Altice USA says its cable network isn’t going anywhere despite fiber push

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Much ado has been made about the cost benefits that can come from operators shutting down their old copper and cable networks as they overbuild with fiber. But while Altice USA has joined the ranks of those pursuing extensive fiber rollouts, CFO Michael Grau said it’s not planning to ditch its cable assets anytime soon. Grau explained there are several reasons why its cable network will be sticking around. The first is purely logistical. While the operator recently unveiled plans to blanket around two-thirds of its footprint with fiber by the end of 2025, Grau said it will take some time to migrate its customer base off cable and onto fiber. To date, Grau noted “almost all the fiber customers we’ve gotten have been as a function of gross adds in the fiber footprint” rather than from customer migrations. However, he said the operator plans to launch a “much more proactive” migration effort within the next three to four weeks. Altice USA ended Q1 2022 with 81,000 fiber subscribers. CEO Dexter Goei has said it is aiming to reach 200,000 fiber subscribers by the end of 2022. According to Grau, Altice’s extensive Wi-Fi network is another reason for keeping the cable network afloat. He pointed to the Wi-Fi offering, which runs on its cable assets, as a “powerful” service offering and said “it would be hard to take that away” from consumers.


Altice USA CFO says its cable network isn’t going anywhere despite fiber push