Charter has confirmed that the company is testing a sports-free, $20 skinny bundle as part of a limited trial that may -- or may not -- expand into a full commercial offering. A promotional e-mail for the service surfaced on Reddit this week, and Charter (Spectrum) confirmed the trial to reporter and industry analyst Jared Newman, but has yet to make any kind of formal announcement about the service. The service is an IP-delivered streaming video platform with 25 channels that the company says won't require a traditional cable box.

"It includes local broadcast channels, 25 popular cable networks, and access to thousands of On Demand choices -- along with options for additional news, sports and premium channels -- delivered to connected and mobile devices, without requiring a set top box."

According to the promotional e-mail, ESPN has been busted out into another tier for an additional $12 more each month.

Charter lost more than 100,000 traditional cable subscribers last quarter as customers have increasingly grown tired of paying for bloated bundles of channels they don't watch.

But the company appears to have only compounded its problems on this front with a flurry of fairly major price hikes in markets it previously acquired in its acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House networks. Some of these price hikes are up to 40% over existing rates, something that didn't sit well with the recent companion news that Charter CEO Tom Rutledge made more money last year than any other executive in America.

Time will tell if this sports-free skinny bundle without cable box is something Charter explores seriously, or if it's one of those trials that somehow never manages to see the light of day for fear of cannibalizing existing pay TV subscribers.

AMC Networks is launching a new program whereby traditional cable TV viewers can watch the company's programs without ads -- if they pay an additional $5 per month. AMC says this new "AMC Premiere" option will first be offered to Comcast pay TV subscribers and will be aimed at so-called "super-fans" of AMC programs like "The Walking Dead" -- viewers who still have a pay TV subscription but are willing to pay more to watch live television without ads.

Charter has filed a complaint with the New York Public Service Commission, stating that Verizon prevented the company from gaining access to New York state utility poles. Charter was recently fined $13 million by the Commission for failing to meet broadband deployment goals set as a condition of its $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House networks.

Earlier this week we were the first to report that Cox Communications has started to ramp up deployment of unnecessary and confusing new usage caps and overage fees. But worry not! The company now says that it will allow you to avoid these artificial, arbitrary and unnecessary penalties by signing up for a new, more expensive unlimited data plan the company tells Multichannel News it plans to launch later this year.

So we've been noting for a while that the FCC doesn't appear to care that a bot is stuffing the ballot box with phony support for the agency's quest to kill net neutrality. The agency also doesn't much appear to care that people's identities are being hijacked to falsely support the agency's goal (check out this comment made in my (and our) name supporting killing net neutrality, for example).

A new report by Deloitte claims that $130 to $150 billion in fiber investment would shore up the United States' lagging broadband networks and create a country that's leading the broadband charge -- instead of consistently rating as average in most available broadband metrics. The full study by the firm notes that this $150 billion investment would not only ensure that fifth generation (5G) wireless will enjoy even coverage, but the added fiber investment would shore up coverage gaps in fixed-line broadband competition as well.

"It is essential that fiber gets deployed closer to the customer to enable next generation wireless and to ensure affordable high speed connectivity across urban, suburban and rural geographies," said Deloitte's Dan Littmann.

• Inmarsat launch will boost in-flight WiFi [digitaljournal.com]

• T-Mobile trials LAA enabling 741 Mbit/s data rate on commercial network in LA [convergedigest.com]

• Why Comcast and Verizon are suddenly clamoring to be regulated [washingtonpost.com]

• U.S. consumers are embracing next-gen bundles and telco and cable providers need to adapt or lose market share [telecompetitor.com]

• Consolidated's FairPoint acquisition gets Vermont regulatory approval, sets new consumer, business service plans [yahoo.com]

• Verizon illegally denied Charter access to utility poles, complaint says [arstechnica.com]

• Cox Prepping Unlimited Broadband Data Plan [multichannel.com]

Forty ISPs, VoiP and VPN providers this week wrote a letter to FCC boss Ajit Pai urging him to retain net neutrality protections, arguing the rules are necessary to help them compete with their dominant, ever-growing, incumbent counterparts. The full letter (pdf) from ISPs like Sonic, Credo, Monkey Brains, GWI, Ting and others argues that the FCC's decision to classify ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communication Act was a good thing for theis businesses.