Altice, which offers broadband and video service under the Optimum brand, has unveiled broad plans to upgrade its network to support multi-gigabit speeds using a combination of fiber broadband and DOCSIS.
Nate Edwards, executive vice president for network services for Optimum, shared some of the technical details of the network upgrade plans with Telecompetitor. Notably, we learned that the company’s DOCSIS upgrade plans do not involve DOCSIS 4.0, the latest generation of DOCSIS, but instead will rely on DOCSIS 3.1.
“We’re upgrading to multi-gigabit speeds via mid-split technology on our DOCSIS 3.1 network,” Edwards said.
Mid-split technology increases the amount of bandwidth that the coaxial portion of a hybrid fiber coax (HFC) network can carry. In particular, it gives a substantial boost on the upstream path, which has been cable companies’ Achilles heel in recent years. The cablecos have lost business to fiber broadband providers as customers’ upstream traffic has grown faster than downstream traffic.
DOCSIS can’t match the maximum symmetrical speeds that fiber broadband can support. But the DOCSIS upgrades that Altice and other cable companies are making should make the cable companies considerably more competitive.
Altice’s goal is to offer multi-gigabit speeds across 65% of its footprint by 2028, up from about 30% today. Edwards didn’t reveal what the mix between fiber and DOCSIS would be. But he shared that the HFC network will be able to support 2 Gbps speeds — downstream at least. The company will offer 8 Gbps speeds on its fiber network, Edwards said.
The company has offered symmetrical 8 Gbps fiber broadband service since 2023, and currently has fiber broadband available to three million locations.
Altice Optimum Multi-Gigabit
Another element of some cable companies’ upgrade plans is distributed access architecture (DAA), which involves moving intelligence to the network edge using either Remote PHY or Remote MAC PHY technology.
Asked about DAA, Edwards said, “DAA is a key part of our roadmap, and we will be deploying both Remote PHY and Remote MAC-PHY in different areas in our network.”
Altice’s DOCSIS plans are different from those of cable giants Comcast and Charter, both of which plan to use DOCSIS 4.0 more extensively.
DOCSIS 4.0 can support faster speeds than DOCSIS 3.1, but the faster speeds come at a higher price. Using a combination of fiber broadband and DOCSIS 3.1 could make sense for Altice, which is comprised of the former Cablevision operations in the New York City metropolitan area and the former Suddenlink operations, which are in less populous areas.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see the company deploy fiber broadband in more populous areas, while DOCSIS 3.1 might be fine in less populous areas, particularly if no competitor has deployed fiber broadband there.
In a press release today, Altice shared that over 95% of its network is enabled for 1 Gbps speeds or higher. The company also said it plans to pass 175,000 new locations in 2025, the majority of which will be fiber.
