Altice Down 58,000 Broadband Subs, Rebrands as Optimum
CEO said on quarterly earnings call that competition from fixed wireless and fiber providers was fierce.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2025 – Altice USA reported 58,000 lost broadband subscribers in the third quarter, worse than analysts had been expecting.
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CEO Dennis Mathew said on the company’s earnings call that competition from fixed wireless and fiber providers was fierce in the quarter, something fellow cable operators Charter and Comcast have also said.
“We had, since I’ve been sitting in the seat, the most aggressive offers I’ve ever seen in the marketplace,” he said of ISP efforts to scoop up subscribers.
Mathew said the first part of the quarter was normal, but starting in September “competitive intensity significantly accelerated, with aggressive offers paired with heightened marketing spend from our competitors, as well as elevated FWA activity, which impacted our results.”
He said the competitive intensity will likely continue into the fourth quarter, owing to cash-strapped consumers being increasingly price-sensitive.
The company is not trying to lean into that and add more customers at all costs, he said, but “we recognize that we must be bolder in our go-to-market and base management strategies to stabilize broadband performance.”
That includes bundling plans with the company’s mobile service, something the wireless carriers and cable giants are also leaning into in a bid to keep customers around longer. Mathew said customers were responding to price locks, but the company would deploy those “in a very controlled fashion.”
Altice USA has also recently introduced more low-income and localized plans.
The company ended the quarter with more than 4.2 million broadband subscribers. It added 40,400 fiber subscribers for a total of more than 703,000.
Broadband industry growth appears to be returning to pre-pandemic levels, but that might not be all good news for cable companies that have been steadily losing subscribers. New Street Research has said the growth has been fueled by fixed wireless services continuing to gain traction.
“Cable broadband losses will improve when industry growth improves and/or FWA slows. Neither is likely in the near to medium term,” New Street analyst Vikash Harlalka wrote in a research note.
On the wireless front, the cable operator added 38,000 mobile lines for a total of more than 584,000.
Altice USA continued its network buildout, adding 51,400 new passings, with 29,600 of those being fiber passings. The company counts more than 9.9 million total passings and more than 3 million fiber passings.
Debt
The company has $7.4 billion in debt due in 2027, a problem analysts aren’t clear on how the company is going to solve. Executives declined to answer any questions about the company’s capital structure.
"Altice’s path to resolve their 2027 maturities wall is still completely opaque," MoffettNathanson founder Craig Moffett said in an investor note after the call.
Rebrand
The company announced it would change its name to Optimum Communications, effective Friday. Optimum is the consumer brand the company sells its services under.
Altice USA’s stock ticker on the New York Stock Exchange will change to OPTU from ATUS on Nov. 19.
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