Altice acquired Cablevision for $17.7 billion earlier this year, and tied the speed increases to promises made to regulators prior to the takeover.
Under the newly launched packages, tiers will now be sold under the “Optimum” brand, instead of the previous “Ultra” name.
“Altice USA is excited to launch significantly faster speeds across the Optimum footprint, made possible by investment in our superior network and infrastructure,” said Dexter Goei, chairman and CEO of Altice USA, in a statement.
“We are particularly pleased to be able to meet our public interest commitments more than one year ahead of schedule. Across the globe, Altice’s business model is centered on delivering the most advanced technology and capabilities. Today’s accelerated introduction of faster Optimum broadband speeds marks only the beginning of the new products and service enhancements that we plan to bring to our customers in the U.S.”
Altice has also started offering Suddenlink internet service with download speeds up to 1Gbps in Clovis and Texico, New Mexico; and Farwell, Texas. This includes an increase in speeds for some Suddenlink customers for no extra cost.
The agreement will give local business owners access to the new Gigabit services, along with Suddenlink customised services resulting from the increased speeds.
In addition to launching the 1 Gigabit internet service today, residential high-speed internet customers with current download speeds up to 75 and 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) have been moved to services with download speeds up to 100 and 200 Mbps, respectively.
“Today’s announcement is the next step in Operation GigaSpeed, the company-wide plan we announced in August of 2014,” said Altice USA VP of Suddenlink Operations Brian Borthwick.
“In sharp contrast to other large providers, which are offering a Gigabit service primarily to a few neighbourhoods in large urban markets, we’re pleased to be making our Suddenlink Gigabit service available in all of the neighbourhoods and to all of the households and businesses we serve throughout Clovis, Texico and Farwell.”
