The announcement of the Altice USA fiber upgrade is set to convert the company's entire network into the fastest fiber-to-the-home network capable of 10 gigabits per second speeds, the first in the US. The cable provider, which is the US' fourth largest, aims to complete the project within five years, a move that could leave its fierce rival, Verizon Communications Inc, in the dust.
Altice USA Fiber Upgrade Makes History
Altice USA is the first major cable provider to announce a large-scale fiber deployment plan in the USA. It is a subsidiary of Altice NV (Euronext: ATC, ATCB), a topnotch global telecom, media and entertainment company. With the Altice USA fiber upgrade of 10 Gbps internet speed, a customer can download a high-def movie in just a few seconds. To compare, Verizon Fios' 50-megabits per second connection would take about 14 minutes.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei views "Generation Gigaspeed" as a long-term investment. "We know that there will be applications and demand for further bandwidth going forward, whether that is in two, three, four, or five years," he said. Other cable/internet providers have been upgrading their networks and have attempted to offer higher speeds, but only in limited areas. Compared to the Altice USA fiber upgrade, Comcast and AT&T's U-verse is far behind if "Generation Gigaspeed" is deployed.
Altice USA Fiber Upgrade To Commence in 2017
The Altice USA fiber upgrade deployment will begin in 2017 and the company expects for the project to be completed within five years. Markets that are first to receive the benefits of "Generation Gigaspeed" will be announced in the coming months, Business Wire reports.
Apart from delivering the leading customer experience, the Altice USA fiber upgrade will produce a stronger and more efficient network with a noteworthy reduction in energy consumption. Altice USA expects to reinvest efficiency savings to support the architecture without a material change in the company's overall capital budget.