Arris and Charter Communications completed their $135 million acquisition of ActiveVideo, the companies said in a Friday news release. Arris now owns 65 percent of the joint venture company that Arris and Charter formed to set up the acquisition, they said. ActiveVideo is the developer of CloudTV, a cloud-based software platform enabling service providers, content creators and CE makers “to rapidly deploy new services by virtualizing consumer premises equipment functions in the cloud,” the companies said.

AT&T wrapped up its buy of Nextel Mexico from NII Holdings, unveiled in January (see 1501260068), the carrier said Thursday in a news release. AT&T paid $1.875 billion, less about $427 million of net debt and other adjustments, it said. The deal includes Nextel Mexico’s spectrum licenses, network assets and 3 million subscribers. AT&T has gone big in Mexico and earlier this year bought wireless provider Iusacell. “AT&T will integrate Iusacell and Nextel into one company focused on bringing more choices, better service and faster mobile Internet speeds to more locations throughout Mexico,” AT&T said. “AT&T plans to create the first-ever North American Mobile Service area, which will cover more than 400 million consumers and businesses in Mexico and the United States.” Thaddeus Arroyo, CEO of AT&T Mexico and Iusacell, will lead the combined company. The buy was cleared by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, overseeing the restructuring of NII, and Mexico’s telecom regulator, the Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT). “Swift action by IFT, aided by recent regulatory reform by the Mexican government, has created a positive climate for AT&T to invest significantly in Mexico,” the carrier said. AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said April 22 that closure of the deal was imminent (see 1504220069).

C3Nano, a California supplier of transparent conductive films for touch sensors and displays, acquired Korea-based Aiden, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of silver nanowire, C3Nano said Tuesday. Aiden’s “breakthroughs” in synthesizing silver nanowire at large scale are “fueling important innovations in touch sensor applications,” it said. The acquisition gives C3Nano “a gateway to the critical display market in Korea and greater Asia,” it said. Terms weren’t disclosed.

AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV should include conditions of consumer choice, supplier diversity and union labor, said Democratic San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee in a comment posted Thursday in FCC docket 14-90. After the acquisition, AT&T should commit to a goal of 25 percent of total procurement to come from certified diverse businesses, Lee said. "Historically, AT&T has shown its commitment to diversity as a leader in corporate supplier diversity; targeting their procurement to be spent with certified minority, women, and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises." DirecTV should transition to a unionized and fairly represented workforce after the acquisition, he said. In the first phase of the acquisition, AT&T/DirecTV should offer stand-alone products to maintain uninterrupted service for their existing customers, Lee said. "While bundling could help reduce cost, I value giving customers a choice." Consumers across the U.S. will benefit from the transaction, he said. San Francisco residents need affordable, high-quality Internet, TV, phone and video products, he said. "We cannot tackle these critical challenges alone," Lee said. "AT&T and DIRECTV share my commitment to support our communities, and I look forward to continuing to partner with both of them to lift our residents up and make sure our working families share in the prosperity of our City."

AT&T expects to close its buy of DirecTV this quarter and its purchase of Nextel’s wireless properties in Mexico should also be wrapped up “shortly,” AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said Wednesday during an earnings call. Stephens declined to detail why the carrier believes the DirecTV deal will soon close. On the Mexican deal, the remaining hurdle is sign-off from Mexican regulators, he said. AT&T reported 61 cents diluted earnings per share in Q1, compared with 70 cents in the year-ago quarter. Revenue was $32.6 billion, up 0.3 percent vs. the year-earlier period, and up 1.2 percent after adjusting for the sale of Connecticut wireline properties, AT&T said. AT&T reported 1.2 million total wireless net adds, including 441,000 postpaid adds and 684,000 connected cars. Churn came in at 1.02 percent for post-paid subscribers, which Stephens said was the lowest rate ever for AT&T despite a “noisy” environment in the wireless market.

Andrea Electronics spun off its headset product line to a group of private investors that will operate as Andrea Communications, the company said in a Thursday announcement. Doing so will enable Andrea to focus on developing its digital array microphones and noise reduction software for use with new mobile device chip platforms and operating systems such as Linux and Android, it said. Terms of the spinoff weren’t disclosed. “Spinning off our headset business will allow us to focus on our core audio input technologies, which are used and incorporated into a variety of consumer products, including, tablets, laptops and desktop computers,” the company said. Andrea expects to pursue “a number of markets,” including tablets, IoT devices, connected home and connected car, it said.

Sony signed an agreement to sell half of its 10.1 percent ownership stake in Olympus to a Japanese subsidiary of JP Morgan, Sony said in a Wednesday announcement. Sony will use proceeds from the sale to “strengthen its financial resources and obtain funds for growth-oriented strategic investments,” the company said. Sony said it expects the sale to close Monday. Sony plans to disclose the sale price Thursday, but expects to record a gain on the sale of about 46.8 billion yen ($391.4 million) for Q1 of the fiscal year ending March 2016, it said.

Harman said it agreed to buy Bang & Olufsen’s car audio business for roughly $157.3 million and automotive brand license payments. The Danish company’s sound systems are in vehicles from Audi, Aston Martin, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Harman CEO Dinesh Paliwal called Bang & Olufsen a “distinctive brand” that will “continue at the top of the high-end luxury segment.” Harman will “rapidly grow” B&O Play-branded systems in the mass luxury market, said Paliwal Tuesday.

NBCUniversal hasn’t withheld programming from Apple’s over-the-top venture, and Apple hasn’t even approached NBCUniversal to discuss such a deal, Comcast said in an ex parte filing Friday responding to allegations from anti-merger group Stop MegaComcast. Meanwhile, NBCUniversal licensed substantial amounts of content to Apple in connection with the platforms for which Apple has approached NBCUniversal, Comcast said. The real facts reinforce “that Comcast has taken its compliance obligations very seriously,” Comcast said. Stop MegaComcast didn’t comment.

Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable threatens competition in ways beyond the scope of the FCC net neutrality order, said Stop Mega Comcast in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 14-57. “Neither the 2010 nor the 2014 open Internet rules address Comcast’s core incentive to harm OVDs [online video distributors], and neither can adequately address the numerous ways in which Comcast can act on that incentive,” said the group, composed of Consumers Union, Dish Network, Public Knowledge and other companies and associations. In a recent response to critics of the deal, Comcast disagreed that it has incentive to foreclose OVD competitors, and pointed to conditions from the NBCUniversal deal as constraining it from doing so. Comcast has “shown a propensity” to work around merger conditions and the competitive harms of the deal go beyond the broadband focus of the Open Internet Order, the filing said. “Even for those harms that the open Internet rules are meant to address, Mega-Comcast will have the incentive to design around particular regulations, interpret them narrowly, and litigate them for years, as it has done in the past.”