Starting July 12, Altice will cut back add speeds on all its Optimum Online cable web plans. While there’s no indication up to now that may influence costs, some plans will see add speeds lower by as a lot as 86%. At a time when individuals are nonetheless working and studying remotely, you’d suppose Altice would have an excellent purpose for this. Nope!
An Altice spokesperson informed Ars Technica that congested networks don’t have anything to do with the choice to decrease add speeds, saying the community “continues to perform very well despite the significant data usage increases during the pandemic and the speed tiers we offer.” An Altice spokesperson despatched the identical assertion to Gizmodo. Rather, Altice mentioned its new, slower add speeds are “in-line with other ISPs and aligned with the industry.” As in, nobody else is providing cable add speeds this quick, so that they shouldn’t both.
Customers with Optimum Online could have add speeds lower 86% from 35 Mbps to five Mbps. The Optimum 200 plan might be lower from 35 Mbps to 10 Mbps. Meanwhile, the Optimum 300, 400, and 500 plans may even be lowered to twenty Mbps. Those with gigabit cable plans will see their add speeds slashed from 50 Mbps to 35 Mbps—that means after July 12, the highest-priced plan will supply the identical add speeds as what the most affordable plan presently does. You can see a chart of all of the modifications here.
The one vivid aspect is Altice informed Gizmodo present Optimum prospects might be grandfathered into their present add speeds—as long as they don’t downgrade or improve their plans. New prospects and present Optimum prospects who change providers will obtain the brand new, slower add speeds. So, in case you had been serious about switching to Optimum from one other ISP or need to change the plan you’re presently on, you’d greatest do it earlier than July 12.
Altice emphasised to Gizmodo that Optimum’s fiber community will supply symmetrical add and obtain speeds. “Over the last few years, we have been investing in building a 100% fiber network,” Altice mentioned in an electronic mail. “We are hyper-focused on our fiber expansion, which is currently available to over 1 million homes–and growing quickly—and offers symmetrical speeds up to 1 Gig.”
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The downside is that Optimum’s fiber community isn’t accessible to everybody but. As Ars Technica factors out, the ISP’s 100% fiber community presently solely accounts for about 20% of its footprint. Altogether, as of Q1 2021, Altice’s cable and fiber networks serve 21 states and nearly 4.4 million customers.
To be honest, even Optimum’s least expensive cable plan provides speeds above the FCC’s really useful 25 Mbps obtain/3 Mbps add speeds. However, that’s an extremely low bar. An enormous swath of the U.S. doesn’t have entry to the FCC’s really useful speeds—despite the fact that it’s considered by many to be outdated for a way we presently use the web.
It’s baffling, then, that Altice is nerfing Optimum’s add speeds like this when it may as a substitute deal with it as a bonus over its rivals. Usually, you see corporations boasting how they’re higher and supply extra—not shoot themself within the foot to supply much less for a similar worth. It’d be one factor if, given the pandemic, Optimum’s community was unable to deal with the load, however Altice claims this isn’t true. You may interpret this as an try and make its 100% fiber networks extra interesting, however once more, that feels untimely as fiber accounts for less than a fifth of Altice’s footprint. Something doesn’t fairly add up.
Listen, I’m no enterprise genius, however America’s web infrastructure is unhealthy sufficient already. Can we a minimum of not do that throughout a time when everybody deeply will depend on good web to operate?
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