that Google has frozen expansion while considering wireless technologies (see 1609070026) may be more of a “course correction” than abandonment of the company’s fiber strategy, Fritzsche said. Google may use wireless for the last mile, she wrote. “But even if wireless is used for this last 200 feet or so, this essentially means that the fiber to the base station -- from which the wireless signal is carried -- needs to be that much more durable/robust. Put another way, fiber should still be very much part of the Google Fiber plan -- even with a wireless solution at the last mile.” Google didn’t comment Wednesday.

TiVo, bought by Rovi last week for $1.1 billion but operating under the TiVo name, said Monday it will unveil the Bolt+ DVR, a $499, six-tuner video recorder with 3 TB storage, at CEDIA Expo in Dallas this week. The 4K TiVo Bolt+ -- a streamer with cable box, DVR and Plex client in one box -- eliminates challenges dealers encounter in multiroom video installations, including the need for a video matrix switcher, said TiVo. The Bolt+ unifies all TV channels and streaming content into a single searchable system, it said. Bolt+ will be available Thursday online from TiVo’s website and Amazon, from custom installation dealers and in Magnolia retail stores, TiVo said. As The Verge first reported last month that TiVo was notifying owners of first-generation TiVo DVRs, first offered in 1999, that it was no longer supporting the boxes due to software incompatibilities. The company is offering those customers a $75 Visa gift card for the “inconvenience,” it said.

CenturyLink lags behind other U.S. ISPs in Netflix streaming speeds during prime time, but it’s improved slightly, Netflix said in a blog post Monday about its August ISP speed index. CenturyLink’s average monthly speed increased to 1.88 Mbps in August from 1.69 Mbps in July, but remained in last place among U.S. ISPs, Netflix said. Verizon Fios and Bright House led ISPs with 3.62 Mbps in August each, followed closely by Optimum (3.58 Mbps), Cox (3.57 Mbps) and Charter (3.51 Mbps). CenturyLink disputed the methodology of using average speeds and claimed other ISPs have an advantageous relationship with Netflix. "This average does not differentiate between 1.5 Mbps and 1 Gig customers, which factors into our overall ranking," a company spokeswoman said. "This ranking also does not address bandwidth constraints caused indirectly by Netflix due to Netflix’s unwillingness to treat CenturyLink like other large national Internet Service Providers in the United States." CenturyLink hopes to establish negotiate a commercial deal with Netflix to enhance its customer experience on the streaming service, she said.

The joint NewTek/Wowza Media Systems media encoding and live-streaming video delivery platform MDS will be available starting in Q4, the companies said in a news release Friday. MDS integrates Wowza streaming software and NewTek live production technology, and allows processing of up to four channels of video, they said.

Sizable numbers of TV watchers are "show dumping," giving up on series because of the difficulty or cost of accessing them, TiVo said. Pointing to a sponsored survey of pay-TV and over-the-top subscribers in the U.S., Asia and Europe, a news release Friday said 37 percent show dumped -- most often premium pay-TV programming, shows available only through paid OTT and/or unavailable on OTT services that aggregate content. Those surveyed average four hours daily streaming or watching video content and 19 minutes searching, with the U.S average being more than 5.5 hours a day, TiVo said. It said 11 percent of those surveyed indicated they were extremely likely to downgrade their pay-TV service, with another 8 percent indicating high likelihood of canceling their pay-TV service in the next six months. TiVo said cord shaving is more predominant in the U.S, where 21 percent of those surveyed said they're extremely likely to downgrade their pay-TV service and 13 percent said they're strongly considering cutting the cord. Fifty-eight percent have more than one subscription streaming video service and 45 percent have more than one streaming media device at home. Of those who subscribe to streaming services, TiVo said, 81 percent in the U.S. report having Netflix, and 50 percent of U.S. respondents subscribe to Amazon Prime. More than 47 percent of all respondents want better programming search functionality, with 40 percent saying they turn off the TV or device when they can't find something to watch. Among millennials, 53 percent say they often expect recommendations on what else to watch, versus 14 percent of boomers and 36 percent of Gen Xers. The results were from an online survey of 5,500 pay-TV and OTT subscribers across seven countries, with 2,500 of them done in the U.S.

TiVo has a new user interface with heavier emphasis on programming recommendations including presentation of a choice of shows based on such factors as time of day, past viewing choices and the device being used, the company said in a news release Friday. The UI has customizable shortcuts for functions on the main menu to give users quicker access to content, and was designed to accommodate multiple content sources such as linear, on demand and streaming apps, it said. Last week, Rovi completed its buy of TiVo and took the acquired company's name (see 1609080007).

Streaming media technology firm Wowza Media Systems signed a deal with Alibaba to enable Wowza Streaming Engine software on the Alibaba Cloud platform, Wowza said in a news release Thursday: It will let customers scale their video streaming applications across Chinese markets via Alibaba Cloud's platform. “One of the more complex challenges for streaming applications is expanding operations and availability into Chinese markets,” Wowza Chief Revenue Officer Carlos Perez said.

Discovery Communications programming will be carried on DirecTV Now, AT&T's over-the-top service launching later this year, under a renewal of the two companies' distribution deal announced in a news release Thursday. The programmer said its content also is to be available to DirecTV and U-verse customers via their set-top boxes, streaming and via their TV Everywhere platforms.

An update to the DirecTV app gives subscribers remote access to live and recorded programming anywhere with mobile or Wi-Fi access, AT&T said in a news release Wednesday. App users also can restart live-streaming shows in progress or watch shows that aired within the previous 72 hours even if they weren't recorded on the DVR. Streaming video via the DirecTV or U-verse app no longer counts against subscribers' mobile data allotments when using Data Free TV on the AT&T mobile wireless network, the company said. The offering was criticized by Free Press, which has been critical of zero-rating consumer offerings (see 1606230065). "Tying broadband and legacy pay-TV subscriptions together like this is a huge problem. With these schemes, AT&T seems intent on favoring its own video content under the DirecTV brand," said Policy Director Matt Wood. "This isn’t really free data. It’s a way for AT&T to keep you paying for two services instead of one, and a roadblock designed to prevent you from using your data on any content AT&T doesn’t own. The anti-competitive implications for the video market are clear as a bell.” In a statement, AT&T said, "The data free feature empowers consumers by giving them more options and allows us to compete for customers in a highly competitive market.”

Yamaha pulled its latest Disklavier reproducing piano, the Enspire series, into the MusicCast multiroom wireless audio ecosystem, bringing the number of MusicCast-capable products to 30. Music from the Disklavier piano, with keys and pedals moving up and down as they recreate an artist’s performance, can project to Yamaha MusicCast products for playback throughout a home, said the company. The DisklavierTV subscription service streams live and on-demand piano performances of music events such as the Monterey Jazz Festival and music from artists including Sarah McLachlan and Elton John, to a Disklavier piano, while video of the performances can be viewed on TV, said. The company’s MusicSoft online store has thousands of pop, jazz and Broadway performances, and users can access the library with the MusicCast app. The MusicCast/Disklavier integration requires an app and firmware update, due in late 2016, Yamaha said.